Opshop Christmas Presents for under Five Dollars...

                                           Wall hanging.. Japanese Fish Names.

                                         Hand Drawn Metaller Converse Sneakers.

                               Battery Powered Revolving Metal Circle Thingamejig.

                                                  Painted Wooden Pencil Boxes.

                                                             Black Braces.

                                                          Rodeo Tee Shirt.

Sunset, Low Tide.

Dishes.. and washing

How to carry an MP3 player with no pockets......hands free.

A Spring Couple, actually only one person. Two paintings.

                                                        
                                    Self Portrait Parts One to Three

 

Self Portrait Part Four

hay baling fun

Winter Art Continued..three new couples, of sorts.

These first two belong together...................

These are the things that appear solid and immoveable between two individuals, that need getting past or around...like a wall.

.....more about the empty spaces that need filling between them.......................

                                                                

Him, red, warm, busy......................

                                   Her, blue, cool, quiet...................................

Her, smaller, brighter.......

Him, larger and more muted....

Photo Shoot.... final images

After redesigning the entire house and removing furniture to make space for an idea....three attempts and 3000 photos later....a couple of shots that one some way resemble the original concept..without a studio or real castle..
Some Pure Escapism....

 Given a different day in a different time, I'd like to think that I'd be a benevolent ruler, kind to everyone, brave and fun and strong and beautiful and calm and perfect. Thoughtful and authoritive but not utterly self-absorbed. Patient and just... nice. Who wouldn't? You'd have to be pretty small minded and mean to be cruel to your own monarchy.....
"Who's Queen..?" (off with her head!)
With a throne room to put your feet up in at the end of the day, by the fire. Kingdom business to ponder with the trusted advisors...A fifteen poster bed in a tower under furs...decrees to decree....
A black Clydesdale horse and ramparts to stalk and eye the horizon.. Cloaks, dogs and muddy boots. stables and horses and stableboys, guards, maids, cooks, soldiers and a small Kingdom/Queendom to rule over....
I'd like a couple of large grey loping Irish Wolfhounds to go with the Clydesdale and rolling hills to ride on. Shoot at things with a bow to bring home and roast for dinner... Roaring fireplaces, wine from goblets and kilometres of tapestries on the walls, to keep warm. Furs and skins and rugs and lamps and candles....food on platters to be eaten with daggers and fingers, bones tossed to the dogs..singing and laughing and shouting and other feasty-type noises. Swords.
Craftsmen and bakers and musicians and entertainers and the whole kaboodle.
Fields and gardens and tenant-farming families in villages with windy potholey, untravellable roads..
Without the actual shit, mud, disease, warfare and back-breaking labour with shortened life-span of the Actual Middle Ages...the really shitty horrible parts, plagues and marauding armies and ignorance.....fear and superstition..

No crown on, its a only a Monday night. Crowns for special occasions only...wooden thrones with leather seats. Some bloody person hath removed the footstool..Bare feet, drink in hand.
And yes, I LOVED the Lord of the Rings. Obviously.

 Closer in view, floor detail..............and closer again.

New Winter scribblings and splashings

Knight to Queen.... Acrylic/PVA glue/Wallpaper
Thoughts around the barriers and objects that can come between two people..

Rising Tide  Pencil/Wallpaper
...that old drowning feeling....

                                                                     Rising Tide (detail)

rainy day in Ginandtonnica

paradise wet 

Metal Video Props

The "murderers" car and half an icecream container of fake blood, ie, Glucose Syrup, Cornflour, red and green Food Colourings.


 The killer's mirror shades and tell tale drips.

juggling art, music and photography, not sure which is winning..

Monday.
Did the waking up, two coffee's and admire the sunshine streaming in through the windows thing, housey, homey, washing kind of stuff, trips to the supermarket and library for more jazz cds....Diana Krall, mmmm mmmm.


 Went to the beach with the camera and shot some stuff in the thin Autumn light. My knees in the immediate foreground, inadvertently, from lying on the grass to get maximum skyspace..

These are a few of our local landmark pines, very old and tall and straight, lean. my favourite

Ive found the next song to record (watch this space) worked on the first layer of a cubist influenced acrylic painting based around the lines, barriers and enormous blocks that can exist between two people when they try to interact...............baked an insanely delish banana cake..... and got to amble on the beach taking these.

 It looks so pastoral and so beach all at the same time....

This is looking East, to my right as I face the ocean.

