As the kids were growing up we believed it was part of their education to take them to all sorts of events and places, to try to expose them to as much culture as possible so this Opera in the Park was part of that.

I am not really an Opera lover myself but I do enjoy the spectacle of it once in a while and when the South Australian Opera company were presenting the free entertainment of “Opera in the Park” it was a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of.   It was held in Elder Park on a stage and the audience sat on the lawn in the grass, just wonderful as the sun set and the stars came out to play.

We are very lucky in Adelaide to have the whole city surrounded by parklands, the city itself was set out by Colonel  William Light, a British military officer who designed it in a grid pattern with wide streets and lots of little town squares whilst he was the Surveyor –General of South Australia.  He is famous for choosing this area to put Adelaide on and his lovely design, which works very well even today some 170 years after his death of tuberculosis in 1839.  Today he rests in Light Square the only person legally buried within the town square.

Elder Park is in between the Torrens Lake and the Festival Theatre and has a famous rotunda in the middle of it which was built in 1882, one which constantly is debated whether it should be moved to make place for some new idea and concept of the day.  It is very lovely and quite big with ornate lace and roof and is very popular for wedding s and photo opportunities of every sort.  My brothers band the Clowns of Decadence also played in the rotunda for a very worthy cause; against Vivisection during the 1990’s.

Elders Park is a very popular place to have picnics with lots to do for the whole family with cycling trails and cycles and paddleboats for hire.  The river is usually full of water birds of different varieties and some interesting looking sculptures are now in the water – made to look like giant origami newspaper boats which add a childish playfulness that I love.

My philosophy has always been “to look on the bright side of things” and the “cup is always half full”  “It isn’t over till the fat lady sings” which has kept my spirits up during some harder times that we all have in life.  I was reminded of another great saying from Dev Patels character in the new movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which by the way looks really great and  follows a bunch of English retirees adventures in exotic India.

Any way what his always optimistic character Sonny says;

“Everything will be alright in the end, so if it is not alright, it is not yet the end”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxxx   (c)

You may want to recap to Stories of the Wall, to see main structure of this sculpture, although images of the sculptured fence are yet to come, in another blog.

This ceramic and mosaic artwork depict of some of the individuals, schools and service clubs they represent, on parade and without them this project would never have been possible at all.   Because there were so many individuals who selflessly spent hours and hours helping on this project I cannot mention each one individually but you all know who you are – and I Thank you so very much.

There literally were groups all over the district doing their bit towards the project, all the way from school children who interviewed the old folk in the age care facilities and homes.   Schools, child care,  kindies, church groups and others who got together to mosaic the farm animals on the fences (that lead out from the sculptured wall) to a regular bunch of arts and craft enthusiasts that regularly met at my studio to mosaic the background to my ceramic images.  We got a lot of work done all the while chatting and laughing and drinking cups of coffee together, a nice little interlude for me a normally solitary artist to have some company.

Not to mention the team of dedicated individuals that poured and fired the tiles that made up the “veranda’ area in front of the sculpture and also ran workshops where the towns people could paint their own stories on individual tiles.  Yes nearly everyone in the local district was involved in this project from the tiniest babies who had their hands and feet imprinted on the tiles to the CEO of the Wakefield Council Phil Barry who so enthusiastically supported it.

I must say that I was very saddened indeed to hear that Phil just recently lost his fight against a brain tumour, something that shocked the whole town.  Phil Barry truly was a wonderful and caring man not only to his own family and friends but to the whole town.  Rest in peace Phil, we will always remember you.

That community spirit is something that I miss now that I live in the “big smoke” again, everyone are always ready to lend a hand.  There were so many times I was surprised at the generosity of the country people, just imagine the surprise a bunch of us got when the lady living opposite the sculpture (who also worked as a full time primary school teacher, mind you) suddenly appeared with afternoon tea and freshly baked scones, lashings of cream and jam for all the workers.

Dale Gathercole the project co-ordinator whose book “Stories behind the wall” which was published to coincide with the opening of the sculpture said; “ In 2001, the International Year of the Volunteer, to each and every one of you who has selflessly served, a sincere Thank you.”

So here is another quote about volunteering by Elizabeth Andrew that I think fits in perfectly here;

“Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.

Till next time,

Love Marie xxxx

We as usual had the most marvellous time, spent much of it laughing and the other making ourselves sick on Devonshire tea and scones which is something they sold in quaint little cafes at what seemed to be around every corner of the Tasmanian forest.  That “one” had to go on a diet when we got home was a given!

In Hobart where we visited the former women’s prison called the “Female Factory” which had been turned into a fudge factory, go figure!  In the 1800s there had been some 12,000 women and children imprisoned there, it later became a “House for imperial lunatics” and a hospital for contagious diseases and a boys reformatory.  With such a history it seems strange that it now produces yummy tasting fudge and truffles and the like.

We also visited Port Arthur which was the prison that the hardest of the British and Irish criminals were sent to during the 1800s.  It is situated some 60 km along the coast from Hobart and is Tasmania’s top tourist attraction.  What makes this an even eerier experience is that it is also the place of Australia’s worst mass murder in 1996, when Martin Bryant went berserk and killed 35 women, children and men and wounded another 21 people.   A very tragic and fascinating story that had the whole country holding it’s collective breath for a couple of days.  If you would like to read more about that here is the link on Wikipedia

We had a hire car and visited Bicheno where they run nightly Fairy Penguin tours and you can see the little creatures returning from a day out at sea and coming back to their nest at night, so very cute waddling up their burrows.  Another interesting bit was the spectacular iridescent light that was moving and flickering all around in the water, which was some sort of sea lice from what I remember.

On our travels we also went to a brilliant maze made for adults where we ran around and had so much fun and of course there were some Devonshire tea and scones involved as well, lol.  We also visited a seahorse farm which fascinated me, but the rest of the family remembers that as a bit ho hum!  Well you cannot please all the people all the time.

One adventure we all rate as first class was the days spent at Cradle Mountain where we stayed in a cabin and whilst hubby made the dinner, the kids and I were playing detectives in the dark searching by torch light for the Tasmanian Devils which we thought we saw around every bush but never actually found in the wild.  Cradle Mountain is found in the St Clair National park, a mountain of 1,545 meters above the sea level and has a beautiful ruggered terrain and Australia’s deepest lake.  Dove Lake has a boardwalk right around it which makes it an easy 2.45 hour walk that we cut our teeth on, so to speak.

Then we decided to do the Cradle Mountain Summit Bush Walk which is a 5 and a half hours return, why not, this bush walking business is easy isn’t it?  We were warned that the weather could all of a sudden become inclement and snow, but we thought they were going overboard with their warnings as it was a summers day warm with the temperature in the 20’s.  So hubby made us all sandwiches and other delights and we reluctantly took a jacket each and set off on the adventure.

We were cursing the jacket advice as it was boiling hot climbing up huge dolerite boulders like a mountain goats and contemplating leaving them somewhere to pick up later.  Anyway we persevered and finally got to Marions Lookout with a magnificent view over much of northern Tasmania, where we decided to eat our picnic.  We were thoroughly enjoying the scenery and watching some other hikers along the path when suddenly without a warning the weather turned treacherous and an icy cold wind came from nowhere and it started to rain and hail.  What the?  How could this be, we scrambled to take shelter amongst the rocks and the only thing we could put on our heads were 4 plastic sandwich bags, lol.  All the while the other hikers pulled out very fancy professional hiker’s ultra light pants and jackets from their backpacks, goggles, hats and gloves – whilst we sat shivering behind some rocks like idiots with bread bags on our heads!  My husband even had a little pile of crumbs on his head when he took the bag off!

