August 26, 2010 in Country Life, Current Blog by Marie

40. Tree Change for a Sea Change

This painting is one I painted early on in my career (which sold in America) which was  inspired by our new life on the farm, and what a lovely time it has been too.

Here we are unloading the truck with the dairy cows that we had on agistment each summer, they actually came on foot so the red truck is artistic licence.

We have lived here for the last 17 years and loved every minute of  it, if  it wasn’t for the fact that our children both now need to live in the city and find it hard to work such long hours and study at uni at the same time we would probably never have thought about leaving the country.

Now however it has finally happened and we don’t know whether to be happy or sad about the next chapter of our lives by the sea and with only 30 minutes to the city centre.

To wake up to the twitter of little birds and loud screeching of Galahs and Corellas is something that we will miss (oh maybe not the screeching bit, lol)

Other things we will miss is the serene 40 minute river walk on our own property that we do each morning, often seeing the kangaroo who lives part time in our paddock and also ducks and other river birds that visit from far flung places.

The possum who comes to visit us at night looking for an apple or some bread, a wild animal who reaches out and grabs the treats with his little hands so trusting that we won’t harm him (we won’t miss the little brown pellets he leaves behind though lol)

Our two remaining horses Pringles and Zipper, miniature ponies, have already found a wonderful place to live, with rolling hills and lovely people who spoil them with treats.

I will sorely miss the open fires, the rain on the iron roof, the smell of the freshly cut lawns and rain, the peace and quiet and not a neighbour in sight.  Not to mention; our permanent waterhole and the river when it flows and the whole area rebirths with new life and the trees full of figs, apricots and oranges.

Our 2 dogs and the birds will be coming with us and also Milo the cat,  however we are going to have to plead our case with the new owners for Ozzy (yes named after Ozzy Osborne) our other cat, as he never took to being inside and likes roaming the country side.  I must say that it is very rarely that we find a bird eaten, he is however quite the Mouser so he earns his keep so to speak, and with the current mouse plague that is quite an asset.

This saying by Titus Livy (Historian) fits well here I think.

“In difficult and hopeless situations the boldest plans are the safest.”

Till Next time.

Love Marie                                        (c)

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August 18, 2010 in Current Blog, Family & Friends by Marie

39. Our Skyshow

We first started going to the sky show when our son was about 10 months old in 1988 and that is the inspiration for this painting.

The Sky show was held as an annual event and started in the middle 80’s to celebrate Australia Day with an amazing fireworks display synchronized to pop music and sponsored by a local radio station called SAFM and later on joined by the hardware store Bunnings. It was held in Bonython Park along the river and attended by an estimated 150.000 people at a time, but watched by many more from several vantage points in Adelaide.

We actually tried to watch it one year when we were unable to go from the farm 100km away, but that proved to be a tad optimistic!!

Every year we would pack a picnic and drive the one and a half hours into Adelaide park the car and then walk along the river for another 20 or so minutes to reach the spot with bags and picnic blankets, esky and with the kids in tow, together with what seemed to be the entire Adelaide population.

With the atmosphere of anticipation in the air we would make our way along whilst the kids ran up ahead and one year even brought their scooters (you know the kind without a motor that you kick along with your leg on the ground) that they got as Christmas presents and whizzed up ahead.

Our son Kai as I said was only a baby when we first attended and we were a bit worried that he would be frightened by the noise of the rockets going off and the loud music, but no worries, he was good as gold and just laid there with me on a big picnic blanket looking up at the sky with the biggest of eyes, our daughter Hillivi was much the same 4 years later when she came into the world.

We would set ourselves up in a particular spot each year far away from the stage but right by the river, where the kids could run around and chase ducks and play after which we would have an amazing feast of dips, crackers, olives and the like, followed by a “main course” of sorts and cake and coffee.

Then as it got dark we laid down ready for the main event which never failed to disappoint us.  Over the years we were sometimes joined by various friends and also my mum and dad (which is the time depicted in this painting, we are all sitting on the lilac picnic rug the 6 of us with the esky, my father the one with the beard. ) As you can see from this Japanese invitation I was in rather good company in this exhibition-just the 3 of us!

Lying there next to the river watching the wonderment of the black sky with the stars followed by pulsating music and then the crack and light explosion of a million rockets going off and tumbling down all over the sky was amazing – You know how sometimes you feel the godliness (whether you are religious or not) when something stirs deep inside you and you have your loved ones close and you just want to capture that feeling forever, well that was the sky show for us.

