Pig Lane - Hay street car Park Liechhardt opening

Originally Hay street car park was a place were people walked through as quickly as possible just to get to Norton street. However over the last few months it has been transformed by the Leichhardt Council into a food garden and sitting area called 'Pig Lane'. The name is a tribute to the sites historical past, when it was home to at least one piggery owned by a Leichhardt Council Alderman Charles Hearn in 1872.

It's great to see by redesigning an area people are in less of a rush to get through the area and they're starting to use the area to sit on their lunch breaks. Also The Food, Wine and Design School now harvest food for classes from the garden. I think it's great that the Piggy history has somehow brighten the future of this once bleak eyesore.

Thanks to Bronwyn Tuohy the Leichhardt Public Art Officer, I was fortunate to be involved and asked to design the metal garden pigs, a retro lamp post and signage plus the etched pavers such as the trailing pig tracks. 

It's been great to be offered such an exciting creative freelance job while being a stay home Dad. I had worked with Bronwyn on The Hawthorne Canal community artwork (my largest piece of art at 25 metres). She has an amazing ability in seeing a disheveled public place and making it shine.

A stray Joel garden piggy

Some more Joel garden Piggies

Joel Piggy tracks etched into the pavers

Joel retro lamp post and signage design

Bronwyn with a real little Piggy at the opening

once there was nothing but rubbish

Weekly drawing 75: Underwater gardening

Realising the joy of underwater gardening.

Before: I built the stone steps and oyster-free swimming cove

I was just out of Art school doing odd jobs and my friend Matt offered me some work, building stone steps for a property at Cottage Point. I have always enjoyed landscaping with stones, so I jumped at the opportunity.

The stones for this particular job were all gathered from the site. Experience has taught me, when working with stones it should be within a 5-1o meter radius from were I want to use it. By doing this the stones will suit the environment and I won't break my back moving them around. To my joy, I also discovered stones are a lot lighter to move underwater. So I used this to my advantage and saved a lot of time.

The time I saved making the steps, I used to landscape underwater, creating a small oyster-free cove for launching a row boat or a place to swim. Unfortunately the couple who paid me for the days work thought I was just mucking about in the water.  To give you an idea of what they must of seen, use your hand and cover the underwater part of my coloured drawing - I just look like I'm just playing in the water.

It wasn't until I'd gone home, they went down a had a closer look and realised what I'd created for them. A functional and subtle design which the fish also loved.

Weekly Drawing 43: Fruit Bat umbrella design

I love creating a design which plays on the shape of an object. To me a Fruit bat already looks a bit like an umbrella.  When it's open it looks like the bat is flying and closed it's alseep.  Plus imagine if this design took off. The next time it rained it would look like a flocks of bats flying out of every pedestrain tunnel in the city. Pretty cool!

One of my dream jobs would be to design Lego models...

Last night I had lots of fun building my new Lego Lighthouse. As I filled out the online product survey I realised one of my dream jobs would be to design Lego models...

Four designs I would make:

1. Captain Kidd on the Adventure, his privateering rig “well suited for catching pirates: weighing 284 tons with 34 cannons, oars and 150 men” (Source: Wikipedia). Just imagine this one in your living room!
2. Charles Darwin and Captain Robert Fitzroy on the the HMS Beagle.
3. Django Reinhardt in a gypsy camp.
4. Matthew Flinders and George Bass charting the coastal inlets of Port Jackson in the little sailing boat Tom Thumb.

Publicity for The Lurkers album Padlock and Chain

The Lurkers CD launch poster on Regent St, Redfern

I recently had a lot of creative fun designing and illustrating The Lurkers the latest album Padlock and Chain. It was great working with like minded people. They’re great a mix of old time folk music, punk attitude and three part harmonies.

Album Launch Saturday, 17th September, The Red Rattler, Marrickville. Get tickets through The Sydney Fringe NSW.