This is the Garage at 2 Story Street, St. Marys-in a mad dream i rented it to start a Community Artspace- it doesn't look like much on the outside but Phylliss the Philosphical Thylacine finds it amenable enough and there is the space inside it's 3 bays to make Big things like the Tardis and the Flying Pigs- it also stores all of Grassy Bottom Regional Arts' equipment and in the entirety of the plan would have a sprung Dance Floor and a landscaped garden for non-commercial social use as well as a Youth Space, a Gallery, a Doll and Toy Museum..did i mention a home for Fiddlesticks Puppet Theatre?

We had a Film Making Workshop with Craig Cooper

from Flatbottom Productions for our local Emerging

Film makers- they made a short film over a weekend.

This is them going through some scenes at the Garage

This is the Garage when i first got it, hey, presto chango! well, not exactly- i have not calculated how many buckets of black i removed from the inside but there were many...

Just in case you were hangin' out to see the Big Pink flying, well here he is, all six pink meters of him-made for the "Pigs Might Fly" project undertaken by John McColl and myself for the Sesquicentennial Winter Solstice year ( 2007) in St. Marys, It was a Fire Pig Year and was it ever, heralded by a Major wildfire disaster that shook us all up a bit but we're better now.

Cardboard Tardis

The Healthy House Project has requested a life-sized cardboard 'Tardis' (you know, Dr. Who's British Police Call Box Time Machine?) Hmmm...nothing like a challenge- it'll take some cardboard and a place to stand- never mind the fulcrum but the stanley knife will play a starring role in the manufacturing process...

a place to start but a long way to go and yes, LOTS of cardboard-i need a time machine so i can fast forward to get it done in time...nothing for it but to carry on and hope for the best...


and here it is finished,

not a bad likeness if i do say so myself-

and it was done by friday !

Who has seen a Thylacine?
This is me working on a 'pantomime horse' style Thylacine that the beautiful Anna and i made for Winter Solstice in the Year of the Dog ( the Thylacine being a large Marsupial Carnivore, the closest thing to a 'dog' on offer in the native Tasmanian fauna department...) This one turned out to be a walking lantern, lighted up by a 12 volt flouro tube in it's belly- we called her Phyllis the Philosophical Thylacine.
Many of the 'recent' sightings of possible Thylacines ( not the puppet kind) have been reported around our town ,St. Marys- this is a mystical shot of St. Marys presiding landscape feature, St. Patricks Head- a Thylacine's dream, open dry schlerophyl forest with abundant native wildlife and the when the conditions are right, sound of the booming sea from the east...


This is Phyllis having a rest (legless as you can see!) in the Gallery at Story Street Studios, an ex auto-electricians garage in St. Marys which i had hoped to reconfigure as an Artspace and Youth Annexe- that's my girl Penelope sitting there on the floor with the Mermaid's head ( she does have a body, it was just elsewhere at the time...makes you wonder?!!) Penelope is the only one in the picture with all of her appendages!( yes, she does have a pair of tights on her head- we aren't sure why but she has always preferred to wear a pair of pants on her head from the time she was a baby- something else to wonder about?)

This is the Horse Lantern- it was the Year of the Horse and no one came to the lantern making workshops so, being born in the Year of the Horse myself, i decided to make a horse-sized Horse Lantern for the Winter Solstice.It was raining at the time but a quick dash into the bush found some random sticks for a frame to build onto. As luck would have it, one of the sticks turned out to have the perfect shape of a horse's hoof and the lantern had 'horse nature' from the start. He is an 'old soldier' now, having served in a few Solstice Celebrations and a Christmas parade (hence the tinsel still wrapped around his neck and, if you look closely, red and green stains from the crepe-paper reindeer antlers that ran when it rained at the parade!)Alas, in the Year of the Dog, Horse was watching the gate at the Rec Ground and someone must have gotten a little bit carried away with all the fire spectacular stuff and they tried to burn the Horse by holding a lighter under his neck- his body is still good but he definitely needs a new head- only one will be required but that is another story- watch out for ' Two Heads are Better than One' (we are Tasmanians, after all !)

Monkey Business

This is me making the frame for a 3 meter Monkey Lantern for the Year of the Monkey, again St. Marys Winter Solstice caper. Must have been a very 'monkey' year of the Monkey because we did a Shadow Puppet Show and those are the Monkey Shadows above. It's the year of the Rat this year and Rat could be a challenge- anybody know a Rat Story to Live By?