The temperature must have gotten below zero and we were seriously considering our options when just as suddenly the bad weather past by and turned to spring.  This time we took more notice of all the signs and marked cabins should we need to seek shelter again, and thanked our lucky stars at least we had taken the jackets with us.  All’s well that ends well.

Here is a quote by Patrick Young which fits in here:

“The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx   (c)

Redbacks and other creepy crawlies is something we have an abundance of here in Australia, although on this acrylic on board painting “The Snake Pit” snakes are shown in the zoo, in the everyday backyard there also lurks many dangers.  Something we take great delight with in scaring the wits out of any tourists that comes to stay, lol, well just a bit of teasing really.

Lets start with the Redback which is considered one of the most dangerous spiders in Australia and has a neurotoxin venom that causes severe pain.  There have been only 14 deaths recorded from the Redback spider bite which is quite low compared to the numbers of people that get bitten by them each year thought to be in the thousands.  Only about 20 percent of people bitten require hospital treatment and get the antivenin, after experiencing severe pain and swelling spreading from the site.  This can then lead to nausea, vomiting, abdominal and chest pain, headache, fever, tremors, coma, and of course death.

However spare a thought for the male spider as he is the one who almost never comes out of the sexual encounter alive!  The female who is much bigger than the male spider consumes the male spider in 2 out of 3 cases while the mating continues.  He is one of only 2 species of animals who actively assist the female in sexual cannibalism.  The advantage for the male spider is that he is able to copulate for a longer time whilst he is being eaten!!!  You men just don’t know when to stop!! LOL

“Stop” being the operative word here as it brings me to my daughter’s boyfriend Brett and his itching, lol which I will tell you about in a minute.   We had actually decided in having a quite Australia day as we had done such a lot of partying in the weeks and days leading up to it.  However we quickly got into gear after Hillivi called to say she wanted to celebrate with us, much the same as Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis from Christmas with the Kransks.

So they arrived fresh from the Chemist with a bag full of potions and lotions to try to sooth Brett’s feet.  He had managed to get a thousand little bites all over his feet which were suspected ant or sandflies bites and they were driving him crazy.  The poor boy could hardly concentrate on anything other than the itching and tried to discreetly itch them with anything he could find all the while being told off by Hillivi.  The conversation over the dinner table pretty much became a 3 way deal whilst Brett was alternating his attention between the itching or Googleing cures for his ailment on the Iphone.

Every now and then he would pipe up and say “Did you know they suggest smearing vegemite on the bites or maybe marmite” or “They say here I should pop them with a needle and put on some alcohol”.   So watch out all of you planning a trip down under and come prepared.

Here is a quote I think fits well here by Bill Vaughan;

“We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

Their friends would from time to time ask when they were getting married, but all was sweet and they were happy – so why tamper with perfection?

Well as time moved on Shayne decided that he better make an honest woman out of her, the problem was they run a small business together and most days are spent side by side, so there is little time for surprises.

Firstly there was the problem of buying the ring.  He knew just what she liked but she was also the one doing the books of the business and “miss eagle eye” was always butting her nose in when he took a cash job!  Diamonds are a girl’s best friend right? So pretty tricky to siphon of enough cash without making the little missus suspicious, Shayne had to use all the excuses in the world as to what he was doing with the extra money.

“D-Day” (proposal day) was looming closer and by this stage Samantha was thinking he was acting really odd, so for him to get the restaurant booked and flowers ordered he needed help and enlisted Samantha’s best friend into the secret.

All was set – ring bought, restaurant booked, flowers ordered, babysitter organized.   So at the end of a long hard day at the business Shayne out of the blue suggests that they should go out to dinner.

Samantha does not think so… she is tired after slaving away all day, then came home and sorted 4 kids home work and various dramas no doubt, then started their dinner and just wants to flop by the telly, as you do!  Shayne won’t be put off and insists that they should have a date night, so Samantha reluctantly agrees, makes a minimum amount of effort to get ready as she grumbles about having to go out.

So off they drive in the car, then Shayne suggests a little drink is in order and pulls into the bottle shop drive-though and Samantha is thinking this is so out of character, I mean really can’t he wait 15 minutes till they get to the restaurant ? What’s wrong with him?

Anyway they get to their favourite restaurant and the staff looks at them blankly when they say the name;  “No sir, there is no booking in that name”.   The waiters are running around in a flap, then the manager appears and gives Shayne a big wink and a nod to the huge arrangements of roses on the counter “Well of course we have your table all ready for you, Sir.  Shayne is mortified as the game is nearly given away but luckily Samantha is taken with the celebrity pictures on the wall and misses all the goings on.

A bottle of champagne is ordered as soon as they sit down and Shayne hops into it by this time he is perspiring profusely and skulls a couple down, Sam is feeling a bit cross and says that “I suppose I WILL have to DRIVE home now”.

Also normally they would order an entree each and no dessert but this night as Shayne has arranged for the flowers and ring to come out with the dessert he is insistent that they have that too.  Sam tells him he is being queer but if he insists she will reluctantly go along with it.  She has been looking forward to the scallops for entree but as they now have to share one entree she reluctantly settles for Shaynes choice of oysters.  However after all the fuss about sharing entree Shayne can only manage a couple of oysters in between all the glasses of champagne.  He leaves the rest for a fuming partner, who now obviously will also have to drive them both home and more than likely also tuck him into bed, the way things are going!

But wait there is more that is bothering Shayne…. there just happens to be a light shining brightly from the ceiling exactly above their table spoiling the romantic mood.  So Shayne is plotting how to turn that off and finally enlists a waiter to climb up on a chair and take the globe down.  Meanwhile he is having another champagne and Samantha is thinking he has really lost the plot – when finally dessert appears with the beautiful roses and a gorgeous diamond ring.  She cries and says YES and he utters a big sigh in relief, all is forgiven and they live happily ever after!

So here is a quote by Rita Rudner, that I think fits pretty well here;

“It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”

Till next time.

Love Marie xxx   (c)

]]> http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2012/01/118-put-a-ring-on-it/feed/ 0 http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2012/01/117-henri-rousseau-naive-artist/ http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2012/01/117-henri-rousseau-naive-artist/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:34:32 +0000 mariejon http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/?p=3072 Ever since I started painting I have been a big fan of Henri Rousseau,s work. My father said that the art I was producing had something in common with the naifs and bought me a couple of art books; one on Grandma Moses and the other on Henri Rousseau.

So Henri has been one of my heros for such a long time, so you can imagine my joy when I was invited by the organizers of the annual Henri Rousseau exhibition in France to participate. I jumped for joy! The curator is Jacques Dubois who also is involved in the Art Naif Festival in Katowice, Poland which I took part in last year. Jac is very heavily involved in promoting Naive art in Europe and throughout the world really and his wife Martha Dubois is a very well known and talented naive artist herself.

This year the Henri Rousseau exhibition will take place in the Abbey of Montivilliers in Normandy opening on Saturday 21st January until 19th February with an auction of the paintings being held on 12th February at 3pm. The exhibition itself is open 7 days a week and it is not to be missed.
Henri Rousseau was called Le Douanier which translates to the customs (or customs officer)a name he got from his job as a tax collector on goods entering Paris. Henry married twice, first Clemence Boitard with whom he had six children and after she died he married Josephine Noury.
Henri also tried his hand at music and writing but it was painting that was his first love, which he started doing seriously in his early forties and by the time he was 49 he retired from his job to pursue the art on a full time basis. Rousseau was represented in the exhibitions of the Salon des Independants from 1886 onwards, and his pictures hung side by side with Matisse, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Picasso.