Then just as i got home to begin filling in the fledgling, cubist, cubic nightmare(after flinging together the banana CAKE), the rock band came home through the garage, post footage-gathering in my car (their's doesn't look evil enough, apparently my 89 Corolla Wagon does..) up in the deep bush covered hills behind Ginnantonica, saying they wanted to carry on filming the guitar-playing segment in the garage. Bass player turned up and all, with his nice girfriend. Cameraman with tripod.
Cue setting them up out there, asking Them next door to please can we use your side too, and could you back your car out? For several hours, thanks....(Making a video...very important) Cue Fake Blood all over everyone, find a power point for the camera to use, lug amps, smear, smear, grab spare red towels and spread newspaper on the floor for the drips. Hustle cute fuzzy smiling cat outta there before she ruins the look of the thing by purring and winding round someone's legs, mid-screaming metal guitar solo......shut the door, leave them to it and paint away..
                                                                                                                                             

the secret of happiness is.......

Found this............love it.

To find Angels and vote, keep scrolling down... this is the Wolf-spider post....

 So I added the pair of Wolf-spiders to my groaning household, SHE promptly ATE him, so now there is one, oooerr... she's so leggy and beautiful but ravenous, everything I catch and put in there, disappears, never to be seen again. I've named her Munchikins. For obvious reasons. She Muncheth.
SO FAR, she has eaten: Ants, Flies, Slaters, Earwigs (small ones) Centipedes (small ones) and her life-partner. mmm.
DOESN'T like: other spiders, Green Shieldbugs or Praying Mantis's.
Put a Mantis-guy in her Spiderarium, thinking she'd nail him immediately ( he was all scrawny and slow) but NO! four days later, he was still there, quivering up in the top of the branches so I hauled him out and set him free in a leafy coprosma, outside, poor traumatised sod.
Easy peasy-care pet and comes out at night, too, so I can hang with her whilst online, she's right here on my desk, screaming around, pouncing on slaters.. She's a tunneling, burrowing girl, so no visible web and hunts like a true predator, running, jumping and dragging back to her pile of leaves. yum yum etc.
Quite impressive little battle of Nature.
I want to feed her what's left of My Cyanide Licence but they are pretty much behaving. Saving up for new humungous Band-pad, somewhere round here, in Ginnandtonnica. Hopefully not too close.
The two singers have gone to see family down the Coast for a few weeks, Phil's One, Two and Pete (Bass) working on some new material and doing parttime labouring, the Norwegians have discovered the local flash new library so they only come home at night (can't get library cards, can't take out books, sad boys..) Not too sure how the dancers earn their money but they're out a LOT at night. Whatever.
Actually impressed at how well they DO get on, now those two stroppy chauvinist's have moved on.

ANGELS ANGELS ANGELS.......cast your vote.

Two "artists" were debating one day on the methodology and mythology of angelic beings. They eventually found they could not agree and chose to put down their particular angelic concept in one painting and one drawing.
These two images are the result. Have an objective look at both and register your preference out of the two here....
Thanks for voting.
These are here for 30 days, the loser buys wine.

Which angel do you prefer?
	The White One
	The Green One
pollcode.com free polls

Its actually a movement in three parts,not two.

Quintessential Hawkes Bay Shot, Eskdale, vines and hill. 2nd May, coming home.

Hawkes Bay Photojourno. April 2010. Part One.

Hawkes Bay Photojourno. April 2010. Part Two.

avatar

the self portrait was drawn when i got my avatar to hold still for a sec.....

As an aside, here's another wee gem

Now that I've mastered image insertion, here's another wee treasure from the very recent Anna files, the reason why the bike smash was so traumatic...?
The image above is the little indentation left on my windscreen, by a flying body after a borderline psychotic IDIOT threw himself at my car as I left town with the two-year-old, to go visiting.
literally.
Darted across the road to the centre line then ran and jumped directly at me as I braked from 60 kms an hour, screaming behind the wheel.
Trying to keel himself.
Fugging fugga, slid down my bonnet, landed on the road and staggered up, ran over to another car coming the other way and did it to them, too.
Talk about determined.

INSANE freak accident.
Only two weeks before the bicycle incident, one day before yet ANOTHER Tsunami warning and subsequent nervous reluctant evacuation ( with two cats yowling) in someone elses car...

