jessica tremp - house of cards

ALOUD interview

2012-02-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

There's a little interview with me here today...

We're having a baby!

2012-02-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

My Mum was a bit of a tomboy when she was younger. Never hugely into boys, wanted to live on a farm, didn’t like children, joined the army and took her older brother's antics head on.

That is until she met my father at 2am in a bar she worked a second job at in South Africa. After they got married in New Zealand and settled for a while running a roast chicken shop in Western Australia, she found herself, much against her usual nature, chasing him around the lemon trees in the backyard, yelling after him that she wanted to have a baby.

I turned out, for the most part, a little different. Always falling in love with a mosaic of men and bruising my heart. Without siblings to tease and a head eternally stuck in the clouds. But, like my mother, I do want to move to the country and I also never really thought much about having children. Until, towards the end of my 20’s I caught myself daydreaming about a skinny, shy little boy with my husbands freckly slouched shoulders, gentle bookish nature, incredible musical talent, long eyelashes and flopsy hair or a little stompy girl who preferred jeans and T-shirts bearing her Dads favourite punk bands to frocks. A girl who ran with dogs her own size and came home with grubby cheeks and mud-soaked gumboots. So when we found out on New Years eve that we were going to be bringing a new little family member into the household, I suddenly felt very, very ready and excited for this new chapter. All going to plan we’ll be holding a squirmy little Virgo in our arms at the beginning of September, though we do believe the Tremp nose will trump my husbands fine features.

p.s. I won’t be taking any wedding bookings from mid June – October ’12 but will be ready and itching for the chance again after then.

fuzzy white ants

2012-02-06T01:27:00.000-08:00

around the house in 80 steps...or...a few of my favourite things...or...'home' by me

2012-01-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

I followed this couch on ebay like a crazy person and then promptly missed the auction, but luckily my plea to the seller to think of me in case the sale fell through was successful.

The Pharlap sign Michael found after walking home from a gig one night and the head statue has slightly bung eyes and we think that makes her especially dashing.

The Mexican tin heart we found in New Orleans. It sits perfectly with a print of one of my favourite Frida paintings.
Poor Bertoia wire chair was stalked by me for a month until I layed down the money for it and proudly brought it home.

moledro

2012-01-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

“n. a feeling of resonant connection with an author or artist you’ll never meet, who may have lived centuries ago and thousands of miles away but can still get inside your head and leave behind morsels of their experience, like the little piles of stones left by hikers that mark a hidden path through unfamiliar territory.”

—	from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

our home on The Design Files!

2012-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

our Footscray home has been featured today on The Design Files here

swarms of raphael

2012-01-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T03:59:00.001-08:00

'Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable'

happy new year!

2012-01-01T03:14:00.000-08:00

xoxo

Nettie in her trailer, Chalmette

2011-12-30T18:04:00.001-08:00

Mel & Joe

2011-12-28T19:12:00.000-08:00

MiCK

2011-12-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

44 Gurner St

Paddington NSW 2021

Sydney, Australia

t: +61 2 9332 2779

e: art@mickthegallery.com

Steph & Nathan

2011-12-12T05:17:00.000-08:00

This wedding is very dear to my heart as it is that of my two beautiful friends Steph and Crofty.

Steph and I met years ago through our images on the internet.

Yup.

I fell in love with the beautiful way she saw the world around her.

Over the months I would pop in for a drink at her bar after work and she would laugh at all my lame jokes and comfort me on my blue days.

Steph is incredible like that. She is one of the kindest listeners I know.

She and I share a passion for life’s simple principles;

That creeks are there for toes to be dipped in.

That telephones are the devil.

That tree, bush and ocean is the prettiest colour, the nicest air and the best to touch.

That sometimes the blinds need to be drawn when the sun is shining

and the car windows wound down when it’s raining.

Nathan mirrors Stephs down-to-earthness, her open, friendly charm, her imagination, taste, thoughtfull aesthetics, incredible warmth and graciousness.

He is undoubtedly her answer.

