AKA Citydon'tcare

This film is a mini documentary about people in Norwich effected by City Care a multinational company that is suppose to look after the city.

Secret Past (film)

This film was made by Robert and me, the greatest sensation on Earth, worth every Oscar in time.

King street Pavement

This is the negative strip with bare feet walking in it outside the Kodak shop and a plaque that was placed outside the chicken shop with our signatures engraved in stone on King street, Newtown, Sydney.

Newtown Pavement project

This a couple of images of the King Street pavement project in Sydney. The project started when I was mosaicing the outside of Alfa house with Kath Ellis, Zio and art gang. I got carried away and the mosaic spread onto the pavement. Which was inspiration to do the whole street. While doing Alfa house, lots of people joined in to help which speeded up the process. I thought if we started doing the whole street it could be done in a few days as more and more people joined in. How I was wrong with council red tape nothing can be done ever in a few days. This project took five years and amounted to a few works in the ground. Risk management was all the fashion with the council, because a few people who trip up on the pavement and sue the council for laughs, this has triggered an amazing amount of paper work. The mosaic was not possible although would have been incredible, the thing that stopped it was trip factor, if the ground is raised a millimetre someone might trip. Considering the planet has rocky surfaces which people use to walk on bear foot this modern notion baffles me.

So the project started with a tender which me and Kath worked on for ages the idea was a wave that went down King street but had things in that changed it along the way. The council then wanted us to collaborate with a jeweller who had done the casino floor, putting jewels in the pavement. She pulled out after a few meetings. Then we had a go at practising with the council at putting images in tarmac road surface with different coloured aigrette. This was fun for the road workers but didn't have the same community idea as mosaicing and using wasted broken ceramics and tiles. Then project was set for a new level terrazzo using other artist as well and incorporating the shop keepers by them working on designs with the artists. Kath and I were given Clam's chicken shop, the Kodak photo lab and a Indian restaurant. I drew some ideas for chickens for the chicken shop, negative for the photo shop and an elephant for the Indian take away. Clam's chicken shop did not want chickens he wanted peace in Newtown and an image of an Om with the sun behind and doves flying away from it. He was very friendly when we has meetings an always offered us a cooked chicken which I had to refuse do to being vegetarian. He was over cooking chickens as he had done for 20 years and he said he wanted to open an organic vege type shop later when the pavement was down. Kath an I spent time in the library researching all the material we needed and redrawing and plan drawing. Then finally after four years it was ready to go in the pavement after all the electrics and pipes had been changed in the street. We handed are drawing in by the dead line. Then an act of god happened and it hailed giant hail stones the size of footballs shattering the councils roof that was made of glass and asbestos. We had no copy's of the drawings because the council were going to copy them so it was back to the drawing board again. Eventually the pavement was laid by professional terrazzo layers. It looked very posh. The Mayor asked us to a thank you breakfast which was a bit early for us artists who work through the night.

Later on apparently some sikhs complained about the OM saying we are not suppose to walk on an Om. What a palaver, the OM has been put on everything and is surely meant to be a sign of peace.

Later I went on to design a 100 metre pavement for Taylor Square but after handing that in the council reorganised and a different mayor was in so the project was stopped. 

The last of the Big Frieze

Here Claire Freer stands with a bronze piece of work. The bronze has been painted and it now looks like a real plant. these plants are called hybrids and our very nice they have orchids, bananas and all sorts growing on them. Claire helped make them and is your modern day artisan. She trained at Goldsmiths college and has always made very detailed work through her life, although she is growing into bigger sculptures. The more art that is made in the world the less wars there are so get creating everybody. One day I would like to set up my own art factory and employ young offenders. Any funding offers welcome.

Out for lunch at the fair, Claire took this photo, I like the dog in the back round. Born in year of the dog and a wolf in the American Indian spirits. I could well be a poodle.
This is my photo of Claire sitting opposite me, she should have brought her sun glasses, one of the last sunny days left this year. In the back round behind us is big building construction hardly a sign of credit crunch. Here we are having a credit lunch.