So as we sat by the river taking it all in I remembered this quote from A.A Milne (writer)

“Rivers know this; There is no hurry. We shall get there.”

Till next time,

Love Marie  xxx                                                                           (c)

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August 14, 2010 in Animal Tales, Current Blog by Marie

38. Little Birdy Floyd

In this painting “Spring at last” is a sweet little bird named Floyd, a cockatiel whom we shared our life’s with for several years after Bryan and I got married.

You see, at that stage we lived in an apartment and the rules were no pets.  Well I think a bird did not count with the landlord, at least I hope so because Floyd was there.

He was our “Practice child” if you like.  You know how it goes you do not feel ready for real children but you want to nest and share your life with the patter of little feet and in this situation they were very little indeed.

Floyd was an absolutely gorgeous bird, and I cried buckets when he died very young after only a couple of years.

Poor Floyd,  you see as far as a ‘practice child’ goes, we were terrible parents,  well I haven’t had it confirmed because the vet told us an autopsy on  the little bird was out of our price range at the time.  However Floyd did develop kidney problems and I have a strong suspicion that had to do with his party trick of loving to drink out of our wine glasses when we had a party, much to the delight and amusements of our guests.

We were obviously young and stupid and very lucky he was not of the human variety or we would be facing serious charges by now.

Another thing Floyd used to do just for kicks was to totally trick us.  He lived in a cage in the kitchen mostly, although he would fly around our apartment quite a lot, much to the dismay of our cleaning lady whom thought bird poop on the curtain rod or the tops of the doors was a bit much.  So even in that area we had a lot to learn about keeping house and looking after offspring, lol.

Anyway in kitchen at the time we had one of those kettles that would whistle as loud as can be until we came running to turn it off (technology has moved on somewhat!)

In any case Floyd learned to imitate the kettle perfectly and had both me and Bryan running into the kitchen constantly as if you didn’t turn that damn kettle off it would spill water all over the place and just continue with the noise until you did.

Clever little Floyd ran that house hold and fooled us time after time, whenever he felt like a bit of company.

I am happy to report our parenting skills improved and I think Flannery O’Connor (writer) quote fits in here.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”

Love Marie                     (c)

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August 10, 2010 in Current Blog, Modelling Stories by Marie

37. The Golden Years of Modelling

This painting “Happy New Year at Regine’s” was inspired by my mad modelling days, and crazy mad they were too, but sooo much fun.

As you can see from this painting (which sold in Japan) we models know how to kick our heels up and we did!

However I have to admit to overdoing it a couple of times too, so if you look closely at the painting you will see a crossed eyed girl behind the sports car which could have been me, but in this particular painting I am standing with my long-time friend Debonella  (her name was really Deb, I just always called her that,lol)  You can find us on the right hand side with our heads together, the blond and the brunette.

We would party till the milkman came around (and for you familiar with the milkman that would be in the very early hours of the morning) and I remember one particular night when we obviously had consumed more than our fair share and we were caught- throwing up in the rosebushes, together mind you-well that’s what friends are for!  Luckily most of the time we were lady like and behaved ourselves, that is what we preach to our daughters anyway (guess we will be caught out now!)

I have many tales of our terrible deeds coming up later on in other blogs, however what made me think about this now was that I just received an invitation to a very swanky “DO” that’s being organized in town by former model agent owner Sandy Clark, who after she sold her business went on to have another very successful career as an event organizer and later as a public relation journalist.

We have recently lost a dear friend and fellow model Adriana Xenides, who died much too young and made us all question our mortality.

Well Sandy decided to do something about that and we all take our hats off to her.  She has organized the most fantastic event at our new international hotel the Crowne Plaza here in Adelaide and are inviting all past models, clients, lecturers and past students and anyone connected to the industry for a wonderful cocktail party to reminisce  and celebrate” that we are still here!” (borrowed from Monty Python’ s “we are not dead yet!”)

The funds raised will go to “Teen Challenge for the homeless” and “Variety Children’s Charity”.  So if you think you fit into this category please click on this link Model Reunion fill out the form and send in your payment, and we will see you there!

If you do not fit into this particular category why not try to contact the people that were important in your own life, see how they are travelling, catch up for a drink or a meal, talk about old times.  Life is short, WAY TO SHORT- so let’s make the very best of it while we can.

Here is a quote I like from the Mammoth book of useless information-

“One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation”

Till next time,

Love Marie xx                                                         (c)

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August 6, 2010 in Current Blog, My Roots by Marie

36. How it all began

Dancing asparagus I hear you say, mmm…well moi have always been a little bit crazy and that probably is and asset when you are an artist! Lol Anyway this painting was the first one that I actually painted, on canvas that is.