Congratulations to my darlings, the dream team, Steph & Crofty x

2011-12-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

clarksdale, mississippi

2011-12-01T20:29:00.000-08:00

Nettie, outside her trailer, Chalmette, Louisianna

2011-12-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

Sheri, Brooklyn, NY

2011-12-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

Nettie, Chalmette, New Orleans

2011-11-30T14:53:00.000-08:00

Sheri, Brooklyn, NY

2011-11-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

mehlwurm

2011-11-28T04:47:00.000-08:00

pick up sticks

2011-11-21T18:10:00.000-08:00

My dear readers, there's been a change to the official opening date, now on the 1^st December, however I will still be there on the 24^th November for ‘drinks with the artist’ (that’s me!!) 6pm – 8pm. Come and say hello if you’re in Sydney.

S, New York part I

2011-11-21T16:28:00.000-08:00

Nettie, New Orleans, part I

2011-11-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

Clarksdale

2011-11-19T17:22:00.000-08:00

Jo & Troy

2011-10-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

Shutterbugs TV

2011-10-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

If you can follow my very fast nervous chatter, there's an interview with me here for the 3rd episode of

Alex & Oli

2011-10-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Just following two lads around the Collingwood Childrens Farm

tumbleweed

2011-10-04T04:30:00.000-07:00

Shot with the Olympus Pen EP-3 for their 'Anything But Ordinary' campaign

Marcelle & Jules

2011-09-23T22:30:00.000-07:00

a spring affair

2011-09-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

une histoire d'amour

2011-09-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

L'homme à tête de chou-fleur et la fille avec des mains carottes.

I will definitely be explaining the abundance of vegetables in my photos lately, but in the meantime, there's this...

Gallery Launch and Solo Show coming up in Sydney

2011-09-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

The official opening for my solo show will be on the evening, Thursday 24^th November. I’ll be hiding behind a glass of trembling champagne. Would be wonderful to see you there.

Butterland Take two

2011-08-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

It was a perfect weekend for a drive to the country! The sun came out of her winter hibernation just long enough to entice our freckles and lick our shoulders.

6 of us spent a couple of nights at Greg Hatton & Katie Marx' once-was-Butter-Factory ‘Butterland’

and thanks to the lovely Lisa who lent me her camera whilst I was up there (I’d forgotten my camera battery at home in the charger), I was able to take a few pictures of what we got up to.

Caitlin and I used the Vegetable garden very wisely before cooking a big roast

Danced around the concrete floors in our bathers

and visited the old abandoned Newstead Railway Station around the corner before watching a beautiful sunset with a few beers.

On Sunday we picked some blossom and happened upon a poultry auction and huge yard sale amongst other things, like this in the morning papers…

Bless.

Wattle you do, when they come for you

2011-08-07T17:07:00.000-07:00

A chilling dip into the life and death of the countryside in August. Wattle is in full bloom everywhere you look but sadly foxes are denied their wanderlust.

1st wedding anniversary; 'Paper'

2011-08-06T23:58:00.000-07:00

Celebrating our first wedding anniversary; ‘paper’. One year of pinching myself every day, wondering how a girl like me got the most wonderful man on earth. You make me that happiest darling, I love you x

she knits

2011-07-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

A collaboration with talented florist and beautiful friend Caitlin Gibson

winter

2011-07-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

I usually don’t allow winter to faze me, but this one seems to have seeped into my bones and is playing tug of war with any motivation for leaving the house. Winter is winning.

So whilst I’m giving into what is stark, cold and a little detached, I’m finding my own different ways to warmth. Sorry I’ve been so quiet, but my thoughts have found sun rays in future ideas. And I’m betting spring is just around the corner.

something tangible in the mail

2011-06-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

I always feel a bit silly giving interviews. My hands become flighty creatures of their own minds and tongue twisted I sit there wondering if the other person is secretly rolling their eyes at my all- of- a- sudden -mispronunciation of words and questionable grammar. It was therefore so wonderful (and I so relieved) when I received the new issue (08) of Fallen Magazine in my sweaty little hands and read the article that just seemed to ‘get me’ and I didn’t need to feel so silly at all anymore.

Then today I picked up a copy of TAKE magazine and thankfully there were no need for words. I was simply floored finding my images sitting humbly next to photographers I absolutely worship. I recommend you pick yourself up a copy. 'Tis one of the most beautiful collections of photography I've seen together in a long time.