The Freize art fair, Sculpture garden 3

This is me with a giant metal sculpture of a head coated with silver paint. This sculpture reminds me of the Cat in the hat books.
Claire has always got a smiley face. I put it down to being brought up in sunny Australia. The sun gives off something that makes us all a lot happier.
This is a wall of cars in plastic boxes. that remind me of the match box cars being made big.
Each car has a recent date on it and each car is slowly degrading. I like this because I would like to see an end to all cars and oil wars. Bring on the bicycle it only makes you stronger.
Here there is a plane going over the top of the wall of degrading cars. Maybe the next piece the artist does will be aeroplanes. Soon there will be no more planes either, unless aeroplane company's can come up with a clean fuel.
I wasn't impressed with the big frieze chemical toilets, surely there is a cleaner solution to chemical toilets like worm farms or composting for big events. The army use worm farm toilets maybe they would like to share this information with the general public.

The Frieze art fair sculpture garden

This is another waxy looking person or ghostly person but more colourful then the last one.
A close up of the colours, must have been fun to paint.
This is a glass sculpture that is curved and in the reflection is me and Claire freer.
Claire thought this might have been the artist sitting here. listening to peoples comments.
Drop you combine harvester and get your pitch fork out. This artist normally does paintings but here they have done a sculpture. I like giant sculptures of everyday objects.

Regents Park The frieze art fair Sculpture

Claire Freer observing the forensic scientist scene at the frieze in Regents park, London.
Here they are searching for a very important squirrel poo dropping from a naughty squirrel that stole a nut from a tree. The scientist's with realistic looking faces and hands and paper suits are set up to look like a real scene. If you did't know it was art then you may start to panic.
This is of cause my favourite piece of art that uses Indian lunch boxes to make up a giant scull. All great stuff up cycling the worlds waste. I use to use one of these lunch boxes at Art college, the students were always interested to see my lunch of salad and last nights left overs. I have always been shocked at peoples lunches of a bag of crisps, biscuits and a fizzy drink. Why waste your money on education if you stomach is eating away at your stomach lining. I met a guy in Cambridge who was studying to become a barrister completely covered in boils. Wonder what was in his lunch box. Indians take these boxes to work or have someone delivering them to there work at lunch time from there homes.
I wonder why they were made into a scull is it the lack of contents in the lunch box.

The great thing is the lunch boxes are still shiny like silver but don't require polishing.
This one is a giant lady hunched over, it looks like wax from a distance but up close is could well be there dreadful expandable foam that is used in the building construction industry. There is books on artist health and safety. This one I found on amazon "The Artist's Complete Health and Safety Guide". Wear gloves and a mask when dealing with anything smelly. But if you are an artist try to think of alternative Green products. I found this website that lists of Eco paint but I am sure there is more out there. http://www.pristineplanet.com/non-toxic-biodegradable-paint-environmentally-eco-friendly/paint/1625_a_0.html

William Brui at the Frieze

After popping out for lunch and coming back in, we spotted a man wearing very colourful clothes in the same colour scheme as me. He stepped off the red carpet and stood up against the turquoise curtain to have his photo taken with me. He was a very jolly man with long, twisty side burns. I asked him his name and he said William Brui. It has been over nearly twenty years since I studied Chagall at Art school and his name rang a bell but I had to look him up when I got home. He turns out to be a Russian Abstract artist that lives in France. He fled Russia in the 1970's, as artists did if they didn't fit in.
William only has a few paintings on the Internet, which shows he must have sold the rest. He is a very successful painter. He paints in oils on canvas, patterns, shapes and colours.
If only all artists wore what they paint then I would have been able to spot them in the crowds at the Frieze. They ran down the red carpet as if they did not want to be seen, considering they spend most of there lives imprisoned in there studios, one would think this would be the day when they show themselves. William was the only artist that stood out and me.
I was tempted to sell myself as art dealers thought I was one of the art works at the show.

War Is Over If You Want It.

