Where it all began…

My mum is visiting from WA. I’m taking some time off exploring and such to spend time with her. Last time she was here she broke her leg on my solo show opening night, so things didn’t go well at all. That was a year ago and now she’s back and we’re going to have a great time! Starting yesterday.

We went for a bit of a shop (I never shop, but I’m cold and needed new clothes- no better time to do it than with mums support and $$) She needed to get a watch fixed so we went to a place in the city. Upon entering the lift I remembered one of my first experience of heights.

I was about ten years old. We were visiting the big city (Perth). I was a wide eyed farm girl, falling in love with skyscrapers. Mum took me by the hand and said “I’m gonna show you the top” So she marched in there like she owned the building and took me to the highest floor (58?). A lawyers office. All the staff were looking at us oddly, one person even asked what we were doing there, as we weren’t allowed.”Showing my daughter the view, got a problem with that?” Mum jabbed back at him. She looked at him with such a nasty sneer he just rolled his eyes and walked away. “You dont get anywhere in this world without a bit of gaul” She said to me.

I reminded mum of this as we went up the lift this time. “Wanna do a bit of live infiltration and get on the roof mum?”

“Yeah why not?” She replied without hesitation.

Stoked and shocked – “Just please dont break a leg…”

She’s a courageous one my mum. Put me to shame getting onto that roof so easily. Made that building her own.

There’s something weirdly amazing about doing naughty things with my mum. Maybe because she’s a conservative Christian whom I’ve been working on corrupting since a young age? Maybe it was the fact I felt super safe, even untouchable with a 53yr old mother decoy? Either way it was a great experience- to show my mum what I love to do,  show her the best way to view this awesome city. And it happened to be sunset. Perfect!

Homemade tattoo by Miso

I was lucky enough to get a homemade, on the spot tattoo by Miso in her studio she shares with Ghostpatrol.

Their studio is located in a building I’ve wanted to be inside of for a while. Inside the beautiful gothic multi level, an amazing studio space, tidy and organised (compared to mine) adorned with many inspiring artworks, finished and in progress, by both artists.

It was great to meet Miso as I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time. I was very appreciative she’d taken the time to ink my skin with one of her delicate ‘prison style’ tatts. We talked of her upbringing in Ukraine, working on murals and getting into tattoos myself.

It was a fun and painless experience, just a series of pin pricks to form lines. So happy with the end result.

Getting another soon as I just can’t get enough! Was meant to yesterday, but my rascally cat got into a fight and needed to go to the vet instead. Rain check…

Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday,  no biggie, just another year older. But I had to enjoy the sun setting from at least 25floors up for my day of birth. And what a perfect roof it was. 360 degree view of  Melburn City and the ocean.  Afternoon to Sunset to night. Perfection!

Another I & the Others colab…

Winter is arriving in Melbourne. On a miserable rainy day, I had the pleasure of  hanging out with I and the Others again. We’d planned to either play in the studio or out and about somewhere when we realised a certain abando I’d been wanting to see was right near her studio. So we headed there, backpacks full of all sorts.

The place was obviously an old tailor or sewing supplies as there were spools of thread everywhere. There was extensive fire damage to the building, which had removed most of the roof. So it was a wet and damp day. But heaps of fun…

We decided to work on a smoke damaged wall in a small room filled by wooden boxes and an amazing piece by Twoone. The space was dark, eerie and overgrown with vines. It was a given that our piece would be slightly darker than our usual work.

We wanted to somehow utilise the millions of thread spools on the floor also, so we decided to depict a common scene of abandos, dead hanging bird. So we painted in the bird, then unravelled some spools of particular colours entwined some twigs in it, then attached them from the roof to the birds leg with glue. At this stage, the rotting wooden box I was standing on broke and I fell to the rubble on the floor. Was a good fall though, looked like it would’ve really hurt and I was waiting for the pain, but nothing. Safe.  I&TO then added her amazing detail to the piece, placing some feathers and a branch under our bird. We then piled up as many spools under our piece to create more of a scene.

As always, I love working with I&TO. We work so well together. We spent time admiring the other great work in the building. I quickly hauled myself onto the roof and K’d the Chimney blue.

Apologies-Photos are from iPhone. They also include works by Twoone, Evil, iKool,  and others.

Stay tuned for more colabs with I&TO…

Another hospital…

Last night, Krytie TV and I took on a site I’ve been really wanting to get amongst. I love hospitals. It’s where this whole exploring thing started for me. I just love the eerie atmosphere of being anywhere medical, whether live or abandoned.

This site was a demolition in progress but most of it was pretty much in tact especially the higher floors. We made it into the plant rooms, wards, operating theatres, lecture theatres, the shopping precinct of the building and the roof. Was fun  looking through an abandoned pharmacy. Spent a few hours in there checking it all out. Not too much stuff left behind, a few beds, trolleys and old equipment but the machinery in there was pretty awesome.