Gold in Paris

2011-06-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend I received the most wonderful email from Paris. I won Gold in the portraiture section of the PX3 competition

with my image ‘the hunt’, which will be exhibited at the

Espace Dupon,

74 rue Joseph de Maistre, Paris

from June 29 - July 13, 2011

If you happen to be loitering around Europe’s romantic city and drop in, please do let me know how it all looked.

xoxox

enough of that week

2011-06-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

yt sumner

2011-06-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

Incredibly talented writer and word lover extraordinaire on 'lamb eats wolf', yt sumner with her cats Sunday & Ziggy

Tracy McNeil launches her album 'Fire From Burning'

2011-05-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

Very happy and proud to announce Tracy McNeil's album 'Fire From Burning', with my image on the cover, will be launched this June.

‘…an album that gloriously stretches the boundaries of country-roots music. McNeil’s clear and beautiful voice, and a strong use of imagery and melody forge a lasting imprint on the hearts of the listener. Fire From Burning shows a young woman set to further make her mark on the Australian music scene…’

If you’re in Melbourne, come on down…

Tracy McNeil - Fire From Burning Album Launch

with very special guests Van Walker, Sweet Jean (Sime Nugent & Alice Keath) & Luke Sinclair
Bella Union, Carlton South, Melbourne VIC (www.bellaunion.com.au)
Saturday June 11
Doors 8pm, music from 8.30pm
Tickets $12 + bf presale / $15 @ door

Loretta & Andy

2011-05-06T22:35:00.000-07:00

Wedding featured on Rock n Roll Bride

“I would describe our wedding as a bit country barn ho-down, a bit backyard BBQ and a sprinkling of vintage,” newlywed Loretta. “We’ve always been a bit Rock n Roll. We met over a shared love of music and spent the first three years of our relationship going to gigs together. Our first date after our son was born was going to see Midlake at the Prince of Wales. Andy’s other true love is his Martin guitar. Our inspiration came from drives through the country, we always stop when we find a great old ramshackle barn and take photos. Some of our favourite gigs have been in places like Meeniyan at the old Town Hall. It’s in places like these that bucket loads of inspiration can be found. You mix pretty fabrics and detailing with rusty old sheds and and fields of grass and hay and it’s a match made in heaven.”

talk...

2011-05-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

Melbourne Times Weekly

2011-04-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

There's an interview with me here at Melbourne Times Weekly

What dreams may come

Anoush and Farhad

2011-04-06T17:16:00.000-07:00

Polka Dot Bride likes little brown paper parcels

2011-04-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Polka Dot Bride featured Amy and Andy's Garden Fantasy Wedding in one of their blog posts

tree teeth

2011-02-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

Wallan

2011-01-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

My incredibly clever friend Alice grew up in an amazing country home built by her father, a painter, on a hill and invited us to stay the night. We sat around a checkered tablecloth, drank chilled rosé wine and feasted on barbecued goodies, overlooking the valley, a billabong and the sheep. Before the sun disappeared entirely, I snuck in a few photos around the beautiful bushland.

the idea had been to terrify but not touch

2011-01-12T17:30:00.000-08:00

the dream

2011-01-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

There are carpenters under my eye lids

trying to bolt down my lashes

lacquering against the ever old joke

There are soldiers there too

their heavy boots dangling from my lashes

as I march us out of here

Congratulations Sandy & Nicko!

2011-01-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

2011

2011-01-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

she wakes...

...while she sleeps

Happy New Year my fellow dreamers x

Amy & Andy

2010-12-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

Amy and Andy’s beautiful, whimsical wedding south of Perth at an incredible artists home in the country, surrounded by sculptures, a frog pond, jazz and soft coloured flowers

Martin Martini

2010-12-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

Martin Martini asked me to take some promo portraits for his shows at the famous Spiegeltent opening again in 2011

I don’t always quite know how to fit.

2010-12-02T21:27:00.001-08:00

Sometimes there is so much more love and kindness inside me than you can believe.

And sometimes, so much more darkness than I can.

Alice

2010-11-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, a lovely Alice emailed me to commission me to take some portraits for her.

We met at my house and after packing up some bits and bobs, wandering and orange buying, quickly pushed away any shyness and cooked up some moody imagery together.

Fit to Print

2010-11-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

I’ll have a couple of my prints at this here Melbourne event, ‘Fit to Print’

at QV and No Vacancy Gallery from 9^th until 23^rd December '10

I also received a lovely mention in ‘The Pandorian’ and ‘Letter to Jane’ for some of my recent work.

