on the street where you live : : in our nature

So we can't all just pack up and take a hike in the mountains - get back to nature, as they say. But, oh, it would be so good to be able to. 

What is nature anyway? It would seem that we are programmed with this odd belief that nature packed its own bags and exited the city area, now residing somewhere near dirt roads, densely treed and ferned areas or on an elevated mountainous rocky outcrop. But we can't forget what has become part of our very own day to day nature.

Today, an ode to the nature in which we find ourselves. But sometimes it all feels a little un-natural doesn't it?

It's okay if the rolling hills feel a little bit more like nature than staring at the wall of another building through your bedroom window. But how do you think the moss that grows on your window sill feels? Thinking-fodder, that is!

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your still-life on the lawn

A few years back our television screens were accosted by a half hour show called, ‘Your Life on the Lawn.’ I shudder in merely mentioning it. 

I’m assuming that those reading this from continents afar would have probably viewed a similar show in their respective countries of residence, because, let’s be honest, Australian reality television isn’t exactly scoring high marks in the originality category (or any other category for that matter).

Anyhow, I digress. This show saw cluttered, junked-to-the-ceiling homes dredged of their contents, leaving the owner to discard ‘the stuff of their life’ from the rubbishy-mound on their back lawn.

This post in no way sees me dragging the contents of my apartment down the stairs and onto the ground, although I did do another big cull in my wardrobe (fighting the hoarder within).

Nay, this post was inspired by an image I put together for my sister’s 21^st bday invitation almost two years ago. Composed of bits and pieces that signify who she is - if you haven’t quite put two and two together (I’m not saying you’re dumb) – this is, in fact, her ‘life on the lawn’ TA-DAH.

I want to do a post like this every now and then, so if you want to get involved in a ‘this-is-your-life’ come ‘still-life’ installation, let me know. Locals only, unless you want to fly me somewhere – I’d be ready in a flash.

p.s. There’s a book called ‘My House’ by Delphine Durand in that image and it is the most hilarious and beautifully illustrated book to behold. Find a copy and get lost in it… I absolutely insist. Her blog is also very cute, although I can't understand it - transport [here].

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three corners & coloured enamel

I love triangles. No, I'm not in a love triangle - I just love them (triangles - that is!).

You can be cornered three times by these beauties from minoux jewellery. I remember making enamel key-tags in year seven but these are a far sight better - I know, you are as surprised as I am!

Shipping to our Great South Land (Australia, for those playing at home) may prove to be a little more difficult than to our northern counterparts but I think it would be worth it, don't you?

triangular neck lovelies [here]

You can buy me one or five of any of these as a special pressie if you want to? Don't all put your hands up at once!

Anyway, if you want to stop going in circles - get into triangles!

Lame? Yes, I thought so too. (oh well - smile anyway.)

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doilies & a blue striped jug

An era, a lifestyle, a nationality can be marked by the most mundane items and yet these pieces of junk encapsulate every element of the very thing they signify.


To promise you I'm not leading you up the garden path, think of a doily. What does it make you think of? Maybe it's different for everyone but for me a doily sums up everything about a nineteen-fifties home and the subsequent baby-boomer generation. A lacy-lovely to pretty up inconsequential collectables on timber veneer side tables or glass-doored china cabinets.


I had the pleasure of watching a short film, 'Tulip' last week in one of my tutorials. Directed by Rachel Griffiths, it is a beautiful insight into an elderly man's loss of his much-loved spouse and the despair that follows. The heartache of the forlorn husband, played by Bud Tingwell, was moving - but the scenes that captured me were due the simplest of things.

image source [here]

The milk the two drank at breakfast was served in a blue and white striped jug - just as above. My grandma had one of the very same jugs, she passed away over a year ago. My grandparents are from a small rural town and after my grandma's funeral, morning tea featured tables, elaborately-spread with homemade goodies set atop paper doilies and disposable plates - the same kind of spread I saw on this short film. I almost shed a tear - glad I didn't because it was the middle of a class.


The blue and white stripe jug and the doily are some of the most evocative images of this generation and way of life - it gives me the warm fuzzies on the inside and makes me smile on the outside. 


