Artistic Journey's first open shop and workshop

This Saturday is our first open shop and workshop since we closed the shop. Not sure how we will go as there has been some website challenges and of course it is election day. If you are like me I am so over politics, seems to be such a negative election going on, I am sick of all the adds on television and just want to get it over and done with, all I can say is that I hope the Greens get the numbers in the Senate to keep both parties in check.

Saturday, 21st, 4pm to 10pm is our first open shop and workshop.

The workshop image is above, phone me if you would like to participate in this, 9377 2343, cost is $25 for workshop plus $10 kit which includes 8 x 10 canvas, paints and paper for background.

How to find us - Carramar hall, Morley
front of hall there is not a lot of parking, is in Marks Place, if you drive up Beechboro Road towards Benara Road, you will see Central Beechboro shops on the right, turn right into Incana place (a short Street) turn right into Marks Place a small cul de sac ,the hall is on the left.
For the back of the hall where there is more parking turn right from Beechboro Road into Benara Road, right into Bottlebrush Drive, turn into Redgum Way which is the first on the right. Follow road around, Carrmar Hall is just past Carramar Retirement village 23a Redgum Dr. Brick fence, car park inside, door will be open at back. If you have any problems my mobile phone is 0418 920 009 Joannes 0437 057 735. If you are staying for workshop etc there is Hungry Jacks and Kentucky Fried around the corner on Benara Road and at the back of the shops a really nice fish and chips shop. We will even bring fresh bread and butter to go with your fish and chips yumm....

We offer you the opportunity to come and shop, do the workshop or just come and work on one of your projects. The hall is not large so we can only provide room for so many, so if you plan to work on your own let us know and we will book you a seat, good opportunity to finish projects or start on something new. The cost for this will be $10 to cover cost of supper and hall hire. Will be a lot of fun, Jo has prizes etc.

We look forward to seeing you all and would love any suggestions from you on what you would like to be included in these open days which we will hold once a month.

We are hoping the Somerset Studio magazines will be in and we have new products as well as our more popular products.

new vehicle

this little beauty is what has been keeping me busy for the last couple of weeks. to travel out to regional Australia to teach workshops I needed another vehicle, my little Subaru Sherpa that I have had since 1986 can no longer cope with long trips. the sherpa has been a wonderful little car, it only cost me $20 every two weeks for petrol and had the most amazing spacious back to put stock in. my family nicknamed it the shopping basket on wheels. had a brief life as a getaway car by my son, it put up with a lot too. when it was overheating once thinking I was doing the right thing I put water in the engine!!!! yup I did, when I started it up the radiator cap blew off with dirty water everywhere, fortunately it was outside my workplace and there was a car repair shop down the back, they pushed it down then it took a couple of days for all the water to be drained out. the young boys where I worked lifted my whole car and moved it for a prank. I loved my little car, had no trouble keeping up with the traffic and I will be really sad to see it go. does anyone else get so attached to a car. it was so reliable and never let me down.
said new vehicle in the background, a volkeswagen caddi life, seats 7 but the back seats lift out easily to use as a van. automatic, I have resisted automatic cars for ever, I like driving and my opinion is that you don't drive an automatic you just steer it, makes you lazy, so I guess I will become lazy, hope I don't lose concentration when travelling in the country. but it is a joy to drive and using diesel should be economical, its turbo mmmmh that could be dangerous. the plan is that when John stops working in 3 years he will sell his car and just use the van, or could keep the sherpa and he could use that haha I suggested that, didn't go down well, why are males so concerned about the vehicle they drive, I would be happy driving a truck or a jeep long as it got me where I was going.

oh well grumpy old woman to you......

GREAT GRANDSON

update on our only great grandson, such a boy, look at that dirty little face building up immunity. walking around the sofa's, not able to walk on his own yet but not far off. so much fun, Jo, Samara and I went around to have lunch and spend time with Jessica and the little boy.

Camellia's

We have rain again, this winter has been particularly dry, no rain for two weeks and the gardens where starting to dry out, I believe that we are to get about a weeks rain, bring it on... I love camillia's and have had no luck growing them here in Australia until now. I have planted them under the climbing roses that have bushed out giving protection from the sun.
This beautiful white one is quite large, it had a lot of large buds, but they seemed to just drop off before flowering but have had a couple come into flower, so I am happy.This one is half the size of the white one, it has white outer petals and the frilly inner petals are a cream, not quite as dark cream as in this photo, has lots of flowers coming out, this one is perhaps a bit older. I am afraid I don't know what their names are, I buy because I like the colour. I have a third one which is smaller still, didn't get a chance to take a photo when it was in bloom, the plant is only about 12 inches high, I think it is a low grower. I do love white camellias, especially in the darkness under the roses. Maybe next year I will be able to pick some and bring them inside.

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.