The Butter Factory

2010-11-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

Lisa & Sean

2010-11-28T16:04:00.000-08:00

I had the great pleasure to be invited to one of the most beautiful weddings I’d ever been to last weekend.

Lisa and Sean hooked up the same night my Michael and I did, one fateful night at the Tote Hotel in Collingwood and became inseparable from day one.

They got married at the cutest country pub in Guildford amongst beautiful pastel coloured garden roses, peonies and native bush flowers, cool beers and great Italian food under a sunshine sky.

On the old wooden outdoor stage our friends exchanged instruments and grins and put together one of the best sets, making everyone swoon to Otis Redding covers and dance to Led Zeppelin. And finally, as one of the bridesmaids stepped up with her saxophone and belted out ‘Baker Street’ to everyone’s glee, the cool evening air swooped in and everyone huddled over second serves of Canneloni before barn dances took place in the stables.

Truly the most genuine, love filled, beautiful wedding of two amazing friends.

Gruntbucket launch

2010-11-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Gruntbucket’s ‘Receiving’ launch @ Cherry Bar, Melbourne

The Big Apple

2010-11-17T18:25:00.000-08:00

I’m pretty stoked to be accepted into the opening show of new New York Gallery, Joy Wai.

The gallery will open its doors to the public on December 16th, 2010 in Downtown New York.

Whose Self-Portrait? The Subject Behind the Camera will be on display through January 31st 2011 and I’m lucky to have an image hanging on its walls too.

Tasmania

2010-11-17T14:48:00.000-08:00

I think I found the most beautiful place on earth.

A place where loneliness is warm, the wind cool, the sheep everywhere and you nowhere you’d rather be.

A sandstone house hidden by spikey sand dunes and spindly burnt trees. And mountains of stories brought in by the waves on a forever beach.

The Coincidents

2010-11-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

a splash of colour, gorgeous people, some housework, a watermelon fight in the sunny afternoon and a Gin & Tonic to wind down afterwards

Into the night sky with Skye

2010-11-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

This is my first shoot with performance artist Skye. Sitting on my front porch pew in our long brown coats drinking wine, we waited for my wonderful friend Adrian to join us on a planless evening crusade through the neighbourhood. Armed with a bottle of the aptly named ‘the acrobat’ Shiraz, we watched Skye climb up and around scaffolding and danced our way into the night.

"A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes"

2010-11-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

I was most delighted to be contacted to take some portraits of this lovely cat owner and her Siamese ‘Hugo’.

Brothers Grim & the Blue Murders

2010-11-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

I could think of many worse things than having these four dapper men climb into the Yarra river at my whim

I'm a Finalist!

2010-10-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

If by any chance you feel inclined to hold my sweaty palms during the screening of this, do come along...

music to my shutterbutton

2010-10-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

I had the great liberty and pleasure to create, shoot and design the album cover for ‘Gruntbucket’s’ debut album ‘Receiving’. With a heady mix of psychedelia, electric dirge and freewheelin' rock n' roll, it’s loud, unrelenting and passionate music that drives you on, drags you up by the scruff and lays you down ever so gently.

The album launch is on the 19th November at Cherry Bar, Melbourne. Do swing by?

The same wonderful record label ‘Torn & Frayed’ also contacted me to use two of my images for the cover of Rollerone’s ‘motorsport’, released last week.

rabbit patches

2010-10-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

Snuck some barefoot 'me' time in...

La Mer

2010-09-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

At 8am in the morning, the luscious Etoile, Burlesque dancer and Dance Instructor, drove up with her boyfriend in two old Citroens (a 2CV and my alltime favourite car, a DS19) to whisk me away down the coast. A quick stop for coffees and plan making en route to the beaches along the bay.

Sea air, Cheese and Salad Sandwiches, a confident model who works with you like Maple Syrup with Walnuts and rickety rackety jazz playing out of the car radio.

This is the kind of stuff that makes a job just bloody wonderful.

She’s performing a solo show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, you should totes go and check her out. She’s a total babe.

I Do, I Do, I Do

2010-08-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

It feels like months ago already, that most wonderful of wonderful days that seemed to fly by in 5 minutes and left my smiled-out cheeks ache for days.

But 3 weeks ago, I married the man that fills my heart with glee.

