Tuesday 16 December 2008

Wagging school

I took Charlie (my nephew) out of school on Monday to go on a skatepark crawl. We went to three and included a stop at Skater HQ in Manly for new wheels and some adjustments to existing boards. They're really friendly down there and put us on to a really fun snake run at Balgowlah. We finished off at Manly Vale skate park which I particularly liked (Charlie preferred the snake run). Here's a little peek at what we did. Pretty lame video really, it feels much more scary than it looks. I didn't manage to get Charlie doing a 50/50 (where you get the board half and half longditudinally on the coping at the top of the ramp before going back down), but I will next time.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Thank You

Photo - Greg Lippiatt

Just a little note to say thank you to everyone who came (and who may still go) to my show. I tried my hardest to say hello to everyone, but was disappointed to still miss so many of you. I have been overwhelmed by the attention of the press and the steady stream of commissions coming my way. Who would have thought? Looks like I will be working hard over Christmas, but I do love a challenge...
I also hope to be doing a bit of what this little Crested tern is doing, only less on the rocks and more in the water.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

nearly here...

Photography - Greg Lippiatt


I'm chewing my nails down to the quick. Who would have thought that an exhibition could bring about such an array of emotions? Here's the invitation for anyone who would like to squeeze in on opening night. Otherwise, make a meal of it and go to the restaurant as well.
Nervous, very nervous.

Sunday 5 October 2008

yay! a bower!


Went for an overnighter in Kangaroo Valley and very happily came across this. What a sexy pad. Offered him a couple of blue lids, a bit off a pen and a rubbery bracelet thing all of which he took happily and placed decoratively around his bower.
Spotted a number of birds including golden whistlers, lyrebirds, yellow robins, yellow-faced honeyeaters, olive backed orioles, noisy friarbirds (building nests), and millions of other little thornbills, scrubwrens and blue wrens, oh, and a whipbird. The lyrebirds that darted across the road on approach to the cabin didn't say much, but the one along the bush track that I couldn't see, chattered for ages, doing a very good job at pretending to be a kookaburra, golden whistler, whipbird, wattlebird and something that sounded a little like an air rifle.
Oh so happy to see a bower.

Saturday 16 August 2008


I stopped off at NG gallery this afternoon having had a mediocre surf at Maroubra. It was the last day of the "Sordid Tales of Chippendale" exhibition. I bought this gruesome piece. It's called Screaming Rat by Stephen Hall. It's actually four rats on top of each other. He just cried out to me. Arrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 20 July 2008

scissor callous


As evidence for my working very hard on my exhibition (18th November 2008 NG Gallery Chippendale) I am posting here a photo of the little callous that has developed on my thumb as a result of cutting much plastic with scissors.

Monday 18 February 2008

That was the man in the mission brown suit


For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to men in suits. Often, when I put pen to paper, little caricatures would emerge, always dressed in a suit and tie. It seems to be happening with my sculpture too. I begin with a vague idea of who I might construct, and if it's a guy, he always ends up suited, (this one was supposed to be naked.)
I read somewhere recently that people with red hair would eventually disappear. It turned out to be a furphy, but when I found the orange haystack that became his hair, I began to piece together who he was and what he represented.
He's a bit of a 70's guy. Sideburns, Dennis Lillee moustache and he's wearing the mission brown suit. He's fallen over (or was he pushed for being so outdated?) and is struggling to get back up. He looks scared, humiliated, alone. I feel a bit sorry for him, but he really is redundant.
Like the plastic he is constructed from, he is no longer necessary and has been cast aside, like his suit, his hair.
I am led to believe, and I could be the gullible recipient of a great story, that the colour "Mission Brown" so popular in the 1970's, but abhorred today, came about by the mixing of a number of tins of coloured paints that had been donated to a Christian mission looking to paint their mission buildings. I like the idea that his suit is the colour derived from this use of leftover, or waste resources. He's my kind of guy.

Thursday 7 February 2008

flowers for Pauline


Michael's mother Pauline is very ill in hospital and I wanted to send her some flowers...but It was a public holiday weekend, so I thought I'd pick her some from my garden and give them to Michael to give to her. Then I thought that, if I gave them to him, they might wilt in the car before he delivered them to her. Then, I realised, I could make her some flowers that would never wilt. He delivered them and I think she liked them. I hope she gets better soon.