December 27, 2010 in Current Art Blog, Family & Friends, Swedish traditions & other celebrations by mariejon

62. Christmas Again & Art !!!!

CHRISTMAS & ART

Christmas is here again, comes around at break neck speed these days, but still warmly welcomed by me and my family, we love Christmas time.  This year will be a little better than last year as we will be all together again,  our son is back from his European adventures.  When we first arrived in Australia from Sweden it took us a little while to get used to summer and Santa as this painting below shows, being used to the Swedish Christmas with snow and freezing weather.

Father Christmas actually comes to our house on the 23^rd, go figure, probably as he has so many houses to get too!  He comes during the night and dutifully eats his cookies and drinks his milk and often leaves his footprints on the floor from the ash in the big fireplace in the lounge.  However this year I have got no clue how he will get inside as this new house does not have a fireplace at all!!

Australian Christmas!

This year I said to the kids “I will just put all the presents under the tree when I have wrapped them” however Miss Hillivi (daughter) who now is 19 won’t hear of any changes and insists that we should keep the traditions just as we always have and that Santa is REAL, and is a bit miffed that we have not yet found her Christmas stocking to hang on her door (so Santa can put one present in there on his way out).  So I guess someone still has to do the sneaking around late at night, I can see another artwork coming up.

We will get up on the 24^th to a tree full of presents and have a little family celebration of our own before the big celebrations begin.  The” big one” happens usually around 3pm and starts with the Swedish tradition “Dop I Grytan” what is that I hear you ask?  Well it goes something like this;

Painting for Christmas

MORE ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS

In the olden days in Sweden when the big landowners had a lot of staff on their farms they would invite the hired help in for “Dip in the Saucepan”.  Not sure that it really was that generous of them as what they offered was the left over juice from the boiled ham.   The staff would all gather around the stove and were given bread which they dipped into the ham juice, put on mustard or cheese and ate it served with beer and also punch (pronounced POONCH; a sweet alcoholic beverage).  The ham juice is actually is very delicious though (I get the vegetarian kind boiled up especially by Mum and Dad) and fun way to start the day’s proceedings whilst standing in the kitchen and having a chat.

A PIECE OF ART – THE SMORGASBORD

Then we have a little break before the big Smorgasbord so several things will be on offer, perhaps a little walk around the neighborhood or a swim in the pool (its hot here remember) or perhaps a few will gather to play a board game or just sit and relax.  Then my mother the Matriarch and Game Master will get busy with various Christmas Stocking games and the Pièce de résistance; the big dance around the Christmas tree.  Don’t you try to get out of that one – not a chance to sit it out, I think even with a broken leg my mother would insist!

Part image from an award winning painting!

THE ART OF DANCE

Oh but all in good fun and I am so glad she does, because once you get up and get going IT IS JUST SO MUCH FUN!!!  So this year there will be 14 of us and we will go through all the songs from my childhood in Sweden and act them out such as –Sma Groderna,  Nu gar vi runt ett enerbars snar,  Bjornen Sover, Vi aro Musikanter and to finish of the Rocket.  In this finale we all lay down on the floor around the tree and slowly slap the ground with one hand after the other and then increase the tempo until it is as fast as we can go and then we stand up and go WHEEEeeeeeee and throw our arms into the air.  LOL now you may be excused in thinking that we have a heap of kids here all doing this, but oh no in that you are wrong.  There are only 2 kids present, my niece 6 and nephew 3, the rest of us are all adults!

This year will be the first for the newest member to our family, Kai’s girlfriend Samantha, so it will be interesting to find out what she thinks of this mad family’s goings on!  Brett, Hillivi’s boyfriend is an old hand at it by this stage as this will be his 5^th time and now he actually looks forward to it.  I remember the first year he tried very hard to stay in his chair when the Call to Dance came from my Mum, lol but as I told you earlier, no one has a chance to sit when the festivities begin!  If you would like to hear the continuation of this story here is another art blog for you 63. Smorgasbord (continuation of the Swedish Xmas celebrations)

Here is a something that amused me from the website Funniest Christmas Jokes,

“Waiter- There’s a fly in my Champagne”

A multi-national company held a reception to celebrate Christmas. The waiter gave each guest a glass of champagne, but on inspection, each guest noticed that their glass contained a fly.