My beautiful friend Caitlin helped me brighten the room on a winter day with hundreds of poppies.

I squeezed into a simple champagne taffeta and ecru lace dress from the 50’s

and a pair of vintage cream heels rescued at an estate sale

Gypsy Scotty picked me and my little helper-loves up in a friends cream valiant

and dropped me to a nearby pub where I met Dad and downed a whiskey to put the nerves at ease.

On my arrival, the gorgeous Ukeladies played ‘Today I met the boy I’m gonna marry’, an old Darlene Love song I’d picked.

And with a healthy dose of laughter, all our friends supported us in tying the knot.

The families were proud and happy

There were speeches that reduced me to tears and Michael sang me a song.

There was great music and dancing. Lots and lots of dancing.

A cake of cheeses.

Congo lines gone askew.

And then there was us. Utterly exhausted and overwhelmed with joy.

Everyone was eventually sent home with something to nurture and grow.

We spent the next morning recounting all our favourite parts of the night in bed

before meeting the out-of-staters for brunch.

Adrenalin must have kept me together the weeks leading up to it all, because just 2 days after I collapsed into a fluey mess and lost my voice. My honeymoon was not spent in the arms of my new husband, but with work in Jakarta, trading in sweet whispers and cuddles with a duty free bottle of Jamiesons and hotel slippers.

But I’m back! And crazy happy to be ‘Wifey’

holding up the fort, one card at a time

2010-07-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's all been very helter skelter lately and the winds have been blowing urgently through my little house of cards.

It's mostly all been very wonderful news.

I've had a very lucky run. First I won the Olympus Testdrive Challenge, then I found out I've been accepted for the Art of Photography show in San Diego. There were 13,692 entries from 67 countries, and 113 pieces were picked by Natasha Egan to be exhibited in the show, so I feel pretty chuffed. And this weekend I found out that I won the 'highly commended' award, judged by Karen Woodbury from Woodbury gallery at this years 'Picture This' for 'a dissection of personal treasures'.

I had a look at the exhibition last week and was blown away once again by the entries.

Though I haven't been able to squeeze in any time for my own photography projects (and plans I do have) , I've been able to find moments to keep contributing to the Ghostlight project

I'm also getting married in two weeks time to the most wonderful man and I feel almost breathless with the stress it is causing. Good stress, but frantic stress nonetheless. It will be a low key affair and I'm VERY much looking forward to it. It falls in with all my other favourite things that happen in August. Rununculus, Rain and Blood Oranges.

I hope you find your little piece of heaven next month too.

Until soon, much love

calendar cathedral

2010-06-28T21:56:00.001-07:00

Busy doesn’t suit the blue eyes

that miss the open sea.

Her hair’s been tied in a ponytail so tight,

she might rip open at the seams.

She lets the shower run,

lets it wash off in streams

and pokes around for bits of her in the drain.

It seems dinner and booze

sit at the table with the working blues

and the conversation’s drowning

in the bags under her eyes.

And in the disguise

she fears she might not find herself again.

Again and again,

that is the drill.

So fucking shrill in the morning

with the alarm

that goes

‘here it goes,

here it goes’

Here it goes again.

from house to chapel

2010-06-15T18:36:00.000-07:00

Adrian picked me up on Saturday morning for some quality icy wind and car conversation time. We drove 2 1/2 hours out of Melbourne past burnt trees and windsteady horses to a caved in house and a little chapel a bit further up.

Though I nearly froze my behind off to begin with, after a good set of bouncing through the rubble and bricks I'd almost forgotten it was the middle of winter.

A glass of wine in a ghost town bar later and I was mixing boiled lollies with jumbled words on our way back home.

pigeons, pm in the am

2010-05-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

When one has some time off, it's quite seductive to go to bed at 5pm and get up at 1am. The world is a silent dark when you wake up to a midnight house. One morning just before dawn, I lost sight of our greyhound Soda racing around in the morning mist of an empty footy oval just as the sun started to come up. It was a pinch magical.

On our way home, we found a dead pigeon. I quickly wrapped him up and took the opportunity for a few pictures.

Tomorrow it's back to the saltmines for this nesty lady.

Boo.