INTERESTING TIMES.
Incoming tidal waves and the citizenry snapping and losing it in the street.
Stupid fuggin wossisface taken away strapped down in ambulance, us driven home by my mum in full-blown shock after giving statement to police ( nice constable who I noticed couldn't spell very well... I still signed it as being the true and accurate record, blah, blah.. there's a time and a place to correct spelling..)
(and it MUST be said, I AM wholly sympathetic to genuinely suicidal people but the police told me what he was up to and he apparently had done the whole thing to punish and manipulate his girlfriend who was watching because she had just called the cops on him after a domestic they had just had in the street. They'd been drinking all night and had had NO sleep. like a "you did this to me, so I'm gonna do this to you" type scenario. So, sympathy? Nup. And I really hope she had enough nous to leave him but bet she hasn't...)

Monday phone calls to car insurance company, panelbeaters turning up Tuesday and towing undriveable Toyota away on a truck for three days to replace windscreen.
Fine now. Just like new ( which it is..).
Cue comedy snare drum and crash cymbal, for the punchline..

The only man to hurl himself at me since ages ago and I happen to be accelerating behind the wheel of my car.

Hmmmm......

Update: two of the guys have bailed to stay with seperate friends, thank god and the two other non-contortionising dancers left and booked into a cheap caravan at the Holiday Park up the road.
whoa. Man.
It all got a bit much a bit fast, even for them, garage not that big and unlined, its Autumn and the whole place is JUST TOO SMALL for 14 people, even when two of them would fit in a pillowcase.
Especially with half the group barely talking to the other and two that want to fucken SMACK each other over regularly and theyre all in one room all the time or pacing in a tiny tablecloth-sized courtyard and garden, or trying to sleep
I knew it would be, that little voice that says NO! too late. after you open your mouth and say "Come and stay at my place...., just for a week or two, til you find something else..."
Thats cool, not MUCH harm done, just a squashed garden, cigarette butts everywhere and an apology to them next door, on the other side.....
Moving right along...

there's never really any need for shouty screamy sweary arguments with aggro and really horrible bad shit like that.
even if you are pissed off and mad.
drunken, out of control yelling and slamming doors, people crying and calling out.
No thanks, its hideous.
and certainly not here, at mine.
We hate that stuff.
Angry, aggressive, loud, macho bullshit.

The Norwegians love to read a lot, so theyre fitting in perfectly,they lie still, taking up virtually no room anywhere.
Phil One is having a little bash on my ancient electric lounge-organ stored out there and meanders around up and down the keys , sounds ok.
The backing singers are nice but keep to themselves a lot and go out more than the others.
Pete Bass mainly drifts between tv and sleep mostly, now completely hogging the three-seater. Everyone IS tired and fucken cranky and sick of each other.
Phil Two snapping down the phone at someone.

They've just finished a two month ten-town South Island Summer Tour, anyway..sounded like it went well, otherwise.

IVE discovered thicker-than-thick heavy polar fleece, by way of a large borrowed hoodie.
Niiiiice.
drawn a self portrait.
planted 400 succulents, weaned myself off sugar in coffee,got big bike back (from being fixed), trawled 50 pages of available men on a dating site, met someone who is shaving their long hair for cancer,added a fabulous social worker as a facebook friend,learnt some basic HTML language, worked some, drove some, cooked some and added a pair of Wolf-spiders to the very small menagerie. Found someone who wants to set up a band who would like Anna to sing for it, in a more local and regular way.
QUIITTE
Niiiice.

yip...thas my friday night license....

oh, man, theyre so cool, sucdh grooovy cool yummy crazy people tonight walkd to beach with a bonfire and big bottles of whiskeuy idea.
piers and olaf made fireworks go off in the dark and up everywhere soooobloody wild an pretty.
lotsa noise and fireworks everwhere all over the sky.
its fridawy night nwe wantd to go do domething coool.
phil and trevor peter played someguitars songs they brougth with them and swam in the freaakin cold sea and not very big waaves for some surfing they wantd to do but had a bonfire with lots of sandy blankets on the beach
itstoo cold for bbq though.
havnt had whiskuy forr a reallly longtime ages an ages
stupid typing fingrs check that out ahahahahaaa hopeless
jess and shane had a biut of aarrgument tho but all ok now phil said no more yelling
to them and play nice, but shanes been frigggn idioyt hes the drummer
she thinks hes the man
beautifull big fire down there but wew all home safe now n tucked up in our garage ahahahahhhhhaa but theres som other girls stealing mynice queen bed uuhhoh
coool guys cool band thats why thewy live at my house...............

HOLY MOLY BATMAN..INCOMING MUSICIANS..good grief

They were desperate and homeless, what's a girl to do....

