February 25, 2011 in Current Blog by mariejon

71.Post Cards at the Bay

I have just returned home after delivering my new entry into this year’s “On, Under and By the Sea” Postcards Exhibition at the Bay, Glenelg, which will be held during the Adelaide Fringe in the 175^th anniversary year since European settlement in South Australia.  The title to this blog should have been “A day from Hell” but I will get to that in a minute.

The above painting “From Kingston Park to Glenelg” was my entry in the last Postcard exhibition for 2009.  A lady by the name of Victoria Rolinski won first prize and I plus 4 other artists won equal second prize and therefore had our artwork made into Postcards which from all accounts has been selling well at the Bay.

At the time when I was asked to submit an artwork for this competition we still lived at the farm but had already bought the new house by the sea so my mind was full of sea inspired images, so it didn’t take me long to figure out what I wanted to paint.

The inspiration for the above painting was really the balcony view from my cousin Dan and his partner Johnny’s house at Marino, although I do plead a bit of artistic license of course.  You may want to read more about them, and their view and here is the link 35. “THE FIRST ADAM & STEVE”.

The selection process is in two stages with photos submitted first, the artworks chosen are then judged individually & exhibited and the winners announced by Keith Conlon, from NWS9’s Postcards and FIVEaa’s Breakfast Show on Friday 25^th February.

If you would like to see this year Postcards Exhibition at the Bay you are most welcome;

ON, UNDER AND BY THE SEA

Postcard Exhibiton at the Bay.

An exhibition and art prize proudly bought to you by the City Of Holdfast Bay.

26^th February – 25 April 2011

Bay Discovery Centre,  Glenelg Town Hall ,

Moseley Square,  Glenelg

Opening hours   10am – 5pm Daily

That all said and done, let me tell you about the “Day from Hell” when I delivered the new artwork;   Firstly I was running late surprise, surprise, and while I raced off to the neighbors house my husband was warming up the car (or so I thought) I raced back and found the car had a flat battery and hubby is kindly transferring all my stuff to his car, setting up the GPS etc.  So off I go, buy myself a can of vanish and proceed to spray the artwork in the car park, talk about last minute, lol.

Hop back into the car which now seemed also a bit reluctant to start, but kicks into gear and set off for my delivery.  Park again and find that my high heels have completely broken in two, so limp my way to drop of the painting and then find a shoe shop.  All good to go again and back to the car which now won’t start (this is hubbys car don’t forget, mine is still home also not starting) Couldn’t believe it, called the RAA (Car rescue firm) and sat and waited 45 minutes in the hot sun for the knight in shining armor who got the naughty car going again (something about an alternator and a half charging battery, boys talk you know, lol)

Most of the rest of the day was spent very pleasantly with darling daughter Hillivi, lunching, chatting, shopping and errands.  Apart from what I thought was going to be incident number 4!  Dropped Hillivi at the dentist and got into the lift on the 5^th floor, pressed the button, door shut and nothing happened, me and the male occupant looked at each other and pressed the button again when the lift did a quick jolt and then slowly kicked into gear again.  The man said “God I thought we were stuck or about to plummet to our deaths” and when I told him about my day so far, he said it was nice to meet me but if he knew earlier about my day he would not have got in the same lift, lol.

So on reflection of my day I think this quote by Anne Dudley Bradstreet (Poet) fits well here:

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome”

Till next time,

Love Marie xx

Ps Keep your fingers crossed for me!

(c)

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February 18, 2011 in Current Blog, Travel by mariejon

70. Condo’s of Katherine

The very day my son Kai turned one years old we set off in the car to drive to Katherine in the Northern Territory.

We had his birthday party on the Sunday before and then said our goodbyes as my husband was going to be working on the Tindal Airbase where houses for the air force were currently under construction.

The distance was only, lol 3000 kilometers, this country Australia is big remember, so we figured we should do it in 3-4 days without too much trouble.  The first night we spent in a dug out, that’s the way most people of Cooper Pedy live in what seems very much like a normal home but completely underground.  The town inhabitants are mainly opal miners and other essential services that support the town of about 5000 people.

When you first get there you think it’s a deserted place as all you can see is holes in the ground and something poking out of the ground which is actually the ventilation shafts that go down to all the rooms (looks like a small white plastic pipe).  There are some larger ones to let a bit of light into the kitchen and living rooms.   We stayed the night in a dug out motel, it was lots of fun but I have to admit I felt just a little claustrophobic; however it was totally silent and very cool.  The temperature can get to 50 degrees in Cooper Pedy so it is a very clever way to keep cool without air-conditioning.

