Badde Manors Cafe

This is a very big drawing/painting of Badde manors cafe in the 1990's. I worked there as a vegetarian chef and most of all eggy and popular for the scram tofu.
I worked there mostly at weekends doing the breakfast shift. The rest of the time I was doing art, shows, working with the council and community's.
All the people I got to know and the people that worked or frequented Badde manors I put them in the post card.
There was a first addition post card but when people saw it and they weren't in it, I put them in the second addition. I made an elaborate card stand with two cherubs carved out of polystyrene covered with papermache. Then made a gold frame for the original and put it up at Badde Manors and put the post cards on the mantle piece. They were a great idea the money went towards more art projects or helped me out when staving.
This picture is a time capsule of everything going on around Badde Manors at the time, there was performance art, circus, protesting in Victoria park about the Olympics, lantern making, surfing. I am the egg lady on the bike with chicken in trailer. Craving a chocolate pyramid and raspberry sorbet with a mango lassie.
There is 50 postcards that have been found left over from the 500 printed. They are for sale at Ten ozzie dollars each and the funds go towards the Fabulas Otto native tree growing project.

Bradford and Ikley by tut.

This postcard I done at Bradford college in inks and pen. The picture was a entry for a
trade and industry Christmas card competition. I tried to fit in everything that Bradford had to offer even an out side toilet, lots of cats and whippets. Beer and sheep.
The card came second but was two colourful for first prize. I think they wanted lots of snow mixed with misery. To my surprise my picture got in the paper with a giant check of £50 made out to me and shaking hands with the big trade guy.

Evans Above Resturant

This lino cut I did when I was at Yarmouth Art college in the late 80's. The restaurant was opened in Lodden by the broads by my sister and her new husband, Mr Evans.
It was hard times as recession had started. This was a lino cut done from a drawing at the restaurant of the band while the good times rolled. I turned the picture into a postcard at the end of the course.

Nova's ark 2 Etchings

These etchings are all I could find from the book I had made. 20 years can move things around.
The first etching is my imagnation putting together all the polluting things that ruin the planet. The itching is a made up city. When I got to Sydney I brought a few etchings with me, this one I was told was just like Sydney with the harbour bridge and centre point tower, oil spills, low flying plans, tower blocks.
The last one is a naked naturist last super made up of Nova and his family in a tower block flat with views out the window of tower blocks.
I spent a year working on the plates and drawings.
It would be nice to etch again, but finding time. I have reasontly refreshed my knowledge and had my friend Jo show me on his press.

Nova's ark pop up book

A modern day Noah's ark, set in council flat city scrape, Nova gets a message from pop up God to pack up the animals in twos to save them from the planet that the humans had destructed with there pollution. The sea levels were rising and Nova had to build a boat in his back garden out of scrap Wood he found in skips.
The ark moves round the world and final comes across land after messages from doves and whales and the rain stopping.
I made this book in a flat in Middlesbourgh, for my final project at Cleveland college in 1992. I have always had a fascination with pop up books and my step Grandfather had a very nice collection of old ones, that still worked.
I wasn't that keen on the story having anything to do with religion. It just fitted in with my early perception of global warming. My main criticism in this work is it is two colourful, so I took it to Bradford and Ikley College print department and turned the same story into dark etchings, then I made a wooden book with hinges, washed up wood and massive lock and put the etchings in it. I wrote some of the words backwards and made them into etchings, I put more emotion into the pictures and they turned out dark and moody.

The Great Egg Race

This painting is a twin set, but is missing one of the set. A few months ago my brother Justin came over from Australia and was shopping in the city of Norwich, when I had my art on the railings. He needed a present to take home to his wife Janet.
He haggled with his poor sister and bought the painting. Took it to Australia to hang with the rest of his Eloise O'Hare collection.
This is the other painting of the twin set and still for sale.
Its a batic and paint technique.

Giant Puppets

These puppets were made with the Chinese elderly community of Pyrmont and Ultimo in Sydney. The Lady's taught me a few sewing techniques when making the giant costumes to go on the puppets. The puppets on the festival day were great fun to play with. They took lots of people to move the arms and legs and the body was strapped on. Everyone could not stop laughing.

Pop video circus

This photo was taken of Alyx doing her fire twirling her her chameleon costume in a tunnel in next to the Cylow's in Newtown.
I made the must of the circus costumes and done body painting on the tattoo lady (Sara Shera), I starred in it myself in Rubin's spring costume and went as Jill in a box. Rumple Stiltskin turned up and juggled snakes. Fire twirling, juggling, stilt walkers. WE had a full circus for the day.
The lead Nick Freedman turned up on an alternative day to be filmed. He didn't want me to do his costumes. He had his rock star shirt. The video was made by Pigfish films and went out on MTV. I would like to see the film again.
The name of the song was Dead circus. Not a good name for a song.