This year 2012 there were 88 artists invited from around the world with 20 different countries represented among them France of course and Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Cuba, Belgium, Italy, Japan and “moi” from Australia just to name a few.
As this is an exhibition in homage of Henri, most artists are sticking to that theme and I had so much fun painting “You Rock, Henri Rousseau”. I wanted to do a contemporary celebration and incorporated elements of Henri’s art into it by putting in a detail of “The Dream of Yadwigha” (the naked lady lying on the couch).
The Dream of Yadwigha was the last painting that Henri painted before his death in 1910, in it the lady in question is laying on a red velvet sofa with a luxurious jungle behind her listening to the notes of a single magic flute. I of course painted a myriad of musicians and singers, artistic license and all that, LOL. If you look a little closer at my painting you will also see the influences of two other of Rousseau’s work in “The Sleeping Gipsy” which is the woman sharing the couch in the striped outfit.

In Henri’s original artwork a lion is standing over her as she lies dreaming under an ancient green sky in the solitude of the desert. Some say this is the lyrical prelude to Surrealism, with a mandolin and a jug which stands beside the sleeping figure, these objects would inhabit the dreams of the Surrealists and the space of the Cubists.
The third painting of Henri’s represented in my artwork is of Henri himself, from his self portrait painted in 1890 “I – Myself Portrait-Landscape”, he is holding a palette of paints and a brush and in the original painting he is standing on a road in front of a bridge, although he does look like he is standing in mid air, lol.
That is the naive charm, us naives are so lucky that we can just paint whatever we feel and see without having to worry about rules and other people’s perception of how things should look. As the whole idea of perspective is totally lost on me that is really lucky!!
Thank you Henri Rousseau – you gave me the freedom to be me, to paint in my own style and not to be embarrassed by the child in me. Instead my childishness it is something that I celebrate and hope that I will never grow up, or out off- but wake each day full of wonder and excitement.
So Henri I hope you approve of me painting you like a Rock Star, complete with women swooning at your feet and throwing their knickers at you. There is wild music supplied by a rock band and a brass band as well as the choir and Can Can girls dancing and pirouettes by ballerinas and of course no party is complete without balloons.

So here is a quote I like by another Henri – Henry Ward Beecher who said;
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures”
Till next time,
Love Marie xxxx

This time the song is called “Ghost” and I actually like it even better than “I’ll be a Bird” if that’s possible.

I find that the melody to Ghost just stays in my mind for hours after I have heard it and I hope that all of you like it too, as well as the paintings, sculptures, prints and public sculptures that the images shows too of course.

James Abberley says that “Ghost is a very dark song.  I wanted it to be confronting but still relevant.  Sometimes we can end up in a place that we never wanted to be in.  Sometimes you can feel like a Ghost, but there is always love and there is always someone that can see you.”

This song is also from the new album called “Some kind of Relief” and in the Indie genre as he is becoming known for and if you would like to find out more about James go to this link and have a little read.  Indie Music & James Abberley.  Also if you are in Adelaide, do not forget to catch up with James every Friday night in the front bar of the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, known just as the Gov to us locals.

I had made a couple of Youtube video clips before which also featured our two dogs Cheech and Vegas whilst we still lived at the farm and we dressed them up in all sorts of doggy clothes and put the photos in between the artwork, as I told you before you have to be a little bit crazy to be an artist!

The new changes to YouTube, means that you can personalize the look of your YouTube site and create the feel that you want.  They have also included a new “feed” to make it more interactive as well, something I think may have been inspired by Face book.   It seems to me that a lot of the Social Networking sites are rolling out new changes at the moment, and just as quickly there are groups that form who are against that, just check out all the “I hate the changes to Face book” groups.   As someone who has only in the last couple of years learned the ropes so to speak, any new changes always take a little time to get used too.  However I read somewhere that Cyberspace is the only place in modern culture there should be nothing BUT change, it is necessary to keep the innovation alive.  So hey we better get used to it!

The younger generation take to it like ducks to water and if you Google to find some advice half the time it will be a 6 year old, lol well maybe a 10 year old that is doing the tutorial on how to use a certain function.  It reminds me of what Dolly Parton said about computers “Truth is, I wouldn’t know a gigabyte from a snakebite”, lol but she can afford to employ someone to do all the computer work for her it’s the rest of us that have to try to keep up.  I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind!

So if you just like me need some time out and just chill why don’t you pour yourself a nice glass of wine click on my new YouTube contribution and relax with James and I.

So here is a quote just in case wine is not your drink of choice by an unknown author;

“Take life with a grain of salt, a slice of lime, and a shot of tequila.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx

This acrylic on board painting “Happy New Year, New York” (which sold in America) was such a lot of fun to do and it was painted in the time of innocents before 9/11 when the Twin Towers were still standing proud.  At the time I had not yet been to the USA so it was great fun to do the research on all the buildings and images of New York.  Then finally we did go to New York and here is a link to some of those adventures;  I MISS NEW YORK, sadly by the time we got there the Twin Towers were reduced to Ground Zero but we did see all the rest of the things I had painted.

You know it’s funny to think about the turn of the last century when we thought the whole world may stop and planes would fall out of the sky due to the Millennium Bug, remember that one?  The YK2 problem or YK2 bug, that whole problem stemmed from the programming of computers.  When the computer programmers were trying to save space in the computer files they abbreviated the year to just the two last digits as in 91,92,93, but as the turn of the century grew closer they realized that the clocks of the digital age would turn from 99 into 00 which may make the computers of the world fail.

Hence we may have all sorts of mayhem arising, from planes dropping out of the sky to hospital life support equipment failing, trains stopping, phone lines & mobile phones dropping out, electricity and water getting turned off and supermarkets and businesses in general not being able to serve their customers. The experts on TV and Radios around the Globe were discussing the various scenarios whilst us the public were in two camps on the issue – the “believers” and the “not”.

We lived on a farm at the time and fell into the middle ground on the subject and decided that we better stock up on some food and drinks just in case, lol.  So we had a few boxes in the shed with the necessities, should the worst happen.  Canned food, long life milk, potatoes and onions and candles and batteries, oh and plenty of alcohol, we figured we may as well be a little inebriated if we were going to live on the crap we had stored in the emergency boxes, lol.

My brother was totally fascinated by the subject and read every book there was and preached doom and gloom.  To his credit he really was on the right track because if the “IT” world had not gotten their act together in the mid nineties and started to seriously work on the problem we really would have been in dire straits.  There was one person though who had spotted the mistake as far back as 1958 whilst working on genealogical software.  His name was Bob Bemer and he had then tried for the next twenty years to make the programmers, IBM and the U.S. government aware of the problem.  But as usual the whistle blower was ignored and it took nearly 40 years before they took him seriously!

For most of us midnight 1999 past without too much trouble however there were a few glitches around the world and these statistics are from the Wikipedia site;

UK – incorrect Down’s syndrome test results were sent out and two abortions were carried out and four babies were born with Down’s syndrome even though the mothers had been told they were in the low-risk category.

Japan- had radiation-monitoring equipment at a nuclear power plant fail at midnight and at another nuclear site an alarm sounded at two minutes after midnight, both with no risk to the public they stated.  Also in Japan their largest mobile phone company found their phones were deleting new messages instead of old ones but that was also fixed within a short time.

Australia- had problems with their ticket validation system on the buses in two states.

US- had 150 slot machines stop working at some race tracks in Delaware and the U.S Naval Observatory with runs the master clock that keeps official time for the whole country showed the date on its website as Jan. 1, 19100.

France- had the same problem on the weather forecast website Metro France which showed Saturday’s weather and the date as 1/01/19100.

No doubt there were some other minor problems across the world but all in all we were pretty lucky really that for the most part all was good!

So that brings me to this year and the first New Years Eve in our newly renovated house, the weather forecast is for a hot 37 degrees and we are planning a pool party in our Bali hut with good friends and too much food and drinks no doubt.  The only thing I wish for is relative quite in the morning lol, and not like one New Years Day morning many years ago when we lived in an apartment.  Apart from the annoying dog next door that would bark loudly at his own shadow we had a water pipe burst under the road opposite where we lived and the “Government emergency water brigade” thought they would find the problem at 7am with a jackhammer going at full speed! Normally when you call and tell them about a water leak they take six weeks to come out, what the??