Le Maroc

2010-05-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

Not quite African, not entirely French or Middle Eastern. In this land of kohl-rimmed eyes, stray cats, ancient traditions, and donkey carts there lies a different Scheherazade's tale behind every carved wooden door.

A 'bonjour' opens uncertain faces into smiles in a place where goats can climb trees, hooves balancing on sketchy branches, where strangers watch over each others kids and the police let your traffic error off lightly with an 'a holiday should be a good experience, non'?

A place where people build forts and ramparts into the wild sea and a rooftop terrace on each house to see it from, courtyards with fountains in the middle of houses that look like mini palaces inside the most unassuming doors and down the skinniest alleys of a medieval medina. Markets serving up stone oven baked bread, perfectly soft and perfectly crusty, buttery couscous, snail soup, boiled sheep's heads and silky treats steaming away in tajines around every corner.

My Morocco was as much a dusty and pale sunbleached postcard left out in a desert oasis as a vibrant jade and ruby coloured mosaic, changing colours like a chameleon.

May's a pretty lucky month!

2010-05-21T19:34:00.001-07:00

Not only did I have the pleasure of a wonderful holiday in Morocco and now a week left to while away at home with a fridge full of fancy cheeses, and other goodies, bottles of duty free, a great book, my gorgeous greyhound Soda, my wonderful man and time to create, I also stumbled in the door to these lovely publishing surprises.

Very excited to have a write up in

Swiss Magazine, Kinki

Feature in the 7th issue of L.A.'s 22 zine

Feature and front page of issue 17 in one of my favourite photography magazines, Ninja

fishday afternoon

2010-04-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

My gorgeous friend Caitlin organized a shoot for us in a friends 70’s mansion on the weekend. She picked me up eye squintingly early for a Saturday in her baby blue 60’s Holden and we flew off down towards the South Melbourne markets to buy a fish, some grapes and put some greasy food in our bellies.

We were rewarded with a friendly welcome and sunshine, so I whisked out my favourite bathers and dressed her up with a makeshift ‘bathing turban’ out of a scarf and a piece of ribbon.

Having a picture turn out well is not a miracle when you have someone so effortlessly golden to shoot with.

Head On

2010-04-21T18:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty stoked to be a semi finalist in the 'Head On' portraiture prize. If you’re in Sydney next Friday and get to the opening, do let me know how it all went

back to school camp

2010-04-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

Adrian and I drove searching for treasures of the 'left behind' kind this weekend. We had a secret squirrel hint of an abandoned school camp about 2 hours out of Melbourne and set off with ipod playlists and tripod gadgetry.

We stopped in a country town where people greet you when you walk down the road and shared chocolate big M's and egg and salad sandwiches with the very friendly ducks at the pond.

A few navigational issues, scones and teas later, the fence around the camp was jumped and we found ourselves inside this little gem of a relic.

The mosquitoes were particularly fond of me.

through the urban wilderness

2010-04-05T21:00:00.001-07:00

There’s a house around the corner from me that has fallen victim to all kinds of disrespectful behaviour over the years. I’ve always felt sorry for it. Recently some squatter set fire to it and it has been boarded up ever since.

Some loved ones don’t appreciate my naivety when it comes to the strength and support of old floors in derelict structures and since the roof of this house had holes and burnt boards all through it with metal bits everywhere hanging from the mostly open ceiling, I decided to scale it on my own. And I would lie if I didn’t admit that my heart was beating drumlike in my ears and the adrenalin snaked its way through my veins. On my way down my dress got caught on some wirey bits and I couldn’t use my hands to untie myself as I was hanging on to the side of the building with all my might until I got a strong foothold and I could adjust my clothing layers ladylike again. I would have been such a sight from the street hanging off the building in my undies and my dress half way over my head. I guess, at heart, I’m still a child climbing trees wondering how different the view might be from up there.

There’s also a couch that never moves from a parking lot near us. I should take a book over sometime and keep it company for a while.

Perhaps it was asbestos or too much fresh air, but I somehow caught a cold over the Easter weekend. Perfect time to curl up and take out my paints and pencils...

Internet’s a lemon!

