Innovative shop

Last week my oldest daughter's birthday was coming up, 45 years young, mhhh that makes one feel not so young. I find it very difficult to buy something that I hope she will like. Looked at cashmere scarves, didn't move me, books, nothing new that she doesn't have, drifted into the jewellery counters at David Jones when inspiration hit me. Why support the large stores when you are looking for something unique, it wont be found there. Now I have for a long time loved a unique little shop, part gallery and they always support artists, that's my sort of shop. And what a unique name 'Behind the Monkey'. After perusing all the beautiful artist made jewellery I decided on some really unusual earrings, picasso-esq by Jewellery artist Karen Thompson. If you go to http://behindthemonkey.com.au/ and scroll down to the July 4 entry on their blog.
This lovely lady and her daughter are so creative, above is my gift wrapped with imaginative wings made from a magazine page, and on the left is a little envelope made from another magazine page to hold my credit card and receipt, rolled up is the artist's bio and tied with string, the little details mean so much.

The windows are constantly changed and worth a visit in themselves, if you are in Perth, make a point of visiting this wonderful shop, you won't regret. A couple of doors down is Elmo's who have the most amazing continental meats, try a hot kransky sausage, saurkrout and mustard dressing on a breadroll, yum.

We have some very talented artist's in Perth and Behind the monkey is the place to see some of them

Have a great weekend

Jacky

Jim Morrison and the Doors

I booked tickets to see the documentary 'When you're strange' about Jim Morrison and the band the Doors.John and I braved the rain to see it last night at the Astor Cinema, an Art Deco cinema in Mount Lawley. John does not like to get out of his comfort zone and go to cinema's so that was a feat in itself, I think he enjoyed it, a man of few words is John.

I did not remember Jim Morrison and the Doors, at the time I was busy bringing up children, at that time all you seemed to hear on the radio was that punk rock which I could not stand. I like gutsy rock music, forget about the punk bit. Although I do recall hearing 'Light my fire' and loving its energy. I loved the film, loved the music, to me he had a man voice and I loved that.I had been intrigued with Jim Morrison ever since I took photo's of his grave at Pere le chaise (spelling probably not accurate) and read that his fans came and had parties at his graveside they grafitti'ed over all the surrounding graves so that now it has a security guard there to prevent any further actions, beer bottles would be left there for him, and how one admirer stole the bust that was on his headstone. I like that he was anti establishment and a non conformist, things I wish I was brave enough to be. He was a beautiful adonis, strutting the stage or leaping into the air in such abandon. Ray Manzek they keyboardist in the Doors band remembers his friend as Jimbo, his wild irish heritage, was on one side the gentle dreamer in his poetry and on the other this wild man with his lust for sex, alcohol, self destruction and anything forbidden by the authority of conservative middle class America. Throughout the documentary Johnny Depp's narration was sensitive and soulful. The original footage of the night in Miami, Jim provoked a mass hysteria and riots in the 15,000 overcrowded venue that safely held 10,000. This resulted in the police closing down the concert after the temporary scaffolding collapsed and Jim was thrown into the crowd. Jim was charged with inciting a riot and indecency charges and the rest of the tour cancelled. If you get a chance go see this documentary I do believe that it is also out on dvd. enjoy!!!!

Well I have got back into things again, our looming Miss Johnson's Vintage and Handmade Market next Friday has a lot to do with that. Nothing like a deadline to get you moving. As I wanted to make something new for our market I have pulled out the sewing machine, as finding things is still an issue, have decided to not stress and just go with what I can find. These little dresses are my inspiration for a range of products that I think suit vintage as I use vintage materials and I think they have a romantic shabby chic look. I am in the process of making small heart cushions and wall hangers to go with them. The photo above is the dresses before I wash them

These are after I have soaked them in boiling water, then screwing them real tight to take the water out, I then hang them on the line to dry. All this does is take out the dressing in the fabric and give it a nice wrinkly look which I like, think it gives it an old look. When they are dry they are also quite stiff.This is a close up look of the detail on the pocket. I still need to sew some beads on and do a little bit of embroidery. Make a wire coat hanger and make a pocket parcel to package when sold. I was inspired by Ruth Rae's book 'layered, tattered & stitched' on fabric art. I have tried to add my own slant on her designs.

I have just learnt a knew trick with my point and shoot digital camera, there is a little flower symbol which when pressed down gives a cool macro lens for close up photo's, this is my photo I took using that symbol, pretty cool aye, bit scarey too, can you see all that dust on the tray grhhh.... just because I am working from home, housework has to take a back seat to deadlines. I have been looking a SLR digital camera's, now I have a SLR camera that we bought about 30 years ago with all these cool lenses by Tokina at considerable expense. I haven't used it since I got my digital point and shoot, I have looked into the possibility of buying a case only digital SLR that I could use the Tokina lens attached, unfortunately it is not recommended as technology has moved tremendously in 30 years, and the cases of a digital SLR may not be compatible. So decision has been made that as the my point and shoot does take good photo's I am going to take my SLR in to make sure batteries etc still working and enquire if film is still available and just go back to taking special photo's with film. I am thinking that possibly rather than having the photo's developed and printed, that I may be able to get them on a disk that I can manipulate etc on the computer and print only the photo's I like. Anyone out there still using SLR camera's and film?

Have a wonderful weekend full of fun and enjoyment, after all that is what weekends are for.