Mascon Festival One T-shirts

My mum recently gave me this Mascon Festival t-shirt. She had kept it in a draw for years - I must have posted her a t-shirt at the time of the festival, in 1996. I have framed this unworn t-shirt on a canvas; it holds many good memories of the festival.

Envirocraft

I designed this logo for Envirocraft. The company teaches kids about recycling and making craft from factory waste. I worked with them on Woodford Festival, Big Day Out and many other projects.

Mikael, the head of the company, used to give me huge rolls of softlon to make into giant costumes. He now drives around doing workshops around Australia.

Whale workshops at Woodford Festival

This whale tent took a lot of engineering and could never have been built without the help of bamboo expert Raj. ‘Bamboo Raj’ had grown bamboo especially for the whale tent and taught us how to split and join bamboo.

The whale tent was made for the Woodford Festival in the childrens activities area by Mikeal from Envirocraft, the great artist Kath Ellis, Sara Shera and me. The area where we slept at the festival had a big snake, I put a hammock up in the trees looking out over the festival, just to be off the ground, from snakes.

The Bamboo construction went up, the fabric went over it and then the kids visiting the festival made whale hats and masks from waste factory foam (and occasionally got soaked by the rain making machine that was constructed to cool the kids down in the Oueensland heat, on the inside of the whale tent).

And the bamboo training did send Kath and me into a bamboo frenzy back in Sydney.

Walking the streets cat walk

After doing the Hand 'n' Hand floor shows me and my mates decided to start our own fashion range. The result was a line of sexy clothes made from truck tires.

The cat walk in the photo was put up in King Street in Sydney. After the show a photo shop on King Street made a little model of us doing the cat walk and displayed it in the shop window. It was great to have been photographed but slightly weird to see myself shrunk and put in a window.

Even the Clothes are Naked went on sale in Marty's Yumeo Clothing shop on Oxford Street but no one wanted these life time wearing super clothes which drive people wild with desire when wearing…

Hand 'n' Hand

This pictures show the costumes I designed with Marty Jay and our gang for the Hand 'n' Hand show at Fox Studios. Everything about Hand ‘n’ Hand was great, from doing research by watching old films and drawing illustration at the weetabix factory where I lived at the time.

Vanessa Wagner starred in the show and came down from the ceiling from a helicopter. The shows became more and more elaborate each year as we would always think of something wilder to do. The parties were huge fundraisers for the Acon Trust that helps people with HIV.

Goodbye Jolly Swimmers

A commissioned painting of friends having a jolly time in the sea has arrived safely in Denmark. Sad to see it go as I really enjoyed painting it. If you would like a me to do a commission of your family swimming in the sea please do contact me. Might have to do one of my family too.

Bread on the table

Due to the so-called credit crunchy I'm now offering a barter/swap service for my art. Being an artist I have always been in the credit crunch so it is nothing new to me, but it may be to others.

I used to barter all the time. For instance, I’ve done mosaicing outside of the Alfa House food co-op in Sydney in return for a life time’s triple discount on food and I always got into theatres, circuses and gigs through by drawing the shows. I also know of businesses in Melbourne that commissioned artists to make sculptures for their shops. It made the area a real tourist attraction and brought in lots of business.

Right now I’m urgently looking for a dentist who can give me a new front tooth in return for a painting or mural. Today I was hit with a dentist bill just for a filling, which I can hardly afford. If you’re an art-appreciating dentist, drop a line!

Mini Jont

My very talented friend Rosie Johnson, has just made a "mini Jont and guitar". I loved it so much that I just had to put the picture up here.

Jont is of course the organiser of the Unlit Tour, which is now coming to an end. It has been great to see tour in Norwich and to follow them online. I wish more musicians toured in this way. My friend Guy Freer toured the world with Machine Translations and in those days all that was possible was to get a postcard of whichever country they were in. Jont and Dave have got it all; webcams, proper edited films, twitter, blogs, websites and sponsorship. It's a great way of connecting creative people and entertaining us all at the same time.

Green house closed

For many years children have used the greenhouse to grow vegetables, but sadly the Livesey Children's Museum has now closed - against the community's and Universe's will. George Livesey, who was an amazing engineeer and who had donated the building for community and public use, will be turning in his grave.

Let's hope a fairy saves it.

Organically grown greenhouse

More about the greenhouse…

The greenhouse has a large door so it’s wheelchair friendly and has a second smaller door to let the air in. The pitched roof is good to break the wind and to collect rainwater. Plants like fresh rainwater.