• · The Swede asked for new champagne in the same glass.
• · The Englishman demanded to have new champagne in a new glass.
• · The Finn picked out the fly out and drank the champagne.
• · The Russian drank the champagne, fly and all.
• · The Chinese ate the fly but left the champagne.
• · The Israeli caught the fly and sold it to the Chinese.
• · The Italian drank two thirds of the champagne and then demanded to have a new glass.
• · The Norwegian took the fly and went off to fish.
• · The Irishman ground the fly and mixed it in the champagne, which he then donated to the Englishman
• · The American sued the restaurant and claimed for a $50 million compensation.
• · The Scotsman grabbed the fly by the throat and shouted, ‘Now spit out all that you swallowed.’

Have a very Merry Christmas and see you next time,

Till then happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie xxx       (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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December 23, 2010 in Animal Art Tales, Current Art Blog by mariejon

61. Can Horses Write and Paint ?

ART AND HORSES

We just received a Christmas card from the kids, nothing unusual about that I hear you say and you are so right – normally.

It read “To Mum and Dad, Seasons greeting, Miss you both! Don’t worry we are getting lots of treats up in ‘dem dare hills. Love Zipper & Pringles.

Horses in Art!

This naive acrylic painting depicts the Werocata Pony club which was located next door to our property for many years (that’s me on the left kissing my horse Rumor).

Back to the greeting card and we were tickled pink, as it was from our little miniature horses we had on the farm and their lovely new owners, who must have helped them with the spelling, lol mm.. maybe?

SEX, ART & HORSES

They are the cutest little misters around, Zipper is a gelding and Pringles a stallion and a very frisky little one he was too.

He would try to have a go at Zipper who was most put out and not at all interested in Pringles advances.  When that would not work he would be chasing my big horse Cally-she however was very interested and happily backed up to towards him, their only stumbling block was that she was more than twice as tall as him and there was no way that he could ever reach.

Oh the pitfalls of a short man (well in the horse world that is!)

So when that had come to nothing and poor little Pringles still had the urge he would have to scale the fence and try to find some lovely ladies somewhere else.  It happened quite a few times that my husband would come in and tell us we all had to hop in the car to go and try to find the little Horny Mr!

ART INSPIRATIONS

Once he had a female in his sight (the neighbor’s horses) nothing would lure him back home, we tried apples and carrots and stern words and praise, but in the end we had to try to come in from all four sides and throw a rope around his neck and the walk him back across the paddocks of the farm.  Of course he would still be ducking and weaving and doing loop the loops to get back to the pretty girls.   In the meantime Zipper is patiently waiting for his companion to come back and probably enjoying the peace and quiet for a little while.

Zipper had won a couple of ribbons at Pony club, well not really any big deal in the horse world but very cute.   Zipper belonged to our son Kai who was no more than 10 years old when he led the little horse around a little obstacle track and got a purple ribbon to show for it.

When we recently moved from the farm I found the bag of ribbons from the various horse shows but neither kid wanted to pack them, but I think we still took them, it’s hard to throw away all those memories!

So has the frisky little Pringles mellowed with age I hear you ask, well not according to the horses new mum and dad, Pringles does still, if the occasion arises so to speak, lol take off for dem dare hills to look for cute girl horses.

If you enjoy stories and paintings about animals here is another of my art blogs about my pet bird; 154 Galah Art

Therefore I think some wise words from Winston Churchill (British prime minister) is in order here although I think Pringles only listened to the first part before he took off!

“Never give in, never give in, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty.  Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

Till Next Time happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie                                                                                   (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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December 16, 2010 in Current Art Blog, Family & Friends by Marie

60. Animations in the Burbs

ART OF NEIGHBORS

So here we are, living in the ‘Burbs’, remarkably it is not as difficult a situation as I thought to get used to, although I do miss having my art studio detached from the house.

One of the things I was most worried about was to have neighbors.

When you have been living on a farm and the nearest house is kilometers away this was a daunting idea. No more running around the yard starkers-well not that I made that a big habit of that but just the fact that we could when and if we wanted to.

We are making the backyard into our own little Balinese sanctuary here with high bamboo fence, lots of palms, elephant ears and ferns, a Bali hut and comfy day bed and decking around one side of the pool with paving and some feature stones on the other.

We do love water features too and have a natural rock pond in a corner setting and a Balinese head sculpture on the patio and two big white fish sculptures spitting into the pool (emm..well that did not sound very nice did it, lol but it is really, I assure you.)