Jacky

journey over

Well its all over, we finally finished cleaning up the shop at 8.30pm Saturday week ago, so much work but we got there with a lot of help from family. Husbands are such treasures at a time like this. Anthony, Joannes husband with the help of his family did all the heavy lifting of cabinets, taking down wall panelling, and John followed up with filling all the holes you get in the walls of old buildings, sanding and painting. We where very grateful for all their help.
Now its a case of getting back into a routine, we have had a week of rest to get over it all and time to move on. We have our Miss Johnson's Vintage and Handmade Market in less than 3 weeks and I need to make new products for this. I have semi cleared my studio, well at least enough to move around, finding things is challenging, but hey I have all day to do it...... Its also time to get back into my blogging and I will try to make it a bit more interesting for you.

countdown

One week to go, and a full on one, party with the class girls on Wednesday then close the shop doors Thursday, packing and carting all the stock and fittings we are keeping to our respective homes. This all with some trepidation but lots of excitement.....
My friday foto, I am all dressed up and ready to go.
This week the Expertise Craft and Quilt fair rolled into town, this fair has been very disappointing the last few years, but Phillipa and I arranged to have a day out just in case it had improved and we where very pleasantly surprised. As usual the first two rows where the same old same old so we scooted down the back and started from there. Lots of fibre art stalls this time and a lot of knitting yarns in silks, hemp, cotton in fact very little in wool, beautiful colours, vibrant or muted, I was tempted, but no, I am not going there. Same with the fibre art, I just love it, but don't want to do it, but I can always find products to incorporate with my mixed media.

I didn't buy all that much but got heaps of inspiration. Above is my purchases, floral papers, a beautiful piece of heavy cotton fabric with lovely roses on, the girl serving on this stall Studio Mio
had made an apron of this fabric and washed it and it has faded beautifully, very aged shabby chic, this stall has all sorts of things for making handbags and I always buy a lot from them. They usually have lovely Japanese fabrics also. Next to this fabric is more fabric, amazing hemp fabric from Goergina Mavor this was her first time at this fair, other than the hemp of which I bought two pieces in different shades of vintage white the indigo cotton piece was also from her. I did mean to go back to her stall and buy some of the gorgeous sheets of paper she carried, big sheets amazing colours, but never made it. On the Indigo cotton some fake cameos, great for fabric journals. Finally a book "the art of polymer clay", looks really good. After the fair we walked up to St Georges Terrace (the money area of Perth) for a bite to eat, the food at the fair is over priced and average in taste, hence heading into town for lunch, well worth it too. We had a wonderful sisters day out, it was a lovely sunny mild autumn day. We caught the train in then walked to the fair, area's we hadn't been before, should of taken my camera, oh well.....

Tomorrow, granddaughter Samara, Joanne and I are going to the Art Gallery to see the exhibition by mixed media artist from Hobart, Patricia Piccinini, above is one of her sculptures, and yes the little boy is a sculpture, isn't it amazing, I am so looking forward to seeing them in the flesh so to speak. I am now going to have more time to do this sort of thing.
Have a great weekend ...

Saturdays

I have a little routine going on Saturdays, I call into the organic shop first to get fruit and veges. The reason I go so early is that they shut at 1.30 and I don't close until 2. Then its onto Galleria to get fresh bread at Bakers Delight and a cup of coffee to go at Aroma Cafe, nice coffee...... I open the shop and as its not usually busy on Saturday I settle down with my coffee, check and answer my emails. My blog is next and check up on my favourite blogs to see what everyone is doing, make comments because its nice to get comments. A couple of hours have gone by and now its my time to work on some art either for class samples or just for meWhen I am being creative I tend to make one helluva mess, pulling things out of this old suitcase (love my old suitcases) matching colours and textures, a bit of old lace here, braid there, scraps of velvet or linen and so it goes on, this can take me quite a while.
Only two more weeks in the shop and we will move everything out in that time, packing up paper packs, fabric packs and old metal packs to sell in the shop sale or have ready to sell at the markets after we shut shop, don't want to just lug it all home, will never find anything that way. I dont know what I will do on Saturdays when the shop shuts, guess I will form another routine, I am such a creature of habit, I am sure i will be quite lost to begin with, however we have Miss Johnson's Vintage and Handmade Market that we run coming up 25th and 26th June and I do want to make lots for that. We will be also selling a lot of our vintage peices from the shop and those I have stashed in the garage at home. Joanne will take most of the stock to her house, she has a converted attached garage that is her workroom so will fit a lot in there. I will carry all the workshop stuff plus the materials for making stock. It will be edging into the bedroom and sliding into bed from the bottom for a little while until that can be all sorted and taken to our market.

Mothers Day

tomorrow is Mothers Day, happy Mothers Day to all those readers who are also Mothers. My mother has been gone about 16 years and I miss her so very much. I was truly blessed with a mother who believed in everything I did (mmh not quite everything), was never judgemental, never believed I could do anything wrong. She made us the most beautiful clothes, show day we always got a lovely new dress, and I felt like a little princess, which was pretty amazing as most of the time I was this ferral skinny kid with wild curly hair and freckles. My dad was a painter and decorator and spent a lot of time away from home painting in the country, this didn't stop mum from taking us out at night, my biggest fears where at night (growing up in rural NZ with story telling sessions with my Moari friends on ghost's from their rich cultural beliefs, water spirits where the ones I feared most), I never saw any fear from her when we walked in the dark, with us four girls that close to her it was a wonder she could walk at all. In later years I realised how patient my mother was, we where constantly moving around, I never heard her complain about it, as long as she had her husband by her side and her four daughters that was where home was, she didn't really get a chance to buy nice home things and made do with what she could but it was always homely.New show dresses, mum and me on the right side with my auntie and cousins at the Gisborne show, see those cool vintage cars.
Love and miss you mum.....