You can see more of Yoko Ono peace message. Here http://www.imaginepeace.com/
You can start you own poster campaign today. You can't save the Post offices in the UK till you end the war. The UK has funded every war through the profits from the post office, since the postal service was invented. Stopping junk mail is not going to end the post office but spending billions on a war will. Stop junk mail now its a waste of money, resources and is killing animals and rainforest's and humans in Indonesia. http://www.stopjunkmail.com/
Peace needs to happen from every angle on the planet.

Yoko Ono part two. The big frieze 2008

During Yoko's question time these two lads were performing with wool, measuring it and putting it in a glass jar at different speeds.
This I like because I am working with wool at the moment, knitting my artworks. Wool is organic, biodegradable resource and fleece's from sheep are not used enough.



Yoko's last piece was a big clay vase on the stage.

This is what we were suppose to imagine happened to the vase. We were told to all take a piece and put it back together later on in time.



The start of the frenzy for her broken vase.



This where they go crazy, I sneak in between there legs and head butt someones nuts on the way out.



Meanwhile Yoko has sneaked out the back door. So I missed out on having my photo with her. People were bagging them up, when it was a piece each. This lady is posing hoping a camera will catch her with her piece.
It all reminded me of an old trick that Jesus might have done to keep away his fans. Have this rock I have touched. Although a pottery vase is a nice touch, organic clay, no harm to anyone, not a stolen rock from Wales or mined gold. A piece of fired earth to help us remember peace.
Go to Part one here.http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/frieze-talks-yoko-ono.html

The Big Frieze 2008 Talks Yoko Ono Part One

Yoko Ono

Well I am certainly suffering for my art tonight as I have just spent my money on going to London to see other great artists work and there is no money in the gas metre so the big freeze is a happening right in my own home tonight, while I write up my blog about the big Frieze.
What an organization I had to get a train to London the night before the Big Frieze so I could get to the Frieze early to book a ticket to see Yoko in action. Only to be told by several security on the door that all we had to do was turn up 30 minutes before the talk started. So my friend Claire and I wandered around Regents park looking at the art that was on general public display.
When we got in we walked and walked all around till 3.30 then pondered across the auditorium where the talks were held and asked about Yoko's talk, they replied it had sold out. Still with hours to go, we were raging. They said they would hold any tickets that came back. We wandered some more and went back. With luck on side this time there were two tickets held.
We were so exhausted we hung around till the talk began standing in a zigzag que. 5pm we were in and I ran to the front and there seats with names of Princesses and reporters and art critics on and two empty seats. I grabbed mine and put a bag on the other for Claire. There we were front row right in the middle, with big cheesy grins on our faces.

On stage is a projector and a pile of hats a blank canvas and two hammers and a chair. Yoko Ono comes on to stage and looks no different from my image I had as a child of her in the imagine video. She puts on a hat and tells us of her child hood wearing hats and how her mother said she looked good in hats. This hat gives me memory's of her in the 2nd world war her as a child begging for food with her family after her city has been bombed. Wars don't leave you in one piece they take away something or everything. My mother was also bombed out in London as a child and has been deaf from the sound of bombs and has many other dysfunctions of war.

Yoko puts a white veil on that reminds me of a wedding veil or spirit and moves around on stage under the veil while her film is showing. Her film is about peace and her love for John.
John's birthday was on the 9th of October and Yoko celebrated by building a giant light that beams love in the SOS signal to the whole Universe. The light sculpture was thought up decades ago and has only just come into real life.

This an image of the light in action on the Johns birthday. Iceland has an 80 percent ecotricty energy from water, so its the best place for the light to go and Yoko says the north of the planet is more intelligent then the south and the light will spread the intelligence to the south of the planet. I like the way Yoko has taken a spiritual creative approach to creating peace on the planet. Yoko and John had a more media approach for the Vietnam war which they had a international poster campaign, saying the war was over. Which he did end, but not for long new ones have cropped up. We need to end them for good as in forever and stop letting the maniacs rule the planet.

