The Lumpy Chumps creatures have always existed, just not in places humans tend to look.
They did not live in places that could be pointed to.
They existed in the collective unconscious. Unformed. Unclaimed. Hovering in that shared psychic space where things gather before language, before usefulness, before judgement. They were known without being recognised. Felt without being named.

For a long time, that was safer.
 
They had absorbed enough of human behaviour to understand what often happens when a being becomes visible: curiosity becomes entitlement. Difference becomes data. Bodies become resources. Voices without power are spoken over, studied, repurposed, consumed, or dismissed entirely. Even concern, when poorly held, can turn into harm.

So the Lumpy Chumps stayed unmanifest.
 
Eventually, even the unconscious gets restless.

Before showing themselves, the Lumpy Chumps attempted telepathic contact with many humans. Most were busy. Some were suspicious. A few tried to monetise the experience immediately. Eventually, they found one person willing to listen. Unfortunately, that was me. Now we meet regularly. We sit together and talk. Sometimes we drink floral herbal tea. Other times they insist on their special black coffee, which tastes like a thick forest sludge made from old roots, damp bark, and flowers that have been dead for longer than is polite to mention. I drink it anyway.
Trust has to start somewhere.

"The making of a Lumpy Chump is not about invention. It’s about translation."
 
They ask questions about the world. I answer carefully. Occasionally, I lie. Not maliciously, just enough to make human society sound survivable. In return, I ask my own questions, each one specific to the creature in front of me. They decide whether I’m allowed to ask at all.
 
I shape them slowly. I refine them just enough so they feel complete, not corrected. 
 
In their own strange way, Lumpy Chumps hold a desire for a more compassionate world. One where beings are not valued solely for what they provide. One where difference is not immediately analysed, controlled, or consumed. One where care extends to those without easy language, and where speaking about the pain humans inflict on other beings does not automatically invite ridicule.

They are not symbols that resolve neatly.
They are not lessons.
They are presences.

Each Lumpy Chump asks the same quiet thing of the viewer: to notice without owning, to look without consuming, to allow something to exist without justification. Adoption, when it occurs, is conditional. These are not objects designed to behave.

Lumpy Chumps have begun cautiously appearing in the world through exhibitions, including recent and upcoming showings with Hawkesbury Now 2025 at Hawkesbury Regional Gallery.

They remain cautious.
But they are here.