Was pretty creepy at night, was watching my back… Some lights were on, but we needed our torches most of the time. Such a large building with winding corridors, was easy to lose your bearings. The rooftop view was a great panorama of the city. Sorry I didn’t get too many roof shots, was raining and couldn’t be bothered looking at it through the lens when it was so huge right in front of me.

We were on our way to the next smaller building when we heard male voices coming down a corridor. Unsure if it were fellow explorers or authorities/security but weren’t keen to wait around to see.

Shoes

I’ve been meaning to get to this old shoe factory/outlet for ages. Nothing new, you’ve seen it all before. There’s plenty of photos of it on the internet, especially loved Kitten of Dooms photos as always…

http://kittenofdoom.com/2012/03/11/abandoned-shoe-factory-and-shop/

There was some good work in there, particulary Smel, Georg, Awol, Claude, Takie and the Doctor. And all those shoe lasts, had a great time in there…

Alleycat Creative for Holliava Bar

Alleycat creative organised a great night of street art at Holliava Bar, Richmond. Myself and heaps of other artists were allowed ‘free range’ to do our thing on their walls. ‘Erection inducing’ aerosol fumes, plenty of booze and so much creativity, a great oppurtunity to meet more amazing talent.

Some amazing pieces, It was really dark inside, we didn’t capture too much over the night, but here’s a few photos taken by my girl and Romy from Alleycat. Includes Heesco, Facter, Baby Guerilla, Ha-Ha, Braddock, Phoenix, S-701A, Erin Greer and a lil something I did with aerosol, ink and collage on a copper clad wall. Was a great surface to work with.

also check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanlovepuzzle/ for more, better lit pics. We painted the fuck out of the place in a few short hours! Thanks and love to all involved.

‘One in Ten’ @ Off the Kerb Gallery

I Love Off the Kerb. Shini and the gang have been so good to me this past year, super supportive and always encouraging.

Tonight is the opening night for ‘One in Ten’  group show curated by Dan Dealy and is also their 5th birthday!!!   

 Yesterday,  I managed to quickly squeeze in installation of a large paste-up/collage for their back garden area wall into my newly busy schedule. Glad I managed to do so, such a great space to create in, always feel at home.

Get down to Off the Kerb for Opening tonight, theres some great work on show, I’ve included a funny lil piece, and have a look out the back also…

Celebrating Off the Kerb’s 5th Birthday Show

ONE IN TEN : Identity through the eyes of a gay artist…

Curated by Dan Dealy

Creative people already experience the world in a unique light. As gay artists, is the world even more extra-ordinary? Off the Kerb’s 2012 Birthday show aims to investigate and unravel the place of the gay individual within an artist’s persona and practice.

The title ‘One in Ten’ is a subtle play on the unproven figure that 10% of the world’s population are homosexual. The exhibition is a collection of artwork from contemporary gay artists that have been encouraged to explore their position not only as an artist, but as an individual. Several of the exhibiting artists’ works will pose questions about identity and sexuality…

Does the work of a gay artist articulate a voyage of self-exploration into personal identity? Or is it an innately subconscious theme that manifests into an artist’s practice without thought?

This show will leave the viewer with new insights into homosexuality. It will promote the audience to experience sexuality as only part of an individual, and not as a definition.

KLARA   |   Luke Boslem   |   Matto Lucas   |   Jake Treacy   |   Suse Scholem   |   Matthew Dayler | Peter Eglezos   |   Elwyn Murray   |   KN Rodriguez   |   Marianne Mills   |   Nick Heynsbergh   | Stephen Gregory   |   Jacqueline Gwynne   |   Oscar Jackson Blain-Allen

Looking up again

After a shitty day at work, was so good to be 21 floors above the heart of the city. Things have been super busy and as well as having something painfully wrong with my foot, it’d been too long and I was dying to get up again. Another delightful night with Deliverance, Krytie TV and friend as well as meeting another fine explorer- Roon.

Words can’t describe, neither can pictures, but they give you an idea…

So I just checked Psalms blog and it looks like the cat is out of the bag. Glad I can finally share this space with you. I was contacted by Psalm a month or so ago, inviting me to check out an abando in which I should paint in. Stoked.

I raced there at my first available moment. A great space with some great works in it, Psalm, Rone, Stabs, Nelio, Braddock, Evil crew and myself. A few weeks later I asked I & the Others to colab there with me, the one which I blogged about previously.

A great 2 level space adorned with some awesome artwork, get there to check it out before it gets trashed!

Check out Psalms pics of the place before we painted/pasted it… psalmantics.blogspot.com