I fear we are losing this sense of community, the kind of community that brings something homemade to share as opposed to a packet of Doritos. Perhaps the fact that I am living in suburbia doesn't help.
What will this generation be marked by? Ikea furniture, square basket storage or cheap, tip-filling, easy to replace appliances?


I leave you with this image from a little town near where my mother grew up. I think the occasion may have been a Lion's Club lunch.

Sums it all up, doesn't it?


If you can get your hands on it, watch 'Tulip'. Your local library might have it.


Embrace the doily and do your bit to keep the community spirit living - make a jelly-slice!


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out of scale

Our creepy, crawly, slimy, squirmy friends of the deep sea and desert are influencing more that just my gag-reflex at the moment. Accessories and other adornments are out to flaunt some scales in the name of sales… or perhaps just in the name of looking kinda awesome.

At the best of times I find anything reptilian or underwater-ish considerably revolting. They provoke what my sister would call: bum shivers, thus my aversion to swimming in cloudy waters and also the catalyst to a teary episode involving a dead fish and me at the wrong end of one of my father’s holiday pranks.

All of this being said, when I spied a friend’s newest handbag acquisition, in spite of the initial moderate aforementioned reaction, I found myself quite taken with it. (Let it be known that I have similar feelings about bags as I do about shoes.)

I soon discovered I would only ever be able to admire such a piece from afar as the bag was Hugo Boss, but there are plenty more lamellose lovelies to behold. 

[one] [two] [three] [four] [five]

Will you scale the heights of fashion and get your cold-blood on?

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stories about us

A good story burrows beneath an anecdotal façade to capture some kind of truth about our humanity. That’s why we can’t get enough of stories. We live them, we learn from them and we carry them around with us like a name-tag. Some are true; others are creations from imaginative ventures. Stories help us define and understand ourselves.

Shaun Tan, now an Academy Award winner, is one of my favourite author/illustrators. His tales, a stunning combination of narrative and art, are the kind of ones that make me wonder if he may have peered into my head while I was sleeping, picked out my emotions, fears and dormant hopes then furiously created a heart-breakingly beautiful masterpiece of a book. Read some of his books – do you feel the same thing?

I could be a lone soldier on this one – but even if I were, one of his books, now short-film, The Lost Thing, would make me feel okay about that. (See, this guy is freaky-good!)

The illustrations below come from a little book called ‘Eric’, a brief account of an exchange student who finds himself in an alien place.

This tale reminds me that even when new things seem overwhelming and completely foreign, we still have the adeptness to create or offer something that is just as individual as we are.

images sourced here

So try new things, I say. Just do it. Give negative nelly a stern talking to and step out.

Go and experience a ‘metaphorical’ life exchange and leave a fan-flippin-tastic footprint. Dare ya!

(note to self: take my own advice.)

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on the street where you live [ part one ]

To dearest blog-world and those craving of a red letter day,

I am still here - I promise.

From now on, I plan to post one, two or three times a week (if you are super-lucky). I have just headed back to Uni and am finding my creative juices ceasing to flow due to the ever-increasing vice grip of educative demands.

Nevertheless, busy times still call for beautiful things and I often spy a smile-worthy sight in the mundane of my everyday suburbia. 

Here's a few from my weekend:

• Thought one: I was perplexed to see a beach ball roaming through a Richmond service station, quite of its own accord. What was it doing?
• Thought two: what do you suppose happened to this poor man's hand? And why does he have a white patch around his eye?
• Thought three: Which real estate company knows which way is the right way to go? I'm confused!

Have you got any thoughts on the matter?
P.S. I plan to make 'on the street where you live' a regular post and in honour of it’s first appearance who could go past Willie Nelson covering a song from one of my favourite musicals. Let's be honest though, I would probably find it a smidge creepy to have a guy wandering up and down my street singing when I have made it clear that I don't much fancy him (reference to My Fair Lady, not personal experience - ahem). 

Anyway, enjoy - I hope it smacks a smile on your face in the gentlest and sweetest possible way!


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