So here is a thought for the New Year by Edith Lovejoy Pierce,

“We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

From me to you – I wish you the best New Years ever and hope it will bring love, joy, health, wealth and happiness to you all.

Till next time,

Love Marie xxxx  (c)

I have told you how I started painting in How it all began, which is something that I did every minute of the day (in-between looking after a new baby & going back to modelling) early morning, late into the evening, when baby Kai had his naps, and all weekend when hubby took over the child minding.

Friends and family was highly amused at my newfound love of painting and would come over to see the latest artwork.   They would giggle and laugh and I am sure in a lot of instances pat me on the head, shake their heads and think that at least I am amusing myself but it won’t amount to anything much, LOL.

Not that I thought it would either I just knew that I could not stop and if I wasn’t painting I thought about painting, dreamt about it or talked about it, like a woman obsessed.  My dad, who is an artist himself but generally more in the abstract area or as a junk art sculptor, would encourage me and buy me paints and materials.  After a while he said:” you know honey I think you are on to something – there is a genre in the art world called Naive Art and although it does not look anything like yours it seems to be in the same vein.”  So dad got me a few books and I started to dream that maybe one day I could become a “real artist”.

It took about 2 years for this penny to drop and I thought I should see if I could get representation from a gallery.  Now obviously as my father was already an artist with gallery backing and I had quite a public profile from being the Australian Model of the Year it probably would have been much easier to take advantage of that but I wanted to make it on my own arts merit.

So armed with the Yellow Pages (Telephone Directory) I started calling galleries.  I started with the less known and worked my way up the list.  In the most polite of fashions I explained that I was a new artist and was wondering if at some stage I could either come in or send them an image of my work.  Without fail every single gallery I called said: “sorry we are not interested in seeing any new artists, or we are totally booked out”, and some of them were rather rude and abrupt.  At this stage there were only 2 Galleries left in South Australia (that I hadn’t called) and that was the two most famous ones 20 years ago;  BMG (Kim Bonython’s) and Elders Fine Art Gallery, and as luck would have it I called Elders first.

Jim Elder answered the phone himself and I couldn’t believe it when he said; “sure come on in!  I will warn you however that I very rarely take on any new artists but I always look”, and with that we made an appointment.

So on the allotted day I turn up, Jim is very busy getting a show up and hardly acknowledges me but points at where I should put my work along the walls on the floor.  I had 14 works with me so it took quite a while back and forth from the car and finally it’s all in and eventually Jim comes to take a look.

His face gave nothing away, he looked grumpy to me and sort of huffed and asked what the price on this and that one is?  I said that I had no idea at all what the prices were, so Jim said, well that one I think would be 300 dollars, and this one 500 and the one with the flowers 950.  By this stage my eyes were round as saucers as I listen to this obviously quite mad man, lol.  But who was I to argue and when he then said he would buy, this one and that one and the other outright, counting up 10 of the artworks and taking in the other 4 on commission basis I nearly fainted.  I left Elders Fine Art Gallery that day with a cheque for nearly 7 thousand dollars, which with a young family and a mortgage made me skip to the car!

The paintings sold the following weekend in their Christmas show and I now had a new career painting full time and the rest of it is history as they say!

So thank you Jim and Helen Elders, you provided the most wonderful start to my career and I am forever in your debt.  It goes without saying, that if the Elders had not changed the gallery to an Auction house: Elders Fine Art & Auctioneers, I would still happily be on their books.

So here is a quote by George Allen,  I think fits very well in here with light of what everyone thought initially about my art career, lol.

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit.  Most men succeed because they are determined to.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

Sankta Lucia is like a shining angel coming to the Swedish darkness all dressed in white and has a wreath of candles burning on her head.  It is celebrated on the 13^th of December which is the longest night of the year.  Even though the celebration takes the name of the Italian Saint Lucia from the 4^th Century, I’m led to believe that it is really named after the Swedish maiden that appeared on the shore of one of the big lakes and proceeded to give out food to the starving masses during one of the famines.  She is said to have worn a crown or wreath of lit candles – well it was dark wasn’t it and since battery operated torches was not invented yet, what else could a resourceful girl do?

When I lived in Sweden it was every girls dream to be crowned the new Lucia and the crown always went to the prettiest girl with the long blond hair.  She would lead the procession dressed in a long white gown and have a bright red sash around her waist and of course the wreath with candles all alight in her hair.  The rest of us could be Tarnor, and we would also be wearing white although our wreath was somewhat smaller and made out of silver tinsel (always the bridesmaid never the bride, lol) Not to be outdone the boys would also join us, some dressed in the long white gown too with a long white pointed hat (LOL actually the hat would look like one of those dunce hats you wear in the naughty corner) although it was decorated with stars and the boys were called sjarngossar – starboys!  A couple of boys would also be Santa’s little helpers dressed in red.

My Aunty (father’s sister) Gun Jonsson was actually crowned the Swedish Lucia in Stockholm many years ago Miss Lucia 1947 – part of her prize package was a life time supply of Palmolive soap!  Gun went on to become firstly a dancer in an international dance troupe called “The Cassel Girls “and later became a famous actress.  She was in several plays directed by Ingmar Bergman and Gun is also a much admired director and producer, something which she still does today.  (‘Bad Javlarna’,’ Hem till Byn’ and ‘Sova rav’ are just some of her Swedish movies and TV shows, you Swedes know what I am talking about.)

Of course we would all be singing Christmas carols but the song we started and finished with would be this one.

Natten går tunga fjät
rund gård och stuva;
kring jord, som sol förlät,
skuggorna ruva.
Då i vårt mörka hus,
stiger med tända ljus,
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

Natten går stor och stum
nu hörs dess vingar
i alla tysta rum
sus som av vingar.
Se, på vår tröskel står
vitklädd med ljus i hår
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

Mörkret ska flyta snart
ur jordens dalar
så hon ett underbart
ord till oss talar.
Dagen ska åter ny
stiga ur rosig sky
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

The night goes with heavy steps
around farm and cottage;
round the earth the sun has forsaken,
the shadows are brooding.
There in our darkened house,
stands with lighted candles
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

The night passes, large and mute
now one hears wings
in every silent room
whispers as if from wings.
See, on our threshold stands
white-clad with candles in her hair
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

The darkness shall soon depart
from the earth’s valleys
then she speaks
a wonderful word to us.
The day shall be born anew
Rising from the rosy sky.
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

(Translated: by Chris Troy and based on an article by Elizabeth Dacey-Fondelius)

When my own kids were little we would go to the Swedish Church in Adelaide and they would take part in the procession followed by coffee and cakes.  Traditional Lussekattor  (cats) which are baked buns made from saffron, so they were slightly orange colour and with raisins for their eyes, as well as lots of other Swedish bisquits mmmm…. makes me hungry just to think about it.

Then Father Christmas would turn up with presents for all the little kids (which their own parents would have bought and wrapped and put in the sack).

I will never forget when my son Kai was just a little baby and we were attending his very first Lucia celebration.  He had been enjoying seeing all the lights and singing and even did not mind being presented to Santa, however when Kai with a bit of help from me unwrapped his present, the poor little boy screamed blue murder and got the fright of his life.

His stupid mother “moi” had bought him a Jack-in-the-box and it scared him half to death.  To add injury to the insult I had paid good money for this toy bought at David Jones and he never ever played or even wanted to look at it again. LOL, not that I blame the poor boy!