The greenhouse project coincided with the an interactive exhibition about the energy at the museum. There was a small room made from glass bottles and pictures of buildings made from tyres, bottles and soil. There was lots and lots to do there for children and it was all very educational and easy to learn.

Green House

The photos show the building of a plastic bottle greenhouse at the Livesey Museum for Children in London. We build the greenhouse with Sustainable Communities from Scotland. It was a great project - making a greenhouse for children to grow vegetables in, right in the centre of London, is about as educational as you can get.

The adults built the frame, but the children filled the construction with the hundreds of plastic bottles. They were amazingly productive, enthusiastic and happy while helping building the green house. Everybody got involved, including staff from the museum, people from the local arts centre and teachers and classroom assistants. It was a joy to see everyone adding to this massive work of art.

Robert's chef's hat

This chef’s hat I made for Robert to inspire him to cook more. It has a Dutch cheesy look, but to compensate for the cheesiness I hand embroidered his name on the hat, giving it a more professional look.

Blue cushion

I really like this spirally blue shiny fabric.

Techno cushion

This cushion is made out of crazy techno fabric which was given to me by my Auntie Alex. She liked the fabric so much she bought rolls and rolls of it. It’s now a bit dated as there’s no iPod on it.

Orange lolly fluff cushion

Fake fur I usally save for my puppets, but here I splashed out on a cushion. Nice and soft on the bum.

Woodford Festival

This picture was taken in the mid 90s at the Woodford Festival in Queensland. I was running hat and mask making workshops at the festival and got a surprise visit from my naughty friends from Sydney.

I had noticed an increase in the number cults and decided to form my own at Woodford. The photo shows the first members of the Merkin Cult; Lala Merkin, Baby Merkin, Uncle Merkin, Mini Merkin and Other Merkin.

We collected more and more followers throughout the festival. People could join the movements for two dollars and would get a coloured triangle of fake fur, which could be stapled onto the front of their trousers. Later I started sewing the fur onto knicker elastic, which saved quite a few staples.

The main Merkin Rule was that you had to be as colourful and weird as you wanted and should not be your usual self. At its peak the cult had 300 members. Unfortunately we didn’t do any admin and I have no idea anymore who the Merkin Members were. If you were a member, please do contact me.

Valentine cushion

This ‘love heart cushion’ was made for Robert to celebrate out second year together. It’s a red velvet cushion with lace edges and it has another mini love heart cushion in a secret little pocket. It has a red/gold ribbon, so that it can also be used as (Christmas) decoration.

Pocket skirt

The pocket skirt I’m wearing in this photo was designed as a multi-purpose skirt. It has 18 pockets and is made entirely from pockets cut out of worn out trousers (the pockets were of course still intact!). It was fun cutting up the trousers and great to reuse what would otherwise be thrown out.

As you can imagine it’s a very practical skirt. I like to carry around lots of stuff and always loose my hand bag (things like this can drive girls insane, literally). Now I don’t need to worry about all these things anymore.

I wore the skirt at the Unlit Party at Rosie and Ian’s house. It could hold my pencils, rubber, sharpener, oil pastels, phone, purse, keys, a can of ginger beer and a wind-up-torch (always handy)!

Unlit host Jont sketch

The last artist was Jont, the organiser and presenter of the Unlit Tour. The first song he played was called Eloise (written for his niece). I drew Jont when he was singing this song, with a deer on the left and a circus horse picture on the right.

Later, when he played some more songs under the gazebo for Rosie and her friends who helped organising the party, I did some more sketches. I like Jont's concept of organising parties in other peoples houses around the world. The whole night was very similar to the parties I used to go to in Sydney – where I also used to draw performers. Bringing together lots of performers makes a great, creative atmosphere. The whole night was like a mini-festival.

To follow the Unlit Tour go to www.i-am-everyone.co.uk/orangeunlit

Unlit tour Norwich sketches of Bands

Josh Weller played next. I was at his feet looking up his nose. Josh has real character and a star presence, with simple catching songs to sing along to.

While drawing his 'Circus Song', I got ideas for hundreds of other drawings (I love clowns), but unfortunately I didn't have time to draw them.

You can sing along to his songs at Josh's Myspace. More info about the Unlit Tour can be found here.

Unlit tour drawings

Before the fifth band (The Loyal Few) started I squeezed myself to the front of the crowd and sat on floor directly in front of Greg singing and shaking a stick. Behind him is Stew on the xylophone / drums and at the back (next to the cuckoo clock is Tim on bass and Mat on guitar.

A very talented band – do check them out. Also, you can watch me drawing The Loyal Few here.
And… follow Jont around the UK with his Unlit tour.