coming to a wall near you!

I love getting things in the post! Most often it's Fimo. Last week it was a new set of gorgeous Escoda paintbrushes, still waiting impatiently for me to use them (lots of drawings to finish this past week).

But today, some very special pieces of paper arrived- the invitations and flyers for my upcoming show, 'strange creatures, sweet allsorts'. Be sure to swing past my stall this Thursday at Mindil, Friday at Palmerston (both the last for the year) or Saturdays at Parap to pick one up for yourself, and another for a friend!

And of course- watch this space for more sneepy peeps leading up to the December 2nd showdown!

Mel x

the woodchopper's daughter

My Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Steve have a wonderful sprawling house in Tyers, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. I spent almost half my childhood in this house, and it is one of my very favourite places to be in the world. 

From the lounge-room window at night-time, you can see all the lights in the LaTrobe Valley, like so many fallen stars waiting for the morning to return home. In the summer, the cicadas chirp and the air crackles with hot winds and the whispering of the pine plantations my father’s family have forested for so many generations. The backyard backs onto a gully, verdant with grass and blackberries my four-year old self would happily stain her fingers and mouth with, once I'd tired of petting Mitsy, my Aunt's pet goat. When I was five, my grandpa and Uncle Steve built me a cubby house with a view of the gully, and it was here I'd eat my Coco-Pops before Auntie took me to school in the morning.

There was always a friend for me to play with: Sam, the first of many faithful labradors my Aunt and Uncle have loved over the years, who would patiently sit anywhere he was told to whilst I stroked his velvety ears. There was dear old Skippy, so named for the leg he lost in a rabbit-trap as a kitten. Never was there a fluffier, happier little rag-bag cat, a marvel to watch as he hopped along at a quicker clip than most of us care to walk. After Sam went to doggy heaven there was Jake, who had eyes only for Uncle. Auntie and Uncle would always talk to him like a real person, and Jake seemed to understand them: he knew the word 'rabbit' meant sit up straight and proud like a setter and scan the lounge-room for any possible hoppity interlopers. He also knew the word 'bike' meant real and proper adventure in his elderly years: Jake had been trained as a puppy to sit in a (rather largish) crate my uncle had attached to the back of the motorbike he used to check on his cattle. Roaming around on the property was Jake's favourite thing, besides his 'Dad', my uncle.

The house itself is huge. Uncle took it upon himself about ten years ago to renovate parts of it, starting with a beautiful black slate floor to run its' length. At the time there were three mini-lounge rooms, which Uncle turned into one. The supporting beam is a sleeper from the old Melbourne docks, now festooned with gas lanterns to hang from the arm-sized nails that still stick from it. Backing onto the lounge room is a wooden deck, where I loved to sit as a child and listen to storms as the rain pounded and bounced in a deafening roar off the fibreglass canopy.

But my favourite of all is the wall by the front door. This has become a kind of family tree photo album over the years: hand coloured black and white, my beautiful late Grandma and my Grandpa on their wedding-day. Their features alike and ghostly with the age of the paper, my Uncle's family, the Richards, when they used to run the mill on Mount Erica. My beautiful cousin Kylie in her twenties, with freckles on her nose and the sweetest little pixie-cut. My Uncle's sister, who to me was always 'Auntie Pat', her lovely heart-shaped features framed by a silky-grey mane of hair, spilling down to her waist while she made something sparkly and delicate with her hands. Me, blonde and five years old on my first day of school.

But my favourite picture on this red-brick wall is of my Uncle Steve. Here, he is twenty-two, laughing hugely and balanced confidently atop a man-sized log; his hands gripping an axe that is forever caught in mid-air, mid-chop, hair bouncing thickly to his shoulders. I can't imagine he's changed all that much in the forty years since this photo was taken, though his hair, even in black and white, seemed closer to a crimson than the strawberry, pepper-flecked tones he keeps in his sixties, and much longer. But there is that same twinkle in his eye, of mischief, of a face that smiles often; a face that looks at home with a deep rumbling belly laugh or a few bars of an Elvis song, pitch perfect. In photos I've seen of Uncle a little later, he lopped his curls off into an Elvis-style pompadour. And when I came along, we'd spend afternoons in the sun room, he on the keyboard and backing up my broken little vocals to 'How much is that doggy in the window'.