Here is a quote by Franklin P. Jones which I think fits well in here;

“Children are unpredictable.  You never know what inconsistency they’re going to catch you in next.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx

Here are some links to stories about Swedish Easter or Swedish Christmas and Swedish Smorgasbord. Enjoy!

In my previous career as a model I had of course appeared on quite a few covers over the years, among them this Playboy Magazine cover.  Oh I know what you are thinking, lol but there is no need for anyone to go out and order any back copies of the magazine as I only appeared on the cover and it was a head shot too, bad luck, lol!   I was overseas modelling when the Playboy cover came out and had broken off with my boyfriend (whom I later married) and he said he got the shock of his life when he walked into a shop and saw it.  His mate that was with him promptly bought the magazine and “hubby to be” was apparently mightily pleased I wasn’t a centrefold!

So to be commissioned to do a cover of a magazine in a completely different profession pleased me very much.  The brief was to create a cover that had something to do about art.  So I painted 2 paintings (the other, I will tell you about another time)on the art theme, if you look closely at this painting, “The Artist Camp” you will find a lot of the different forms of art represented.

Starting from top left and going across you will see; Topiary- which is the art of clipping and training bushes and trees into different shapes, a form of living sculpture.  Then there is a Landscape artist and the nude model posing for a Figure painting, a small detail from Picasso representing both the Cubism and Abstract Art, followed by Body Art.

Next row down the lady is doing some Fabric Art and the stereo typical Outsider Artist, Art Brut or Art Raw with the Physiatrist and the patient in the straight jacket.  With all this political correctness my portrayal of that may offend however as I count myself in that bracket too as a Naive or Naif Artist I hope it is met with the humor I intended.   Next we have a so called Sunday painter with a Portrait of a cat and Aboriginal Art followed by a Graffiti Artist, Art for Therapy in prison and finally the Tattoo Artist and the little girl being inspired to love art by all of them!  I think the Bull Terrier is up to no good with the bike though,lol, not sure he has art in mind.

Whilst I do appreciate art schools and the skills they teach to art students, I do believe that a lot of the time they turn out artists who paint just like their teachers and sometimes their own fresh ideas are belittled.  My own take on the matter is that EVERYBODY has an artistic talent of some sort, some find that talent early whilst for others it may be a life time exploration.  However what I think matters most is the passion and enjoyment of creating and not necessarily the final result.  I would encourage everyone to find the inner child, to borrow from Mark Twain – explore, dream and discover but this time in relation to art and not travel.

Here is some lyrics from a song I really love called The Cape by Guy Clark which I think fits well here;

“He’s one of those who knows that life
Is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold your breath
Always trust your cape”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx      (c)

He was born the same year as my daughter Hillivi and grew up in the mid north town of Owen and attended  Balaklava High School, so it has been  very interesting to see his talent take form and start to soar.  James was given his first guitar at the age of 15 and soon learned to love playing and writing his own music.  The above Youtube video was put together by my son Kai.

Balaklava is very good at producing creative people, it is very much nurtured, embraced and valued which I think is perhaps a little unusual for a country town where sports is normally the be all and end all.  Perhaps it stems from that the town was blessed with four dynamic women in Di Spence and Bronny Cottle in the performing art side and Joyce Ross and Jo May to guide the visual arts.

Not only does Balaklava have their own art gallery “Courthouse Gallery” with monthly exhibitions  and a yearly art competition called the “Balco Awards” but also a theatre group called Balaklava Community Arts which puts on major shows every year with a full ensemble which everyone from the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker audition for.

Then there is of course the Eisteddfod – which is an old Welsh word meaning a “sitting” but now used to describe gatherings of musicians, artists, poets, actors and crafts-people to compete, compare and learn from each other.  The town population swells to twice the normal size every August when the Eisteddfod are on, so for any budding performer eager to take part use the above link.

So with such a rich hot pot of creativity it is no wonder that the area keeps on producing wonderful talent such as James Abberley.  His new album is called “Some kind of Relief” and 2 of my favorite songs are Ghost and I’ll be a Bird, make sure you listen out for the fiddle playing by Richard Tonkin – just sounds so good.

James writes his own music, sings plays drums, didgeridoo and bongos, he collaborated with his sister Amanda on Green Hills and Dollar Bills where she sings backup and recorded both at home in his bedroom and at Fish Shop Studios in Port Adelaide for his debut album.

Gotye, Jose Gonzales, Lior and the Butterfly Effect are some of James inspiration, and he finds that he writes mostly from personal experiences, the things he sees around him and of course about Love.

His goals are to play at the Fall’s Festival, Woodford acoustic Festival, Splendor in the Grass and of course Big Day Out and I have no doubt that he will play at all of them and then some!  For now if you would like to see James  live come down to the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, where he has a permanent residency every Friday night.

Indie music or Independent music is a genre that has it’s roots in the UK and USA, and is extremely diverse with lots of so called sub-genres.  The “Indie artists” at least starts off as “outsiders” to the normal path by being independent and not attached to the major record labels. They do their own thing without bending to any rules or being influenced by contractual obligations of the music industry.     As the internet crept into all of our lives in the early 2000 it was clear that you could actually have a major hit on your hands and enjoy commercial success on your own from the bedroom so to speak, if you had the talent.  The question then to ponder is whether an artist remains an Indie artist after he/she has been signed to a major label which has happened to many, just think of Nirvana for example!  It is a little like the term Outsider Artist and Naive Artists and the problem the academics have of trying to pigeonhole us.

Speaking of birds, lol, James says that his song I’ll be a Bird was written in inspiration of dreams that he would have of flying.  “We all have those dreams so I thought it would be a nice feeling to recreate.  I hope that whoever hears this song can relate.  We would all love to fly” he says.

Here is a quote I like that fits in with both Indie music and James Abberley, by William Blake

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx    (c)

]]> http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/12/111-indie-music-art-and-paintings-with-james-abberley-ill-be-a-bird/feed/ 1 http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/11/110-artists-lunch/ http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/11/110-artists-lunch/#comments Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:52:52 +0000 mariejon http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/?p=2928 On Tuesday this week it was my very overdue turn to have “The Artist lunch” at my house.  You see a bunch of us have been meeting every now and then for the last 20 years, getting together over a good meal and some drinks and talking shop!  Well not just about art, life in general too and along the way we have shared in the ups and downs of life and as you would expect over time there has been plenty of those too.

We were trying to figure out how we met the other day – there were 3 of us “core” people, all 3 naive artists that initially got together, we think it came about when another naive artist Howard William Steer (Story Art) had wanted to meet the new kid on the block, moi!  As he and I had a joint exhibition over in Melbourne very early on in my career, I did not attend the opening so Howard came to visit when we lived in the church and brought Ursula Kiessling with him.

Ursula Kiessling

Ursula paints bush and wildlife in a semi naive repeated pattern – her use of colours is second to none.   How we then met Bronwen Roodenrys (who paints gorgeous sophisticated naive ladies and big cats) is for now a blank, lol but anyway glad we did, and we have added more “core” people to the group and not just naïf but all sorts of artists.  Catherine Fitz-Gerald who paints mainly large succulent and delicious fruits that cover the whole canvas, which makes me hungry every time I see them and Lynley Cooper who can turn her hand to any medium and style and always experiments and surprises us every time often with large scale contemporary works.  My image above is from another lunch that whoops, lol turned into midnight, funny how that happens.  It is handmade ceramic and mosaic and if you look closely on the left hand side you can see me with the ponytail sticking up in the air and hubby a little worse for wear spilling his beer.  Fun time had by all!