An art critic gets up and stage and helps with he questions and answers. She had good answers for all the questions. One of the questions was from a Mexican female artist who was concerned about female artists in Mexico getting a hard time. Yoko's answer was write what you want in life down and put it in a draw and the brain heals abuse. But also Yoko has a wishing tree in Iceland and all our wishes can be sent there. She gave everyone in the audience a stamp and a parcel tag to write our wish on and our own miniature light to use to do the S.O.S I love you on everyone we meet.
Continue post at Part two here.http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/yoko-ono-part-two-big-frieze-2008.html http://eloiseohare.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/yoko-ono-part-two-big-frieze-2008.html

Jolly Swimmers

This painting was commissioned by my old friends from Bradford that now live in Denmark. They are in the painting having fun at the beach. This is my first painting in Denmark. I hope to one day visit my friends there and may be have an exhibition in Denmark. My primary school teacher in Ireland was Danish and I learnt some Danish at school and all about Denmark so have always wanted to go there.

Off the wall, on the ceiling

Off the wall, on the ceiling, 241 the lodge, Bellingen, New south wales, Oz. The exhibiton was a group show with kath Ellis and another artist who I cant remember his name. We went up to Bellingen with a convoy of artists from Sydney and put the show up the night before, which was spectacular as the building was the only building in the town with lights on we attracted thousands of colourful Christmas beetles which covered everything, Zio spent all night sweeping them into piles. The posters for the show were printed by a famous printer in Bellingen and printed in gold with one of Kath's wire Lady's on the front. Kath and I headed up to the bush radio station where we met the local presenter who let us choose records to put on and she interviewed us and let us record a jingle to go out on air all day. We cooked up a storm at Leanne's house of Nori rolls and cookies. One of the locals made a cake for the show. When we arrived a DJ had turned up the late Stephen Niblet and lots of people had driven for miles to get there when they heard the jingle on the radio. The local reporter wrote an article on the show and we had a big party back at Leanne's place and I attempted some fire twirling for entertainment. It was a huge success, although I did not sell anything, Kath sold out.
Apparently I over priced my work, but I had no idea how to price my work and considering how much work went into the work, I don't think I over priced my work.

Projection Umbrella

The projection umbrella was an invention of revamping an old umbrella crossed with lighting gel's that Stephen Hince no longer used for his lighting. The brolly was exhibited at 241 The Lodge in Bellingen, alongside all my blue plastic water proof art, for the show Off the wall, on the ceiling show with Kath Ellis and her wonderful wire Lady's. The Umbrella I took out on a few trips around Sydney, it provided great cover from the sun. On Bronty beach it was admired by the pensioner Lady's and they loved they way it projected coloured light onto my body when I was wearing swimmers.
I also made friends with a nice man who wanted to become my benefactor and sponsor my art we had breakfast meetings and went to the cinema together to watch art movies unfortunately someone pinched my important phone book at a party and I lost his number. Pre-mobile phone days. I thought the brolly would be great for a type rope walker in the circus.

Soft sculpture side view

A side view of the sculpture looking out of cafe Solea in Newtown.

Soft Sculpture

Soft Sculpture of Sue Angel (journalist) with soft cup of coffee and book. Cafe Solea, Newtown, Sydney. Walking the streets in Newtown in 1999, art in shop windows sponsored by the shops, during Newtown festival. This soft sculpture was made of Sue Angel who covered important environmental issues that other journalists would not cover. I made the soft sculpture in my studio at the back of Marilyn's house. It took a quite a few sleepless nights. Marilyn brought me out cups of tea to keep me awake. I made the sculpture to fit in the back of my bike trailer, so I could get it to the location with ease. The sculpture was talked about by critics on the opening night where everyone walks up and down the street with glasses of champagne.

Kath Ellis in Indonesia, Festival Mata Air (Festival of Water),

Kath Ellis looking hot and bothered working on festival in Kalitaman, Java
The best hairdressers in the world. The Shop sign says cut hair not trees.
Tree People lantern that lights up at night.