'The Woodchopper's Daughter' is a little tribute to all of this: a landscape of gum and pine, of crackly summer days, of a house- you can't see it yet, but just over that hill yonder, of childhood adventures. And the hum of an Elvis song.

Mel x

goodbye dear friend

It's been sad here.

Three weeks ago Dave and I came home from a rare day out to find a tiny bobtail kitten on our doorstep. After wolfing down the entire contents of Monty's foodbowl, I tried following the advice of the local pound and attempted to drop her off at a vet's. Of course, they couldn't take her, and it being 5.30 in the evening, the shelters had closed. I took her back home where she made herself cosy on the couch, did kitty things in Monty's litter box without any prompting or accidents, and at night, jumped daintily onto our bed and fell asleep between us. By the next afternoon, she'd been checked over for a microchip (not surprising she hadn't one given how dirty and starving she'd been), given a bath, and, little guts swollen like a barrel and spotted fur aglow, claimed as ours. We called her Willow- her tabby colourings gave her a shimmery look in the light when she bounded along like a miniature bear, but her paw-pads were a smoky black, as if she'd trod in willow charcoal.

Monty, quite naturally, had his wee nose out of joint for the few days following the arrival of this interloper, and spent his waking hours chasing her like a common dog, obsessing over her tiny twitchy tail. By the weekend, Dave and I would wake up to find them sound asleep on the leather office chair, each a rounded ball of fluff and spots. Monty was a complete gentleman, and sat aside patiently whenever Willow decided she wanted to scoff her face at the foodbowl. I even caught him giving her a little kitty kiss.

And then Monty got really sick. After two trips to the vet and two relapses of listlessness and a complete disinterest in food or anything else, we knew our bouncy kitten wasn't right. More tests and another x-ray showed he had both FIV and inflamed kidneys. We visited him at the vet's for most of last week, to try to tempt him with his favourite snack of sausages, to brush his lovely fur and tell him how much we loved him. Mostly we just cried.

The vet told me on Monday morning that Monty had passed away. We'd been looking forward to the day, partly because he'd been booked in for an ultrasound at another clinic, and he always loved car rides. Mostly we just wanted to spend as much time with him as we could. He was seven months old. The vet told us he'd very likely contracted the FIV from his mother, which is pretty rare. Fully-blown FIV, like human AIDS, doesn't really make itself known until the cats are quite a bit older. We would never have known, and we're so thankful we didn't. The kidney failure was just one of those things- rare, but not unheard of.

Our little Monty had the very best five months with us, and we with him. It's so hard losing a pet, and harder still to explain to people without them why you feel like part of your world has ended. I grew up as an only child, but was always surrounded by cats. I told them my secrets. They snuggled especially close when I was sick or sad. They were always there, quiet company to fill a room and my heart.

Goodbye Monty.

promises and (a lack of) sleep

Hullo lovely readers! Indeed, I have not been hit by that stray satellite that Yahoo tells me will soon implode on as yet unknown destination, but am alive and will probably remain so for some time yet. We are nearing the slow season market-wise, with only five weeks and about as many tourists floating about in the increasing heat. And yet, our little shop seems to be plodding along better and better every week. Dave ventured out a few weeks back, bit the bullet and bought a gazebo, and last week managed a 'system' whereby everything is crammed into our little Mazda within an inch of it's life, and my face is pressed pleasantly against the windscreen (I'm joking, that's not legal, advisable or comfortable, but is an exercise for the aspiring contortionist).