Catherine Fitz-Gerald

Bronwen Roodenrys

The person that hosts the lunch can invite whoever they please and can add and subtract the invitation list as they chose which makes it very interesting.  So in attendance on Tuesday at my place were apart from the aforementioned were Valli Palmgreen, a Finish/Estonian artist who I have admired from afar for many years, she paints quirky pictures with the feel of Beryl Cook but in her own way.  Sarah Philip, the wife of our electrician that did our new house and as it turns out she lives on the same street as us and is a talented muralist and abstract artist.  Jenni Mumford paints in oils in Post-Impressionistic styled landscapes and still life and lives in Encounter Bay with views to die for which no doubt inspires her work.  Also in attendance was Suzie Flashman, my neighbour whose talents include animation (she did my animations on my website) and wildlife photography and she has also recently started drawing in pastels.  Of course we cannot forget Nadine Williams, journalist and award winning Author of the book From France with Love, which is optioned for a movie.  She also runs her own website which is in magazine style and always very interesting.

Howard Steer

The only problem now was what to feed these lovely people as I don’t cook, well unless you count burned toast and boiled water as a good menu for a dinner party!  Lucky for them I had a flash of an idea – I am good at assembling, lol.  So off to the supermarket I trot and with help from a great guy behind the counter, who was very amused at my lack of knowledge in the small goods section (as a vegetarian that is not my forte, lol ) I came home with shaved smoked ham, turkey, roast beef and salami.  To that I added cheese, dolmades, boiled eggs, tossed salad, olives, broccoli and capsicum sticks, crackers and dip, red/white wine and sparkling red (my favourite).  The artists brought dips and bread, chicken, coconut rice, fruit and cake, wine and champagne and so we had a feast fit for a king.  Hubby who was supposed to have a rest day could not keep away and was like a bee in the honey pot!  This time around all the artists was women, but that is not the rule!  We finished up just before 5pm and I look forward to the next one!

Another naive artist I greatly admire is Grandma Moses who lived to the ripe old age of 101 and I named my darling dog Moses after her and just like his name sake Moses lived to the grand old age of 18 which for a dog is pretty good.  Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until her late 70’s, a late bloomer so to speak and spent her old age as an American celebrity.  Here is one of her quotes that I like:

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

]]> http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/11/110-artists-lunch/feed/ 0 http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/11/109-stories-behind-the-wall/ http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/index.php/2011/11/109-stories-behind-the-wall/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:19:56 +0000 mariejon http://www.mariejonssonharrison.com.au/new/?p=2911 These images are from “The Centenary of Federation Gateway” sculpture which was commissioned by the Wakefield Regional Council and took some 18 months to complete.   It started as a seed planted by Dale Gathercole and grew into an amazing community project.

Prior to this I had been awarded a mentorship grant jointly by the Australia Council, Arts S.A. and the South Australian Arts Trust (Country Arts SA) in 1999 to pursue the idea of turning my colourful naive paintings into public sculptures.  My mentor was artist Andrew Stock and the idea was to explore the ideas surrounding the use of colourful mosaics and combining that with clay (ceramic) figures.

As the Centenary of Federation celebrations date was looming Dale, the Headmaster at Balaklava Primary School, thought it would be a great idea to mark that in some way in our community with a permanent landmark.    As a friend and a fan of my work, she had watched me transform my art from canvas to sculpture and approached me with the idea of doing a public sculpture.

This then led to letting my imagination soar and conceptualizing, developing and planning ideas whereby my husband Bryan’s knowledge as a former builder and draughtsman was invaluable.   Robert Veitch from the Wakefield Council was then approached and after presenting drafts, models and detailed budget requirements he whole heartedly endorsed the idea and got the council behind it.  The project was also helped along the way by Dale’s tenacity of chasing grants, and as a result we received several grants by the Centenary of Federation Committee & Country Arts SA & Veterans Affairs as well as many hundreds of “in kind hours” generously donated by the whole town.

The sculpture was officially opened on the 23^rd November 2001 by Neil Andrew MP, Member for Wakefield following a community celebration in Balaklava, South Australia.  The Centenary of Federation Gateway stands proudly as you enter into the township and is believed to be the largest Naive Sculpture in the Southern Hemisphere spanning 44 meters across.  The idea is that the whole sculpture looks like a Federation house, complete with roof and a veranda.  So in the centre are two six metre by three and a half metre walls, located at 22.2 degree angle to each other which are rendered to look like sandstone with red brick quoins on the corners and around the doors.

One wall represents 1901 and the other 2001.  In the 1901 doorway we see the back of a life-size woman, made from hand-made ceramic tiles and mosaic, strutting through the door in all her finery, long dress, hat and umbrella in hand.  Through the 2001 doorway, she emerges as the modern woman, complete with short skirt, sunglasses and a mobile phone.  This reflects the changes that our society has undergone during the last 100 years.

The 1901 wall depict 9 separate stories and the 2001 wall tells another 8 stories of both ordinary and famous people who have connections with our district.  Their tales are told in pictures and words with my hand-made ceramic tiles surrounded by mosaic and the words by Dale which has been etched on aluminium plaques.  These are rendered into the wall to allow the sandstone to surround each story.   Dale who was the Project co-ordinator also compiled the book “Stories behind the wall” which was also launched on the same day by John Meier MP, Member for Goyder. (Which I have used to jog my memory on the events too!)

There are of course many stories to tell you about the making of this project and I will do that as time goes on I promise!  Use this link if you want to see some of my other Public Sculptures.

Here is a quote I like that fits well here by Daniella Kessler,

“You can do anything if you put your mind to it… and you will succeed when you put your heart into it.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

This acrylic on board painting is one I did for the son of Jim from Elders Fine Art Gallery when he was recuperating after a car accident called Bandaid for Matthew, but I will have to borrow it now for my own husband!

There we were hubby and me” happy and gay the laxet way” (borrowed from an old advertisement) going about our business as usual.  Well usual for us is that I do the art thing and hubby is the manager and runs the household.  Ever since he had a back injury some 20 years ago we have been used to take each day as it comes to some degree.  For the most part he manages very well and does a little bit of this and a little bit of that with a rest here and there.  Hubby is not one to wallow is self pity, the pain is always with him but it is not something that he talks about or dwells on.

However a couple of weeks ago it got really bad as it does from time to time and he had a few days in bed, but seemed to be on the mend.  So this particular night we went to bed as usual and the next thing I know I am being woken up by hubby standing next to the bed saying “I think I’m having a heart attack, you better drive me to the hospital”.

Now I was in a very deep sleep and suddenly didn’t know if I was Arthur or Marthur, but I shot up out of bed in a jiffy and ran for the phone in the office to call an ambulance.  Hubby thought I should drive him in, “no way” I said as I know from the First Aid training that is a big mistake.  If the patient suddenly looses consciousness or stops breathing there would be no one to do the CPR.

Anyway when I got to the phone I realized I couldn’t see to dial and had to run to find the glasses, felt like I was running around like a chook with my head cut off, lol finally got through and the ambulance was on their way.  Patient was resting on the bed with severe chest pain, but otherwise his color was good and he wasn’t clammy or had any other symptoms.

I called our son Kai who occupies the “man-cave” downstairs so he could keep an eye on his dad whilst I at least got some clothes on, and asked Kai for a running commentary of how the patient was looking.

The ambulance was there within 10 minutes and then off to hospital we go.  After a long night hooked up to “machines that go beep” (as Monty Python would say) blood tests, and ECG and finally an Angiogram the diagnosis was in.  Not a heart attack luckily, however what ailed him was Pericarditis.  What’s that I hear you say, well that’s an inflammation of the heart sac.  From what I understand most commonly comes from a respiratory infection, but it can also come from a mouth or skin infection.  So in this case we think it may have stemmed from a cut/infected finger a few weeks ago – remember when he fell like a timber in the woods, in the LITTLE MISS WEE WEE blog.