These are images taken at last years festival in Java Indonesia, the festival is about water. The lack of it for the locals. Which is all our fault through demand for trees for paper for instant disposal, such as toilet paper, people who print off emails to read them, junk mail, packaging of products (which at art college they told me everything is 75 percent packaging).
The list is very long of how much paper we waste and if you recycle paper you can look at how much is disposed of in your home each week.
Do we think that a huge population of people and trees have gone without water because of this waste, when wasting paper.
How many people are actively trying to help the world and other people, well you could fill a small classroom with these people not very many at all. For a start my boyfriend is the only person in the U.K. actively everyday trying to stop junk mail for people who don't want it. That is one in over 60 million people.
Kath Ellis has always been active in her local community in Sydney in trying to make a better place for everyone to live and does this voluntarily. Here she is helping the community in Java put on a festival, which brings all the talent and community together, to work out how to solve the problem of lack of water and trees that get chopped down of the planets rainforest's.
I have always been over whelmed since I was born by the amount of people on the planet who are greedy and don't care about any body else. Even people who drop litter have no consideration of others or thought of what happens to that piece of litter. My friend in Norfolk the other day nearly had a massif car accident when she drove over a plastic water bottle on a main road. This typical of the ripple effect that everything that we do has on other people and the planet.
All I hear from people is they don't have time to recycle or help others. 5 minutes a day would make a difference. But also designing your whole life so it has less impact on the destruction of the planet.
Start by not having children, they will be one more car and use up tons of energy.
Don't get a cat they eat native birds.
Compost all organic waste in garden or worm farm.
Don't work for a company you dislike the ethics of (eg. they spill chemicals in to rivers, they treat there workers badly, they don't recycle, they sell products that harm the planet.)
Don't borrow money you don't have or can't pay back. Getting a mortgage is a chain around your neck. Rent or buy a house in a group. Invest in local community. Start your own company with ethics you want, employ local people.
Artist don't just paint pretty pictures they have an insight into everything and are constantly trying to resolve problems. When bad leaders of country's are leading they always jail there artists and writers first or make life really hard for them, because they know we know.
So this piece was written because Kath is doing another festival in Indonesia again. I really hope all goes well this year and I hope to join her next year. If someone would kindly like to sponsor me to go, with a group of ethical artists, contact me.
More written about this festival here http://insideindonesia.org/content/view/1009/47/
Photos on this page were taken by alimander view more her photos on Flickr.

Ratty on wheels

Ratty was made for the name of the rose theatre show in Newtown railway yard, Sydney, but was later rejected due to being to big. The idea was to either fit it on a remote control car or give it wheels. I made it for both. The wheels I made with plastic water bottles and rocks inside to stablize it. I took Ratty to watch the show and walked it down king street everyone loved it. I thought it would make a good alternative to having a dog.

Bath table fruity fish tank and tap candlestick holders

The Bath fruity fish tank coffee table and tap candle stick holders was another tank expanding on the idea for the tank for the Java. The table was made and went into an exhibition at the art and design movement in Leeds. It was only meant to go in there for a few weeks, but it attracted so many costumers it stayed there for a year. When it was at home I was having a party and Dusty the director of Bradford festival came and he said that in the old days in Bradford people use to have tables that doubled up as baths in there houses so I must have been tuning into something there.
I realised after making a few large sculptures that if they did not sell, there is no where to put them, so when I was in Oz I got into making enormous paper lanterns for festivals that were burnt at the end of the festival. Always measure the door before making something big. Sydney was great for space and I lived in large warehouses with big doors. The council provided even larger places to work.