It is starting to take shape and hopefully will make up for the lack of space and open fields we are used to and at least we can pretend we are in the jungle somewhere far away from civilization.

ART & ANIMATION

The animation above is a combination of several of my paintings put together; The “Balloon Wedding” ( Giclee print) combined with “Shake Rattle and Roll” (acrylic painting) as well as the stars from “You can walk your own ferret” which is an artwork in ceramic and mosaic and the animation was actually made by one of my new neighbors Suzie.

So far we have been very lucky with the neighbors they all seem very friendly and nice and I even went out to lunch with Suzie, the other day.  She is American and I had a little laugh to myself when I got to the restaurant as it looked just like an American diner.

We had a very lovely time at “Fresh Choice” and it was too, with all you could eat.  I refrained from making a total pig of myself and did not even spill a drop of my lunch on my clothes, which if you have been following my art blogs is something of a miracle.

Suzie is a bit of a whizz kid on the computer and has given me valuable advice on my art website and also has two websites of her own.

ART & ANIMATION WEBSITES

This link will take you to her Christmas Animations and you can use any of these animations with the money going to charity.  On her other site she has book marks and I am very happy that she photographed the orchid that has been officially named after moi: the” Marie Jonsson-Harrison orchid” (written about in another blog) and then she made it into a book mark.

There are lots of other bookmarks on this sight too with many Australian animals and funny quotes, so click here Flashman Bookmarks to have a little look.   Use this link to see my page with more of my artwork animated too;MARIES ANIMATIONS

This artwork and several others were part of the animation

So I had a nice day and it gave me joy, so here are some wise words from E.B White (writer).

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and also animating to you!

Love Marie xxx            (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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December 10, 2010 in Current Art Blog, Family & Friends by Marie

59. Art & Hairy legs and Stuff

ARTIST INSPIRATIONS

Wow what a week,

I guess I better start to get used to this with Christmas coming up and all the extra functions and shopping and socializing that leads too. It has already started, as Monday night hubby suggests we should go to the movies.

This is rather an unusual thing for him as he is pretty much a homebody and it is me who usually runs the social calendar and often feel like I have to drag him out.
My excuse for going out is always that it is important for an artist to see and do stuff, for inspirational purposes only of course, lol nothing to do with champagne and fun!

It goes without saying then that I was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and off we went.

It is rather a novel thing for us to be able to do – go to the movies like that at the spur of the moment.  As we have spent the last 25 years in the country and having an hour and a half’s drive for this type of venture, it is rather fun to just go down the road with not much effort.

Off we trot to a local Vietnamese restaurant, the food is very similar to Thai and yummy and then of to see “Red” rather a  unbelievable tale of former spies who get nudged out of retirement rather forcefully a la Bruce Willis style.

It also starred Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman and was fast paced and action filled like a James Bond movie.  As both I and Bryan are both rather fond of this sort of tale we thoroughly enjoyed the ride!

Wednesday night was another movie night out with Kai and his gorgeous girlfriend Samantha when we went and saw The Social Network.   I really found it interesting and thought the acting was great.  The whole social networking thing is such a phenomena and something as a website owner that you have to be on top of.  Crazy to think that before 2003 Facebook did not exist, it seems to me that it has been around for ages.

NAIVE ART AND PARTY!

ART & RACES

In between all of these engagements I have been in the studio too of course and that then brings us to Friday and Orana 60^th Anniversary luncheon which was held at the Morphetteville Racecourse a rather “swanky do”  and a fundraiser for people with disabilities which they help through various programs.

The invitation said” race wear” so one had to get spruced up of course.

So there I was in the car in my finery with Bryan driving when the sunlight just shone down on my freshly shaved legs, when I spotted my less than satisfactory job with the razor.

There seemed to be several little areas that were sprouting hairs and looking rather undignified.  Time was of the essence and with no razor in my clutch I was very lucky to find the tweezers.

So if you spotted someone looking fabulous in her race wear pink suit but with her feet up on the dashboard plucking her legs, that was me,lol.  Can’t take the girl anywhere says the long suffering husband.

Nothing a razor cannot fix!

ART& MUSIC

The food and wine at the luncheon was great but what I enjoyed most of all was a mad little boogie on the dance floor to “Swanee” (John Swan, who is the brother to Jimmy Barnes and a Rock star in his own right, never mind the rest of the band- they are all fabulous too).