We had done a day’s drive when we got to the dugout hotel, our little boy Kai was ready for bed so Bryan and I settled into our room and celebrated our sleeping baby boys birthday with a take away hamburger (vegetarian for me) and a bottle of champagne (of course!)

The next day we kept driving and in the end it took us 4 days to reach Katherine, the whole way I was excitedly looking out for the rainforest and the palm trees which I mistakenly as it happened thought would soon appear on the horizon.  But oh no that is up Cairns way and the closest we got to that tropical feel was in the very picturesque Mataranka Thermal Pool.  Now that is my idea of heaven, a virtual oasis in this very bare and hot landscape sprouts a palm forest with a natural pool which is a constant 34 degree fed by a spring.  I could have stayed there for a month at least!

However it is the subject matter of this painting that I was going to tell you about “Condos in Katherine” acrylic on board, sold long ago, but available as a limited edition Giclee print for any of you out there interested (See Giclee Prints for sale).

What so fascinated me when we first got up to the Northern Territory was this great big mounds made of clay by the termites.  To me they seemed like little cities with skyscrapers full of little apartments and I just could not get the image out of my mind.  I saw all the ants, living in their little flats, going about their business, making meals, house cleaning, having a sleep and going about their days just like we do.  So of course I had to paint it.  The image has been very popular and was also used in a book published by McGraw-Hill Publishers called Art Smart written by Lou Chamberlain, there I had my own chapter in a field of the great artists like Picasso, Miro and Da Vinci, and so you understand I was rather pleased.

The termite “homes” are usually referred to as Anthills here in Australia and they grow very large in the Northern Territory.   The ants mix saliva and mud together which becomes like cement (the ones I saw were red oxide in colour) and can take over 50 years to finish, and can contain a few million ants.  So I probably gave them bigger apartments then they are used too, lol.  However the termite nest can actually stretch up to 10 meters underground apart from what we can see aboveground, so perhaps that was where the opal miners of Cooper Pedy got their dugout ideas from?  The ants also have lots of tunnels that act as an air-condition system and also contain indoor gardens, nurseries and it goes without saying that the Queen has her own chamber!

So here is a quote from Charles Darwin (naturalist) which I think fits well in here,

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx   (c)

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February 11, 2011 in Current Blog, Little Naughty by mariejon

69. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander

I painted this painting several years ago after going to the Manpower show.  For those of you who are uninitiated in the goings on of Manpower, let me fill you in; they were a highly successful striptease dance troupe here in Australia similar to the Chippendales, all male, all very good looking and all great dancers.   Jamie Drurie was one of the members who later made his fame and fortune on the Oprah show as a Life Style Guru and outdoor makeover man.

So it goes without saying that when my girlfriend suggested we should go I said yes.  We had a 3 hour round trip to get there from the country but that was a small price to pay the three of us thought – the other enthusiastic member to our evening was a lovely male gay friend of ours.  Don’t know who was the most excited him or us,lol. Anyway we finally got there and had to line up, it was packed and what struck me was the crowd:  they were ordinary women, short, skinny, tall, plump, old, young, all dressed in their finest frocks, faces full of makeup with hair that looked professionally styled.  The age bracket was also an eye-opener as it reached from 18-70 something! However that revelation was nothing, my biggest surprise was just before the show started when this group of mainly middle age women got excited and started hollering and whistling for the show to start.  These women then went completely nuts, randomly leaping from their chairs to touch and fondle these poor dancers; I had never seen anything like it.  Manpower took it all in their stride and did a fab job and kept smiling whilst they tried to complete their very well choreographed dance routines.

As you know I don’t mind a bit of eye-candy but I almost forgot to look at these handsome men as I was totally fascinated by the behavior of what looked like everybody’s mothers and grandmothers turning into crazed sex maniacs. I laughed when I found this article on the net from the Telegraph Herald ( Dubuque Iowa 9.3.87) which describes what happened when the Manpower show was cancelled, lol and after my experience I am not surprised.  (I have shortened the article slightly but not altered it otherwise)

NO STRIPPERS; WOMEN GO ON RAMPAGE

Pittsburg – Wine and beer bottles shattered on the dance floor.  Beer bottles and chairs turned into missiles.  Some women swung purses into the air, striking anything and everyone in their way.  The word was out: a group of male strippers left shortly before they were to entertain about 600 women in the motels Ritz disco Saturday night.