So all is well that ends well, after a few days in hospital hubby is home resting now and for the next 10 days and driving me nuts with the orders of scrambled eggs on toast and other requests, which for someone who normally burns toast and only excels at the boiling of water and possibly an egg is no mean feat.  So it’s quite obvious we all look forward until the 10 days are up! LOL

So life happens to you whilst you are busy making other plans and here is another quote I like on the subject this time by Robert A Heinlein (writer).

“Don’t ever become a pessimist…a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun – and neither can stop the march of events.

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

This image is one third of a painting called “The true colors of Hindley Street” the whole one can be seen on this link; and is a Giclee print, the original acrylic painting was 25cm x 155cm and was bought by a Physiatrist and hung in the waiting room.  It was very popular with the clients I’ve been told.

Hindley Street was the hub of the clubs and the place to go and hang out in the 70’s & 80’s and the painting was called Cracking a Hindley originally as that what we called driving very slowly up the street with all of the car occupants hanging out the windows and interacting with the goings on!

When I had the idea to do this painting I went around and photographed all the shops and businesses that were memorable for me.  I used my artistic licence to cut out some of the less colourful places as well as adding all I had seen over the years into the picture at the same time but apart from that it is pretty true to life.  Hindley street has changed a little since those days but it is still frequented by the nightowls, and trying to catch a cab there at 4am in the morning without queuing for ages is an impossibility as I recently found out. (Old habits die hard,lol!)

However in those days I would spend all night on the dance floor, dancing up a storm, the music pumping through my veins with just enough alcohol to lose the inhibitions.  That was the time when Michael Jackson was still black and cute and sang Thriller, Billie Jean & Beat it.  Kevin Rowland from Dexy’s Midnight Runner’s singing Come on Eileen, wearing nothing but blue jean overalls.  Who can forget Frank the owner of Toucan wearing suits without a shirt complete with gold necklaces!  The Eurythmics certainly had it right – Sweet Dreams are made of this and they were my Golden years.   The last song the DJ would spin on the turn table was U2’s; Still haven’t found what I am looking for!

But at that hour of the morning round about 4-5 am – what I would be looking for, was a snack and so would all the other clubbers too.  So off to Marcellina’s we’d trot, meeting up for a pizza with all the other die hards, some a little worse for wear!  Then tip toeing home, shoes in hand with the sun only to do it all again the next night.  Oh those were the days!

I can still party up a storm although these days it takes a little longer to recover and perhaps count my drinks a little more carefully unlike Dorothy Parker who said;

“I like to have a martini, two at the very most.  After three I’m under the table. After four I’m under the host”.

till next time

love Marie     (C)

(if you enjoyed that use these links for another couple of party stories   51. When Laughter is the best medicine mmm…. and maybe a little bit of snake 53. A Hens night out..without mentioning the P…word!..impossible )

This Giclee print “Expose yourself to Art” is one of my pieces which is included in this show.  The original artwork was done in handmade ceramic and mosaic.

The festival takes place at several venues across Adelaide and the driving force behind it all is of course Stefan who has worked tirelessly on this project for months.  According to his website, the festival and The Outsiders Festival Museum is entirely sponsored by the Maguran family budget from his extremely patient, caring and understanding wife and her salary.

So on behalf of the 40 something artists involved we thank you!  The artists this year are from around the world with works from Spain, France, UK, USA, Taiwan, Turkey and of course Australia.

So what is Outsider Art I hear you say?  Well it is a little bit hard to define and it depends upon who you are talking with.  However the general conscientious is that the work is out of the mainstream so to speak.  The artists are usually self taught and follow no rules and paint for themselves and because they have to, want to and cannot stop.  Their work does not conform to the fashion of the day and the techniques can be unconventional.  Another word for Outsider art is Art Brut which means art in a “raw” state, uncooked so to speak.

I have seen it mentioned that there is a distinction between “art  brut” and Naive art, and that is that the Naive artist remain within the mainstream of painting proper, and they do this because they hope for public recognition.  However I cannot agree with that all, I have seen many artists work that straddle the two worlds and morph into one.

From an Naive artist perspective if anything is a point of difference between the two genres it would be that the Outsider art shows often a more troubled soul with work in the muted tones perhaps a bit more confronting and darker.  Whereas the Naive artist’s artworks in general depict a colourful and happy world.

Perhaps what makes this Outsider Festival a little bit different is that the work is very diverse and manages to straddle several other genera of art as well.  If you would like to see some of the works without travelling all the way to South Australia have a look at this fabulous new publication edited by Stefan Maguran called the Outsiders Festival 2011.

For the rest of you here, do come and see for yourself as I am sure there will be something for all of you to enjoy.  For the first time this year the festival includes Outsiders Short Film Festival, with films from Australia, UK and Taiwan as well as a performance by Hot Tutti (part of the Tutti Ensemble).

DATES;

1-30 November 2011

Official opening;

2^nd November 2011

1.00 – 6.00pm

The West Torrens Auditorium

1 Brooker Terrace Hilton

Also individual exhibitions at the following Galleries;

Black Diamond Gallery

66 Commercial Rd

Port Adelaide,

Jungle Phillips Gallery

558 Marion Rd

Plympton Park,

Langdons

215 Sturt Rd

Adelaide,

Stefan Maguran Gallery

316 Anzac Highway

Plympton.

So here is a saying that amused me greatly from the Simpson and reminds me that as an artist you do have to have thick skin, lol.

“Your husband’s work is what we call “outsider art.” It could be by a mental patient, a hillbilly or a chimpanzee.”

Love

marie

You see my mother and father are cruising the Pacific, on the Dawn Princess no less, stopping in Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia and the like for two weeks, having silver service every night, playing dress up, sitting with the captain on his table no doubt, whilst we got stuck with little Miss Wee Wee (or Miss Pee Pee). Oh the unfairness of it all!

Now Kicki is one year old and absolutely gorgeous, just a little puppy and sooo sweet BUT she has this one little fault – every time you come in the door, or go upstairs and reappear or talk to her or just about anything – she does a little pee.   It doesn’t seem to matter whether she is excited or frightened or happy or sad.  Any old time will do, just a little squat and whoops there is another pee to clean up.  No wonder when my parents dropped her off Mum arrived with a big bag full of goodies.  I was quite impressed; there was food and snacks enough for a month, then there was the cleaning products (mmm..perhaps that should have been a clue) and also some puppy training pads.  Turns out they are totally useless too, as it must be much more fun to pee next to them!

So an exciting time has been had by all, cleaning rag in the back pocket and a bottle of “Ajax clean and wipe” on the ready night and day.  As soon as there is a knock on the door, little Kicki gets rushed outside, as that is the only safe spot to say hello to the cute little girl, and don’t get me wrong she is adorable!  Just WET!

First day she is here we take our normal 40 minute morning walk, this time with the 3 dogs, very happy to see lots of pees and other “business” is getting done away from the house.  We laugh as she runs like the cartoon dog from “Footrott Flats” with her hind legs overtaking her head or alternatively is just like a fly on a string!  Then we spot a big dog off the lead heading straight for us and my poor hubby trips and falling down like a timber in the woods!  In the commotion he lets go of the 2 leads and there is a major panic with dogs and leads and traffic.

I got that sorted and back to the injured hubby who at this stage, was still was not moving.  We thought he had a broken foot & finger at the very least, as he slowly limped home.  Luckily it was a just a sprained foot and a cut and dislocated finger, but it hurt like hell according to the poor patient.  Guess what, the “Pee- cleaneruperer gang” is now cut by 50%, well you can’t do that with dislocated finger can you!!  I am telling a little fib now as handsome son Kai certainly is doing his share of the “Pee- patrol” too.

Must say though as it turned out little Kicki got her just desserts too, lol.  The next day she was out in the back yard actually sniffing around looking like she was really going to squat and do her business somewhere good, when our dog Cheech came along.  As fate would have it; just as Kicki lifted her head up, Cheech cocked his leg and let go of the longest pee and little KicKi just looked and blinked and blinked as the stream went all over her face and eyes and nose.  She looked cute as a button if you still can do that with your face full of pee?