I and a couple of girlfriends decided to give decorum and tact a break and just go for it and enjoy ourselves and dance wildly and we did.  The day did not end there however we then went to a comedy show at the Norlunga Art Centre the same night.

For you who have not caught up with comedian Rod Gregory (the Old Fella), he is a must.  As a matter of fact here is a art blog about him 65. That Old Fella

Saturday morning and start the day with a walk as usual and then Christmas shopping with my daughter which was an all day affair, but lots of fun with a nice little lunch.  So busy busy busy but getting nothing much done at all!

In regards to the hairy leg situation Xi Zhi (philosopher) puts it perfectly, although I am not sure he really had hairy legs in mind when he said this-

“You should examine yourself daily.  If you find faults, you should correct them.  When you find none, you should try even harder.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting!

Love Marie xxx                                                                (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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December 3, 2010 in Current Art Blog, Modelling Stories by Marie

58. A Lifetime of Pix – Photography

EXHIBITION OPENING

We had a most interesting weekend recently.  I had been asked to open an exhibition for my dear friend Ted James who was celebrating 50 years of being behind the lens of his trusted camera.  It was held at the Rustons Rose Garden and Convention Centre in Renmark, South Australia.

This Artwork Sold in America

ART IN PICTURES

I first met Ted as a 17 year old just after I had starting modelling and over the years he put me on the cover of a few magazines.  In the hectic days of fashion and glamour, Teds shoots were always very different.  They would take a whole day and involve some great locations, either down by a beach or in the middle of a wheat field just before harvest.  Ted would always pack a picnic with dried fruits and nuts, cheese and crackers and fruit juices and everything would happen at a leisurely pace resulting in some great photographs.  He also worked for the Australasian Post and Pix Magazine, Scope Magazine in South Africa as well as Pietro Press in Italy.   Ted maintains that his favourite work was photographing beautiful girls, and who can blame him, great work if you can get it eh, Ted?

EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK

By no means was Teds photography limited by beautiful girls however much of a dream job that may seem to some of you!  No, he also had many a distinguished clients, as he plied his trade from landscapes to river scenes, horses and cars, working for British Leyland, Volvo, Bank of Adelaide, and Faulding’s, just to name a few.  Of course he also did a lot of fashion work for most of the designers of the time, including Lidwien and those photographs were exhibited at the Rockefeller Centre in New York.

GOLD PAINT

A couple of the artistic engagements that stood out for Ted  was the “Golden Couple” from Holland,  who as Ted put it were “starkers” apart from the gold paint that covered them from head to toe, whom he photographed at Noarlunga Beach.  But it was as they were driving home that they really scared some other motorists, sitting there looking like “gold statues” in the car and then they suddenly moved and looked at the car next to them.  “You should have seen the looks on those poor peoples faces, said Ted!” Another highlight in his career was photographing Swan Lake and several other Ballets for Michael Edgely and his first wife.

The most successful shot however was from a Bird of a Different Feather- a pelican no less.  As it happened I had a very small part in that too- you see it was on the way home from dropping me off to Bryan after I had accompanied Ted on another job on the Murray Explorer, that Ted stopped off in Loxton at 6am in the morning and captured that photo which then was used all over the world for the State Government and other organizations, the famous, “Pelican on a Snag” which most of you would have seen one time or another over the years.

Another of Ted’s interests is Orchid growing and I feel very privileged to just have had a flower named after me, which was a great honour.

Here is another link to a modelling story in my art blog if you fancy a look; 12. Salvador Dali and C’est La Vie

THE ART OF AGING WELL

Marie Jonsson-Harrison from Covers to Canvas!

At 83 he shows no signs of slowing down and still goes out on the river and rows most mornings before he starts work.  When we first met, Ted told me that he was going to live to a 130, and I believed him then and I believe him still, so I was not surprised when he just told me in an email recently, after I had bugged him with all my questions about his past, he said, “I am exhausted, you have put a “middle aged” man under pressure!”

Half his luck, I certainly hope that I follow his lead and Ted I wish you great success with the rest of your  “middle age”.  Just keep on enjoying Life.

And I think this saying by Peter Ustinov (actor) fits perfectly here.

“The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best if yet to come”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all!

Love Marie xxx                                                        (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE,GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

Click here to view blog post where you can view and make comments