2010-03-24T18:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to bring a lemon cake to my friend’s house the other day. You know, one of those really yummy moist ones. And while the internet and I have always gotten on like bread and cheese and I’ve been able to find recipes for anything from Ethiopian stews to stain removals in carpets, I have to say that the lemon broke the internet. I trawled through pages and pages of recipes only to find that no one seems to bake a bloody lemon cake from scratch anymore. Ingredients were limited to lemon cake mix and lemon jello mix. And then I also found one that had no lemon at all in the lemon cake. It was an ugly thing. Even my cooking books didn’t provide any help. Eventually I made up my own mix and as we sat there coming up with puns like the internet can be a bit ‘unrind’ or ‘citrus shits us’, we wondered why you can buy everything pre-made but no one will sell you preserved lemons for your tajine. The tradition of keeping recipe books through generations, with domestic goddesses that recorded the beautiful successes that a bay leaf could bring the irish stew, is in our minds such a beautiful one. So rather than chewing through the new age, we’d like to fill our bellies with history and Mum’s quiches.

just as weather happens to us...

2010-03-17T17:14:00.001-07:00

We all made our way into the galactress. She was going to bring us to Germany in less than an hour. But not just any Germany. The Germany we wanted her to be. I clutched my dress, feeling the thin cotton and looked around for a coat. My Germany would be cold. In that warm way. With all the rooftops in cold colours. Like greens. And aqua blues that reminded you of tears. I was thinking about feeling the cobbled stones under bare feet, though white socks would complete my picture a little better. You would look good in my Germany. I tried to catch your gaze and transmit my image but you were already on a different course of your own. And before you could see the rooftops crying in Germany, I quickly closed my eyes.

And so it goes.

2010-03-14T17:53:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure why I like writing to you on Mondays. Perhaps it’s a clinging to a more-me when I find myself dumbfounded at work in the morning. I salute all you people who have had the courage to quit your day jobs in pursuit of what makes your fire truly burn.

I had one of those weekends, you know where all your plans fall through and you had the wrong dates for things and the cluster of busy-ness that was making you feel tense burst and you’re left with that miraculous little thing called time.

And whilst there was plenty of the good dorky stuff, like getting up late and putting your pyjamas ON

to make cups of tea and creamy scrambled eggs and you go about being what you are away from public where no one sees you mimicking the dog or watching fantasia 2000 with sleep still in your eyes at 1pm.

But there was also productiveness and that feeling of achievement that makes you a little high when it’s your own stuff you’re working on with no pressure from anyone else.

It took a wee while for Michael and me to let lose creatively around each other when we moved in together, both of us being pretty shy about our stuff and how we work. Though with all guards down and closer than I possibly ever imagined I could be with someone I shared a bed with, we’ve become a tight little cluster of creativity. There was cooking, hair cutting,

camera swinging

and singing. And rather than just inviting me in to his world of music where every instrument he picks up spins magic, he’s given me the confidence to join him. Over the last few months and many, oh, many a bottle of wine, we’ve forged a little twosome band, called ‘Hey, Swampy’.

If you can handle my chipmunk voice you can have a little listen here at a few of the demos we’ll be recording sometime this year hopefullydopefully.

I also managed to squeeze in a meet up for another commissioned shoot where for the first time I was honest about my anxiety about working with and for other people and was supported about it rather than brushed off . I bounced home with a flower marking my ‘up-to’ page in my Vonnegut novel and a spring in my step.

Wishing you all a fantastic week!

Mar '10 feature in Rojo & Garabato Magazine issue #1

2010-03-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

Rojo & Garabato Magazine is a monthly and polyglot on-line mag about art, design, illustration, photography…Rojo & Garabato are graphic designers & photographers based in Coruña, Spain and they have been lovely enough to feature me in their first edition.

rainy day tries to shoot the stars

2010-03-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

Tracy McNeil shoot on the day of the storm from hell. We took those lemons and willed them into lemonade.

honourable mention in the international 'Artists Wanted' Competition

2010-02-12T18:11:00.000-08:00

Power of Self Competition by Artists Wanted Org. gave an honourable mention and images will be screened at Open House Gallery, 201 Mulberry St, Manhatten 12th March from 7pm

Soura

2010-02-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

I received a package from the Middle East the other day with an 8 page feature in Dubai's photography Magazine, Soura

‘From a penetrating look into the souls of animals to a macabre vision of regular people, from whimsical fairytale-like narratives, to absurd and quirky images of musicians, this month Soura attempts to grasp at the infinitely long and wide hems of portrait photography.'