We've also got a whole heap of postcards- handy for all of those holiday postcards you've been putting off- they're so pretty you only need fill out your address and your loved ones will think all their Christmases have come at once! Also very handy for offloading any unwanted shrapnel you might have, you know, weighing down your pockets.

If it's groceries that's weighing you down, we've decided the best way to support local initiatives in banning plastic bags is to make our own- for $25 you can have your very own Nariko tote:

And coming later this week, another featuring the super-popular Cloud Princess:

In the way of prints over the past few weeks, I've sold out of: 'Crimson Cloaked and Hearted', 'Redjamjellysplat', 'Tea Time' and 'White Lace and Snow'. Originals are still available for all of these besides 'Tea Time' and 'Redjamjellysplat', and are available for sale after December. I'm selling fast out of 'The Cloud Princess', 'I  ♥ Bubble Tea', 'Alice Liddell's Pink Flamingo', 'Gnome Tea' and 'The Wondrous Cycling Piggy'. You are more than welcome to send me an email or swing by one of my market stalls to pop a deposit on one of these beauties before they sell out- they would make wonderful Christmas presents! 

And, because of the sheer number of lovely ladies asking after them, and because we hate disappointed faces in the pursuit of bling, Dave and I have been pulling a few all-nighters to put our sweet allsort necklaces back on the table:

Sorry folks, there's no custom-orders on these. Every mixed necklace is treated as an individual piece of wearable art, and is, like the fox in 'The Little Prince', 'unique in all the world'. I am considering doing multiples of the watermelons however, but you might just have to hold your wee horses on this one- these are a labour of love and when all's said and done, each necklace can take up to a day to make.

And, last but not the least of my 3am bedtime efforts this week, a new painting, 'Promises and Sleep':

All of this contributes to a very pretty-looking little set-up, if I do say so myself!

All nice things for a wonderful weekend,
Mel x

and on the grumpy star shop today: something old, something newer and something . . . pink!

Good morning lovely readers! Today, and Thursdays in particular, find up to my shoulders, not in cake and Caran D'Ache pencils as I would like (come on, we all have weird fantasies about it raining watercolour pencils, right?) but into-do lists, which are decidedly much less fun. And also very nearly sold out of another edition- namely, 'Redjamjellysplat!'. If you've had your eye on her now is the time to bite the bullet and snavel the very last one, my own copy (the A.P. or artist's proof) in fact! She's been so popular I just know someone will come along one night and just fall in love- and I know better than anyone the eleventh commandment for all Artskind: 'Thou shalt not stand in the way of beautiful useless objects coveted by thy neighbour'.

And in the way of said objects, here's a few little beauties I've popped up on the Grumpy Star shop recently. I drew "The Goose-Girl" over Christmas last year and I'm very proud of her, created as she is of the humble mechanical pencil and nothing more. "Alice Liddell's Pink Flamingo" is a painting I finished yesterday, based on a drawing I did 6 months ago (no chocolate-based treats for you bright sparks who manage to decode my thinly veiled reference to a certain piece of literature lately enjoying a lot of reinventing). And 'Dorothy, Toto and New Shoes' was a drawing I did while sitting in the Spanish wetlands one sunny day shortly after this year's Bologna Book Fair. She was a lot of fun, and I especially like Toto as a sort of minature labrador.

Speaking of dogs, I have taken it into my head I would very much like to be the owner of a French bulldog in the not-too distant future. Monty refuses to comment on the matter and Dave's response was a rather emphatic 'No' when I sought a penny for his thoughts. Perhaps I need to refer him to the eleventh commandment?

Happy Thursdays to all, and to all- happy seeking of beautiful useless objects!

Mel x

hullo nariko!

Happy Friday everybody! I'd like to introduce you to Nariko, my sweet little working-class panda. Here she is, waiting for the 7.15 am train into town, already thinking about the lovely milky chai she'll be sharing with her friends after work. She has taken particular care to kohl her eyes just right today; if you can't tell by her Mona Lisa smile, she's secretly hoping her friends will bring along a certain boy panda who she has a rather largish secret crush on! Wish her luck!