“Those weren’t ladies – they were animals” said the motel owner Al Monzo.  Officers from seven police agencies – several with canines, responded to the two hour mele that began at 10pm.Saturday.  Three ambulances arrived one taking a women to a nearby hospital for cuts and suspected back and neck injuries.

There were no arrests. But hundreds of women were angry they got nothing but frustration for their $10 and $12 tickets they bought to see five featured dancers come out in assorted costumes then strip down to their briefs doing the bump and grind routines.  They were demanding a refund.

Here then is a wit and wisdom from Oscar Wilde (from The mammoth book of useless information) perhaps this is food for thought.

“Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx           (c)

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February 3, 2011 in Current Blog by mariejon

68. We’ve been to Bali too

The title of this painting was inspired by Redgum’s song “I’ve been to Bali too” sung and composed by John Schumann. A man I greatly admire both for his music and also for his effort to make this world a better place and make us all think.

This painting depicts the four of us on our first family holiday to the dream island of Bali.  Bryan and I had been to Bali once already, before we were married in our early 20’s. If I remember rightly we went there this time, in the September school holidays and it all came about because of the very miserable school holidays we had in July of the same year.  All four of us had gotten the flu and spent nearly the whole two weeks sleeping and huddled together in the TV room at the farm.  Too sick to do anything much more than venture out to the kitchen and get us something to eat and then just lay and sleep and watch telly, four misery gutses!

Once we recovered and the kids were back in school I decided we must have a real fun holiday and make some memories together and obliterate that last miserable one from our minds. Bali here we come -our flight was great until the air hostess came around with the drinks service and gave everyone an orange juice in one of those plastic cups with an aluminum foil lid that you have to peel off yourself. Of course little miss Hillivi insisted on opening hers herself and it goes without saying that I thought that would not be a good idea and that I should open it for her.  However in the spirit of diplomacy and for the sake of the poor passengers overhearing this long discussion I against my better judgment let Hillivi open it herself whilst I for one moment turned away to sort out Kai.

What greeted me when I turned back was a little 5 year old girl-covered from head to toe in orange liquid, my- I did not realize one of those containers could hold such a lot of juice as to have her completely dripping wet!  The look on her by now very pouty face was also so priceless that we just could not hold back the giggles as those airhostesses worth their weight in gold came to her rescue with the serviettes and mops!

We had a stopover in Darwin where we headed for the first loo we could find to change Hillivis former lovely blue dress (now orange) into something more appropriate.   Thereafter  we did a few touristy things ; spending quite a bit of time on a crocodile farm which had us all fascinated, seeing the crocks jumping up into the air and catching their food which was dangling on ropes and then having dinner on the Darwin wharf. So back to the airport we go to board our Bali flight, the kids were so excited as it was their first time overseas flying to a new country and we were eager to show them the picturesque island that we had come to love previously.

But of course it could not be that easy could it-no of course not, now two hours before departure the customs fellow has decided that Bryans passport does not meet the requirements , admittedly there was a small crack on top of the photo as often happened with the old style passports.  However this passport had been sighted by a dozen or so officials at this point before this fellow in uniform full of his own importance thinks that the photo has been tampered with and starts to pick at the edges of the photo with a knife and making holes rendering it way worse.

Bryan gets called in for a full on interview and meanwhile me and the kids are worried sick.  When Bryan finally emerges he has been told that he can travel but does so at his own risk as most likely the Indonesian custom will put him on the first plane back home (the travel insurance would not cover this as now, we had been warned)leaving the kids and I to spend the time in Bali alone.  Fun, fun,fun in the sun,sun, sun-Not!

Well that put a dampener on our spirits, however we decided to give it a try as we have nothing to hide(and nothing left to loose) and with the broadest smiles we could muster got through the custom in Bali without a hitch and spent the holiday doing the one-finger-salute (metaphorically speaking of course) to the customs fellow who nearly ruined a perfectly innocent family holiday.

Just recently at a Christmas party I got introduced to John Schumann’s lovely wife Denny and proceeded to tell her how John has inspired my art etc, whereby she ducks away and brings him over.  We had a lovely chat and he is just as inspirational in real life, and to boot –complimentary about my art too.

So all is well that ends well and this next quote by Samuel Johnson (poet and writer 1709-1784) fits well in here, in relation to that nasty customs fellow.

“Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it.  It should not be suffered to tyrannize”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx       (c)

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