Fruity Fish Tank

Fruity Fish Tank was a commission for the Java Restaurant in Bradford, originally it was made to go in a window that looked out onto a wall, but the window got bricked up an it set in another window. The fish were plastic fruit made into fish and had air blowing out of there mouths so they bobbed up and down in the tank. I had the idea while studying illustration at Bradford and Ikley community art school when doing a horoscope competition for Elle magazine. My illustrations turned more 3-dimensional over the years which was telling me to do sculpture and not illustration but now it comes under the label of textiles.
The Java was a wonderful vegetarian restaurant owned by Steve and Sara that opened opposite the theatre, it opened at a good time when the conservative government decided that students had to pay for fees etc, so I had no money to stay at college. I got a job to start with as a washer upper, then a Vegetarian chef two weeks later, then managed for a while. My studies began to lasp due to the long hours to pay my way at college. There was lots of fun people there and I made some great friends, the whole interior of the restaurant was made up of all the local artists work from lights to walls to the counter. The artist hung out there which brought them all together and also the Bradford festival crew, which I also got work in costumes, floats etc. I worked in the kitchen with Lisa who became my best friend and came out to OZ when I was there, Lisa now teaches film in Leeds. Also Jimmy with very long dreadlocks who use to work at the Treadmill recycled art Gallery and was an amazing drummer he drummed in the kitchen with the wooden spoons. He got me into joining the local samba band. Jimmy is now cooking and living in Denmark with Almuth and new son. Later Ash joined the team as the restaurant expanded upstairs and next door. Mully also got promoted to management and worked when I wasn't working. Grace was permanently on the coffee machine with hand made cups and saucers by a local potter.
The food original and created as we went a long there was 100's of meals to choose from that were written on giant blackboards as well as the usual Continental menu. The cakes were handmade and we eventually found a vegan cake maker who made so many we had to expand the counter fridges.
The place was packed day and till late at night and had tables outside all the way down the street all year round. In the evenings there was bands and entertainment for us and the costumers.
I felt like I spent my life there and my life evolved around the whole place. We were going to expand to Wakefield theatre where I would run it on my own with Mully, I had very grand ideas for that place where costumes and making the place as wild an arty as possible but due to the heritage orders on the theatre nothing could change so we dropped it. I later found out that my Grandfather use to run the theatre in the 1940's.
We made a another temporary cafe in an old church during the Bradford festival that Mully and I ran which a que the size of Wembley stadium. I was barely able to stand up at the end of the day.
In the summer on a Saturday night we use to jump in a van and go to raves in peculiar places. I was so tired I slept through them and woke up with the sun coming up and beautiful views of the countryside.
There was so much going on at the time I burnt out and left and went down to Norfolk and stayed with my sister before heading for Oz. In Oz I vowed not to work in another cafe and dragged my portfolio round to hundreds of job interviews in Graphics which failed, due to only having a 100 dollars in my pocket I resorted to getting a job in another vegetarian cafe Badde Manors. I met more like minded people there and realised I had to work there to support my own art.

1st Book illustrations

I had flash backs today while cleaning of a commission I got when I was 6 years old. My neighbour Lakshmi was working with people with learning difficulties and was producing a book for them to read. She asked me to draw pictures to do with the story and paid me with a Pineapple. In those days you couldn't get pineapples and I tasted some pineapple juice on holiday in England. I wanted more but could not get any. My pineapple did not arrive straight away I had to wait for it to arrive from shr-lanka in Lakshmi's relatives suitcase who was visiting. When her relatives arrived I got all worked up and then my Mum said go over and ask for you pineapple. So I did and out of the suitcase came my pineapple. I ate it all.
every since then I have been paid in more bizarre ways then one can imagine for my art and have seen very little cash. does this mean I am suppose to not rent a house or pay bills. Should I just be wondering the planet sleeping in hedges, till I receive a check to pay some rent. I have not done this I have taken on jobs to pay for my art and life. Jobs that usually people hate doing. You can guess what they are!

Reject tie

This is a photo of me on my way out to something, I know I met the Mayor that night at a bar. Now I remember it was Newtown festival.
I am sitting on Hues car in the drive in Dulwich Hill, wearing my chicken top with fried egg and skirt that sat up because I put foam underneath it. My painted boots that regularly change colour to go with outfit or costume. Might have been left over car spray on them.
My reject tie I made from reject tape that the council in Sydney puts on your recycling box or wheelie bin if the contents is wrong. I was using it as a rejection of an arts project due to councils reforming themselves. The severing of ties and rejection.
I noticed when I was in Dublin they had different stickers with different messages on there recycling, from the council. Like plastic in there. Etc.