Arrived home after a busy day playing Amateur Photographers, to an UH-OH SHIT WADDA WE DO phone call from My Cyanide Licence, a (large) group of people that make up a kick-ass contemporary blues/grunge/rock band I occasionally work and record with (on the big gigs). More like a roadshow than a band. (see below)
More like a bloody nightmare in two Hi-Ace vans, actually.
Got Big Day Out in our sights, though, one day...
Phil Two (There's two) the Lead guitarist and unofficial bigmouthpiece for the group tells me they've all just got back from their latest two-month South Island Tour to find that their measly 'orrible landlord has changed the locks and installed new tenants in their absence...
Talk about Band on the Run..
Complications with the rent and too many zonked-out zombiegroupies hanging around, he reckons. Trouble with the neighbours.
Talked him down to something resembling coherence and got a word in edgewise, I then felt the only decent thing to do was offer them all( I KNOOOOW...they INSIST on living together, its some democratic egalitarian musical social experiment-thing) some temporary crashspace in my garage, while they look for somethin else.
Hmmmm....
So now Anna has two male guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboard player, two female backing singers, four hot dancers (including two tiny little lithe contortionists)and a couple of long-haired bearded Blonde Norwegian Pyrotechnicians ( we use a LOT of fire and explosions, that sort of thing..)doin it Marae-styles in her garage.
Toyota's out on the roadside, sulking.
At least the gear is still on its way back from Invercargill, small mercies.
Hells Blinkin Bells.. Musicians...
(Dancers....the fussing in the bathroom has started already and they've only been here 8 hours.) This is going to be fun, fun, FUUUUNNNN.
FFFUUUUUNNNNNNneh.
And we can't even plug in and practise while they're here, cause my (lovely) landlord lives RIGHT NEXT DOOR, just through the fence.
'Bout five metres away.
A 13 part home invasion.
At least they're all smoking outside and putting their empty beers in the recycling and getting their own takeaways...tonight.
Psyche and Shnuni (The Cat-girls)have PANICKED and hidden under my bed and in the shrubbery, respectively.
The sofas' are covered in hairy boys harassing each other, fighting over the remote and flinging their damn shoes around.
The Norwegians are LOUD and gesture a lot with their huge arms (there's not a lot of room, this is a two-room UNIT for goodness' sake..I have ORNAMENTS..)
Trepidation.
Off to sleep now, I can hear them all still talking out there and clonking around.
WHAT have I done....

.................WHAT THE.....

TWO WHEELS BAD, FOUR WHEELS GOOD....


Where Anna wonders whether cars do, in fact, feel they are superior to bicycles simply by being bigger, more solid and more upright.
You know....
Taller.
Smarter. Noisier.
And more of them.
Some behave like they do, charging around dominating the whole show.
(In an Animal Farm kind of way)

Just that in recent news, this funny (Hysterical!!) thing happened the other day... a beautiful, sunny day, making myself head out and about from my curtained-off corner in the world, WHEN:
A reasonably large, buttercup-yellow Four-Wheel Drive truck comes moving firmly and in an authorative way through the intersection I happened to be riding across on my mountainbike, round five on a Sunday.

Bloody freakin b***ery bang smash, on the road.
Which actually, wasn't that funny, really.
And happened VERY quickly.
Still kind of not funny, six weeks later,'nough said.
The blind female driver of the truck, having left her seeing-eye Golden Lab at home, hit the frame of the bike with her bumper, sending me flying over her bonnet, onto the road and breaking my bike into four large bits, fortunately not actually running us over. Just knocking off, hard and fast...

She stopped, talked me down and gave myself and bike bits a ride back home, apologising several times.
I ended up in A and E for a hell of a long time waiting for x-rays and plaster for the wrist I had taken my impact on. At the time, a seriously painful area and suspected fracture in the whatsit under my thumb, inside right wrist.
And I discover there is apparently a chronic shortage of available doctors in every area of my local Accident and Emergency Department, especially when there happens to be a particularly nasty run of serious emergency ambulance admissions happening all at once.
As there was.

Staff mentioned that it was basically a normal extremely busy night, insisting that I write in and complain, giving me appropriate forms to take home and fill out, not really thinking about the fact that my entire hand was in solid plaster and there was no way I could hold a pen for a while...

Point being? stay off the damn road, maybe? maintain a 360 degree perimeter at all times? Bikes are too dangerous for roads these days?
The Hmm Found It Out Along The Way Point being? that the local DHB simply doesn't allocate anywhere near enough funding to entice enough doctors into it's A and E to cope with the accident traffic they have.. not particularly acceptable...
The most Painfully Clear Point being, that in a battle for ownership of the tarmac,cars win. And casts are a pain.