So here is a quotation to contemplate from Max Eastman and the Enjoyment of Laughter:

“Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx  (C)

The Plains Producer was founded in 1903 under a different name and then had several reincarnations before finally being taken over by Roger Manuel in 1983.  His wife Margaret took over in 1995 after the sad passing of Roger and did a fantastic job and now their son Andrew is continuing in their footsteps with the same passion and vigor.

However it is the present Editor of the Plains Producer Terry Williams that I would like to tell you about – you see he and another Terry (a tale for another day) was my inspiration for this acrylic painting “Terry Tomcat”.   Although Terry says he is more of a Paco Rabanne or Yves St Laurent type of guy!!

So Terry and I go back in the “day” to when newspapers were constructed in huge rooms full of desks overflowing with note books, papers, photos, pens and coffee mugs.  Where reporters, photographers and passersby mingled, argued and swore.  Before the political correctness was even thought off and cigarettes was firmly held in mouths as the clatter of typewriters filled the rooms and of course it goes without saying that at knock off time there were a few beers to be had at the local pub too.   You see Terry is one hell of a “newspaperman” one of those guys that gets right into a story and builds a narrative and also calls a spade a spade when ” it” is one, lol.   He has the knack of telling it how it is, in an everyday fashion which is very appealing.

He has worn many hats over the years starting out as a copyboy in 1968 with the News Limited and going up through the ranks to Features Editor.   In 1983 Terry and his gorgeous wife Lee (and she still is today) had their first “tree change” leaving Glengowrie where Terry was born and raised and together with Lee’s sister Tania bought the lease of the Terminus Hotel in Balaklava, which they ran for 3 years.  Once a newspaperman always a newspaperman I recon, as they returned to Adelaide and bought a couple of news agencies (one of them was the big one Read All About it, at the Myer Centre).  Terry divided his time between the businesses and the Sunday Mail, being lured back there by the then editor Rex Jory, before becoming the assistant Editor of the News in 1990.

Terry says his highlights from those days were helping bring color to newspapers in the early 90’s, redesigning the look of The News and at the same time working as assistant editor. Fulfilling the job of Sporting Editor of the News – with a stint as Sporting Editor at the Brisbane Sun during the Commonwealth Games of 1982 and also working as a Chief of Staff at the Sunday Mail.  However it is when you read between the lines of what Terry says that you find out where his highlights really lie – it’s not the career achievements (and as you see there has been a lot) that matters to him.  It is the people that have crossed his path and the ones that walked with him along the way that really matters (see below the long list of names he mentioned).  So I understand now why I always like to read what he writes – he is a passionate man with a warm heart and a way with words!

I said to Terry just recently that sometimes I wonder why you tucked yourself away in the country, when the whole world could have been your oyster.  His answer was; that he is back here through a range of circumstances, culminating in coming back to help out two days a week while Roger Manuel became ill.  That arrangement was in place from 92-98 when Margaret Manuel took over until she retired and then Andrew (son) took over the helm.

Terry was appointed the part-time Administration Officer of the Country Press Association of SA (organizing all SA country papers)all this whilst still also running his news agencies too, followed by a year of being the Editor of another country paper the Bunyip, so there was a lot of driving involved.   As it happened he was then again offered the job as the Editor of the Plains Producer in early 2005 and the “tree change” back to Balaklava was set in motion.  The Plains Producer won BankSA Best newspaper award (circulation under 5,000) in 96, 99,00,08,09 and Terry won an individual award in 2009 for Best Editorial writing for his columns.  Terry is turning 60 this year and admits to thinking about fishing a little more often in the future and who could blame him for that, although I’m not that sure – once a newspaperman always a newspaperman!

So here is a quote I think fits well here by Earl Warren;

“I always turn to the sports section first.  The sports section records people’s accomplishments; the front page nothing but man’s failures.”

Till next time,

Love Marie xxx   (c)

Footnote;

Here is a list of some of the people that Terry worked with and highly admired.  “Great journalists  like  Rex Jory and Tony Baker, editors like Ron Boland, Kerry Sullivan, Peter Wylie, (now chairman of Advertiser newspapers) John Hartigan (was editor of the Daily Sun in Brisbane – now Chairman and CEO of News Limited in Australia), Roger Holden (was the last owner of The News when it closed in 1992 – March, coming up to 20 years next year!). But also great mentors like the brilliant football writer Lawrie Jervis, – a doyen of sports writers but also a great reporter of politics and more – Marty Ryan, a great sub-editor, Alan Shiell, one of the best sports writers, Murray Nicoll, brilliant reporter, Geoff Jones, Doug Steele and Mike Quirk, all top Chiefs of Staff at The News and journalists who knew their craft and took so many young journalists under their wing (many of the names you see in the national media today were helped by these people at The News), photographers like  Ray Titus (just retired), Bert Stansbury, Ian Coventry, Michael Conry, Ray Grimmond, Dennis Rogers … and many more”.

So this little black chook, yes moi, have been buying up a storm lately of these vouchers, they represent very good value for money.  Who can say no to a dinner for 2, entree, main course, dessert and a bottle of wine at a lovely restaurant valued at $150 and only pay half of that or less.  Or perhaps a haircut, style and colour with a massage and manicure thrown in with a glass of champagne and what about a round of golf with a couple of beers or fancy a spot of bowling for a family of four perhaps? Maybe a day at the zoo for the whole family with lunch, is more to your liking, as this acrylic painting which sold in Japan depicts.

I have been purchasing these deals both for ourselves as well as for gifts to family and friends and so far we had been very happy with our experiences.  That was until last night that is, lol.  It was my husband’s birthday yesterday so a lovely meal was in order and as I had previously bought a voucher with a Lebanese banquet for six, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use it.

We vaguely knew the name of the place but that was years ago and at that stage it was only a take away place.  So the fact that they had now added a restaurant sounded good.  As we are an adventurous family and like new experiences we thought we couldn’t go too wrong.  WRONG!

There were 5 of us in our car and our sons lovely girlfriend drove herself there a bit earlier as she had made a surprise pavlova (cake) for the birthday boy.  She went in and asked to put it in their fridge and then waited for us in the car park.  Poor sweetheart, her eyes were big as saucers by the time we arrived, well so were all of our eyes actually by the time we met up.

You see as we finally got to our destination and found the place we could not believe our eyes – this was still a “take-away joint”, although to give them credit it had undergone a major revamp.  It was now stark and white with a big food counter and a couple of drink fridges, bright neon lights, like a hospital would use and a blinking open sign on the window.  We saw a few customers standing around waiting for their order and some kids running around playing.   They had a total of 3 tables and 2 of those were pushed together in between the counter and the window to fit the birthday party!

Bryan and I were sitting in the car too stunned to speak, luckily our daughter made the call – she said:  “There is no way that we are going to have dads birthday dinner in there”, and with that we all burst out in hysterical laughter till we had tears running down our cheeks.  Then everyone pointed the finger at me of course and said I was banned from buying any more of these you beaut deals on the net!!  Mmm… how quickly they all forget all the other good ones we had gotten, lol but in this case they were right.  So off we went to another establishment known to all of us and a lovely night was had by all.

So in the end it certainly was not a cheap night as in fact we paid for two dinners and one that we will probably never use.  To add insult to injury today I waisted another deal as I forgot to pick the item up when I was in the vicinity and the petrol and time to turn around and go back wasn’t worth it.

So lesson to self – ease up on the deals Marie!

Here is a quote I think fits perfectly here, by Joyce Brothers;

“Credit buying is much like being drunk.  The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift… The hangover comes the day after.

Till next time,

Love Marie xxxx                 (c)