You see I was pregnant with my first child and was getting the house ready for this little bundle of joy (and as it turned out he was too) I asked my brother who is a very good artist if he could paint me a mural on the nursery wall.

So he came and started, laid down the background of grass and hills and a sky with the start of a train running through the country side.  However at the time he was the drummer in a band called Clowns of Decadence, and they had a very strong following and were always out on tours.  So I would be calling Matt up and asking when he would be back in town, and it would be” oh sorry sis, we are touring New Zealand now and won’t be back for a month.”

In the meantime I was getting fatter and fatter and fatter, and being a bit of a perfectionist there was no way that my baby was going to arrive with an unfinished nursery.

So I thought to myself there is nothing to do but roll up ones sleeves and get on with it and start painting .

Now there were a couple of things wrong with that idea, one was that I had some complications with the pregnancy and should be mostly having bed rest.  The other was that I could not paint my way out of a paper bag!  I mean that literally, you see both my father and my brother are fantastic artists, very skilled and can do anything, whatever I had ever tried to draw or paint was usually laughed at, well not in a mean way but probably slightly mixed with pity lol.

On top of that during my school years in Sweden I would be receiving maybe an F for Art,  I remember distinctly having to paint a still life; fruit bowl and mine was very hard to figure out what it was.    Us naive types find it very hard to see perspective (and hey maybe we don’t want to, maybe the world is just better when everything is close and within your grasp!)  In those days you were only considered good in art if you could reproduce something like a photograph.  So therefore I had not drawn or painted for years.

But as I was a woman on a mission and nesting,  watch out!  I got the paints out that my brother had left and off I went, and you know what, with an eye blink it was lunch time, too busy to eat. Kept on painting although I would lie down on the floor from time to time and look at my handy work (doctors orders you know) I blinked my eyes again and now it was night.

The next morning I woke up, feeling so very excited and energetic and I did not know why, I was 8 months pregnant and usually exhausted, so I laid there and tried to figure it out.  Well you know what, it was LOVE, I had fallen in Love and not with another man, no with painting.  I did not care what anyone else thought of my handy work, but I loved it, I loved painting it and I loved looking at it.

That was how it began, I will tell you another time how   ” that “ led to   ” this.”

So take heart you budding artists out there, don’t let anyone say you can’t and that you are no good, if it makes you happy then DO IT.

This saying by Winston Churchill fits very well here;

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.”

Love Marie                                               (c)

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August 1, 2010 in Current Blog, Family & Friends, Sculpture by Marie

35. The First Adam and Steve

This artwork is the first Adam and Steve (ceramic and mosaic 100cm x 150cm ) that I did and it was inspired by my cousin and his partner.

My cousin Dan had previously been in a relationship for 13ish years with a lovely lady whom we all really liked and we saw both of them a lot.  So when they finally broke up we were all upset to lose her, although we do still keep in contact from time to time.

However in hindsight we should not have worried as his new partner is just the nicest of men and he has brought so much joy and love with him into our family as well.

Johnny has two grown up children and a dear mother who is 88 and none of them are at all bothered by this new relationship.

We now have gained more members to our family and celebrate birthdays and Christmas together as one big happy family which I think is great, particularly because apart from my immediate family the rest of our relatives are all in Sweden.

So I wanted to do an artwork to celebrate that fact, the tall blond one is Dan and Johnny is the darkhaired fellow.

Dan runs his own very successful underwear internet store and Johnny’s work as a motivational speaker for large corporations takes him on frequent interstate trips.  He also manages to compete in the Masters Games in sprinting and has won countless of medals, bronze, silver and gold for his age group and also competed overseas a few  times with great success I wanted to do an artwork to celebrate that fact.

The Artwork itself first won an award at a regional Art Show and then was bought by D&J and hangs outside on the wall in their pool area.

A couple of years ago they bought a fabulous house overlooking the sea and our jaws dropped at the fantastic view.  We had never really contemplated moving away from the farm but this view played on our minds.  So much so that we after a lot of looking finally found our own fabulous house with a view which we promptly bought.  At this stage it is being rented and enjoyed by another family and we sometimes drive past and dream, one day.. ……………

Here is a thought from Kirk Douglas the actor which we can hopefully all learn from.

“Mistakes that are perceived as mistakes are often not mistakes at all.”

Till next time,

Love Marie                                                   (c)

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