Meanwhile, the Grumpy Star stall at Mindil, Parap and Palmerston markets continues to chortle along more than merrily, and I am always reminded, with everybody's lovely comments, of how lucky and fortunate I am to do the job I do. A huge thanks to everyone for your love and support, and panda-hugs all round!

Mel x

goodbye, boy with the heart balloons

Hullo everyone! It is Monday, which as it turns out lately, is my new Saturday. As you all know, I've been all-systems-a-go-go on the market circuit, meeting loads of lovely new people as well as all the new discoveries of creative folk and their doings in my own backyard. Sunday nights are my favourite at Mindil Beach I think; everybody is in such good spirits, things are a bit more relaxed than the madness of Thursday nights, and everybody is keen to start a new week off right by sharing their smiles and stories with me. This is my favourite part of my job; being an artist so often means working in isolation, so market days are kind of like having mini art-openings but without all the anxiety, formality, wanky philosophical musings and vinegar masquerading as alcohol. Yes, I have the best job ever!

I am very excited and a mite sad to tell you I have sold my edition of ten that was 'The Boy with the Heart Balloons'. If you missed out, you might be interested to know the original is as yet unspoken for and you're very welcome to send me an email should you want to give him a nice home!

Sitting on my market stall four times a week has certainly been a learning curve; with my lovely Dave's help, we improve part of our set-up a little bit more each week. I have to say again how overwhelmingly positive and supportive people have been in these first few months of business, and I am never not grateful or unaware that this has been one of the biggest factors in our success so far. Your comments and stories always buoy me up and inspire me to improve my painting, thank-you!

Happily, so many of the people who have bought artwork off me these past few months are parents, buying work expressly for their children to grow up with, appreciate and love forever. I am always so happy to talk to Mums and Dads who take the time to explain the editioning process to their children who ask what those funny numbers are at the bottom left of all my work, and who nurture their children's imagination. These children will much more easily accept creativity into their lives as young adults, and their journey will be the richer for it. Through artwork we become more accepting of ourselves and others, and increasingly are able to respect and embrace the things that make us different. As I often say to people when they ask me why I do what I do: art isn't one of those essential things for our survival like air or water. But it makes life so much the more enjoyable, and by that measure, it is absolutely necessary.

The other day, a woman pushing a pram walked past and noticed our hero of the heart balloons.  "Oh. He's a boy. So why is he wearing pink?". She didn't address this to me, and didn't linger long in any case: she had already dismissed the work, I am convinced, because it didn't fit into her understanding of 'male' or 'masculinity' (honestly, hasn't she seen 'Alfie' and Jude Law's famous proclamation that men need not fear pink when masculinity oozes from their very pores? Or, more to the point, if said sebaceous secretion does not occur, is a man or boy favouring a pink shirt really anybody's business anyway?). I thought gender-stereotyping was on the out, but clearly sheer ignorance keeps this sort of close-mindedness alive and kicking. Perhaps she was related to the dolt who told me I was 'un-Australian' because I buy my paints from Italy and paper from Germany. And perhaps they will have xenophobic little children who will wear pink and blue accordingly and never challenge anything because they weren't encouraged to. Is it just me, or does this smack of Stepford?

If we build boxes so small and tight about our understandings of the world, we leave no room for new discoveries and the potential to experience something wonderful and inspiring: we leave no room to grow. I was having a conversation with a young friend of mine this weekend, who, being still in her teens, commented that there's a scary sort of norm in adults doing menial jobs they hate and subsequently moan about, and all the while push their dreams further down into that box marked 'forgotten'. 

This is what the heart balloons represent: those lost and forgotten things that we once wanted, those hopes we had that eventually deflated because we listened too closely to those who said we couldn't or shouldn't. This is what the boy is sorry for, and why he tries to give new hope to punctured dreams that otherwise might not ever see light again. 

Will the boy hold a balloon for you?