Weekly drawing: My place

My place

I'd sneak through the farmer's property always fearful of a bull (which was never there). Jump the fence again and disappear into the bush following a small creek to disguise my tracks.
It was here, I'd built a secret sheltered oasis out of sticks, bark and leaves. Looking back, I rarely played there. I just built stuff. At the time Mum and Dad were designing and building our family home, so I couldn't see why I couldn't build my place too.

It was also partly inspired:
1. A picture book about a kid who wasn't allowed to help build the family home, because he was to small. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this book.
2. The desert children's sheltered oasis in Mad Max beyond Thunderdome
3. The Ewok village in Return of the Jedi.

As children we called this the Ewok village but as an adult I've called this drawing "my place" after seeing the TV series My Place which high lighted to me that children do claim a place as their own, and that's what I did as a kid too.

weekly drawing: Sea cave

Walking the coast to Wes and Narelle's place, I became quite keen on investigating a dark and mysterious sea cave. Every time I walked past it, my imagination ran wild. I'd somehow managed to convince myself there must be pirates treasure hidden or at least a secret passage way.

So the next time it was low tide, I took my torch and I had a look around. However it wasn't what I'd imagined. Instead of vast riches, I only discovered a small group of bats who wished I'd stop shining my torch so they could keep on sleeping. I didn't find what I was hoping for but I hadn't ever seen wild bats in a cave before, so I was still pretty excited it was a bat cave.

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: The Broadhurst's great tree swing

Kate Broadhurst and me play on the swing

The Broadhurst's had the best tree swing in the world. As kids we were amazed by it's design "How could someone throw and tie the rope at such a height?" Well, I never really worked that out. So instead, I visited as much as possible and concentrated on enjoying it and pretending be Tarzan.

Weekly drawing: Blackberry picking

Sometimes we'd walk the long way down to the beach, to pick berries. 

But because blackberry is an invasive weed these vines were only edible 

for a limited amount of time before they were sprayed. 

Part of me wished they wouldn't spray them, so we could enjoy the free food. 

But another part of me wished I knew more about bush foods.

So I could find lots of free food which wasn't classified as a weed.

Weekly drawing: The big tree in playground

In Bermagui public school there is a grand old tree growing in the middle of it's playground. I have always loved this tree, it reminds me of the kind of tree that would grow in Tolkien's Mirkwood forrest.

When I was in year three, Scott and I played cars at it's base. We made camouflaged Batcave's for our cars by placing sticks between buttress roots and covering them with leaves and soil. In the company of this grand old tree, we were lost in our own imagination and a thousand miles from the school yard politics of footy and kiss and catch.

Weekly drawing: At the tip with Dad

Bermagui tip collecting yellow bricks

There were lots of good things to salvage at the local tip. Our best score was a pile of yellow bricks. We used these to make a windy yellow brick path to our front door through the spotted gums and burrawongs.

Weekly drawing: Shell Beach

Amber and Danny looking for tiny abalone shells at
their  favourite secret beach

Weekly drawing 76: The forrest by the beach

Another fun day at the beach

Some of the best beaches in the world look like this.

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 73: Barragga Bay rock pools

This drawing is my celebration of a magical place and the amazing
times spent with Eileen Scollay, Dan Scollay (her grand daughter),
Amber (my big sister) and Bridget (Eileen's Labrador).

In the 1983-85, a family friend and neighbour Eileen Scollay would often babysit my big sister and me. One of our favourite places she took us were the rock pools hidden under the seacliffs at Barragga Bay beach. I remember the first time my sister described them to me. I couldn't believe there were so many pools in one place, It sounded like some fancy resort. And I loved it.

DIY Kids bamboo tepee from stuff around the house

Tepee ingredients

1. Bamboo

2. Old Inner bike tube

3. Double bed Sheet

4. Bull dog clip

1. Bamboo cut from back garden

Old Inner bike tube to tie the bamboo

Double bed Sheet held on with Bull dog clip

DIY woodwork with found objects

We have a beautiful old timber bench in our kitchen. Which I scored FREE because it was being thrown out and about to be sent to landfill. The bench was perfect in every way, but was missing a drawer. This is the story of How the bench got its drawer.

Last Friday, I was lucky enough to find an old timber drawer being thrown out on Little Eveleigh St in Redfern. However it was 15cm too long for our bench, so I cut it down.

This what it looked like after cut down and sanded. But it still wasn't fitting, so...

I went to The Bower in Marrickville and bought a little hand plane for $4 to shave the sides down a touch.

One of my favourite details is the dovetail joint:

The drawer now fits!

I also made a timber knife and fork divider for the drawer. I used $2 worth of timber from The Bower and some wood I found dumped in a laneway a couple of streets away.

I wanted to retain the original quality and style of the timber bench. I'm amazed at how well it all came together. 

I find imagining a found object's potential is extremely rewarding, and wish more people would repair and fix things. Each time I find something and fix it up, I feel I've saved it and I enjoy the process.

Weekly Drawing 48: David Suzuki

I recently watched the documentary 'Forces of Nature' which Suzuki calls his last lecture. He is a great thinker and a wise person. I loved that he wishes for people to consider a long term environmental plan as 400 years into the future instead of 20 years.