I would like to start this blog post by thanking you. The words thank you seem so small when I write them down, they don’t really capture the enormity of grateful emotion that swells in my chest every time I receive help from you.

As each email telling me of a donation comes in, I feel an excited *squee* bubbling up and I am so very, very grateful to you.

The section of the internet that I frequent really is filled with lovely, lovely generous people. And due to your help in spreading the word of my shave we are going to be able to help the Leukaemia Foundation help families who are facing the darkest battle of their lives.

Cancer really and truly does suck. It is a terrifying reality to have to face.

It is the little things with cancer that you don’t expect.

I wasn’t prepared for how much I spent on petrol driving to the hospital over and over again, the car seemed to be continually running on empty(as was I) and all other household bills were put on the backburner as the costs of Mum’s cancer came first.

When you live any distance away from the hospital, appointments seem to take up whole days. I don’t think I cooked a meal for my family in the last few months of Mum’s life. I know I certainly didn’t do a scrap of housework.

Small things internet, small things that build up and can cause huge stress in a family.

It is my own experience of cancers destructive impacts upon a family that made me decide to join the Worlds Greatest Shave. I was grumpy with my hair and I saw an ad somewhere for the Leukaemia foundation and BAM just like that I signed up.

Now of course I am shitting myself and trying not to think about the impending haircut, as each time I think about it I start to hyperventilate a little bit.

I am impulsive and I never ever think about the consequences of my actions. I just decide to do stuff. I certainly hadn’t thought about the logistics of actually shaving off my hair until a conversation happened on facebook and I was given a link to this page, Miss Be Shavin’

And before I could say “Roller Derby looks like fun” I had joined up with these girls and the logistics of the shave are all being taken care of for me.

I just wont think about the venue, or the hundreds of people that will be there.

I will do my best Scarlett O”Hara impersonation and think about that tomorrow, internet.

On my birthday Veronica took some photos of my hair for me.

After all that hair modelling I was exhausted and the kidlets and I retired to the couch, with chocolate.

If you would like to support me  and donate a couple of dollars I would be most grateful.

So far internet we have raised Raised: $1,508.00

You can DONATE HERE. *grins*

Good morning my lovelies, I am home all day so I will be over to visit you all today. Not like the past few weeks where I have been at work on a Sunday with minimal internet and then before I know it it is Thursday and I still haven’t seen your photos.

I am sorry about that.

Some weeks I don’t have any words and other weeks, like this one my head is full of stories that I am busting to tell you. I have a post brewing about privacy whilst using  facebook, and reminding our teenagers to keep those intimate photos marked as “friends only” not public. My word internet some of these photos would make Debbie of the Does Dallas fame  blush.

I know I was blushing.

Anyhow enough words from me.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

I took these photos on the banks of the Derwent River. On a stretch of rocky foreshore that was about 30 metres long.

This is a piece of metal, probably part of a sign. I brought this home with me to use as a mould for some plates for the “Fired Up” exhibition. I was particularly intrigued with the contrast of the bright orange paint which had barely faded still stuck onto the rusty corroded metal. You can expect more photos of this piece of metal later on.

This is a piece of a coupling thingy that was on our old power pole. It is in the garden for the minute while I decide what I am going to do with it. The spiders like it.

I cant remember where I took the photo of these  reflections or if I have recently published them or not.

And I will finish up with some Lizards. I spend rather more time than I should chasing these guys through the garden trying to get decent photos.

Thank you to all those lovely people who have donated to my Greatest Shave adventure. I would love it if you could give me a shout out on your blogs. I have raised over $1000 so far and I am thrilled to bits to be a quarter of the way there. If you have no idea what I am talking about here is a link to my post, If 500 people Donate $10 each…

Wow internet that is a long time.

Well it’s not really a long time if you are a tree or a rock or a giant squid.

BUT it is a long time to have been married.

Today is my anniversary, The Spouse and I have been together for 25 years.

I often flippantly say that I found him on the side of the road and decided to keep him, well that is true, up to a point.

I didn’t really decide to keep “The Spouse” until four years later.

What I don’t say is that I only went out with The Spouse for a few months when I  was seventeen.

“The Spouse” swears that for him, it was love at first sight. He says he just knew that I was the one for him.

At the fickle age of seventeen I just thought he was rather hot and very fuckable. I went out with him for a few months and then dumped him when he started to talk about long term plans.

At the words lets settle down,I went WTF and bolted.

I bumped into Jeff at the pub again when I was 18 or 19 and one look into those eyes of his and I was immediately smitten again. But once again he vowed and declared that I was the only one for him and I was off like a shot.

At the age of 20 I was living a rather torrid life. The share house I was living in was full of crazy people doing crazy people things. I was working night shift in a popular blues nightclub and I wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends, I was putting a blow torch to the middle of the fucker  as well.

Enter “The Spouse” into my life again

Third time must have been the trick because on my 21st birthday I decided that maybe there was some merit to settling down with this bloke and so I jumped onto the back of his motorcycle and we have never looked back.

I like this photo very much, even though I joke that I should have moved the knife block a bit closer.

“The Spouse is often underneath my car fixing it for me.

I was telling him to pose for the camera and we got the giggles.

This is my favourite “Arty” shot of the Spouse.

Hey Jeffrey Foale. I do Love you!

I think that is do-able internet.

I am sure that between us we can round up five hundred people who are willing to donate Ten Dollars each.

What am I talking about?

In October 2011 I was sick of dyeing my hair purple. My hair grows so fast and I am almost totally grey these days. I seem to be dyeing my hair every few weeks so I don’t look like I am perpetually wearing a skunk hat. Albeit a smell free skunk hat.

So I thought “fuck it” I am going to cut it all off and raise some money while I am at it.

Enter the Leukaemia Foundations World’s Greatest Shave

And so I signed up.

To cut off ALL my hair.

Which was all well and good BACK IN OCTOBER, when March was months away and I didn’t have to think about the consequences of my actions.

There were all sorts of lovely distractions, like weddings and pregnancies and Christmas and exhibitions and MONAFOMA and the list goes on and on.

I had been thinking that if I didn’t say anything about the WORLDS GREATEST SHAVE online I could just accidentally forget to cut off all my hair.

I could say that I had been far too busy and I totally forgot and promise to do it next year and all sorts of other lovely excuses.

But the reality is that cancer doesn’t accept any excuses. And if I am frightened about the prospect of  cutting off all my hair at least I am choosing  this path, not having the choice thrust upon me by chemotherapy or radiation.

So internet will you hold my hand again?

Will you help me reach my total?

Will you write a post for me on your blogs?

Will you donate Ten dollars?

Will you knit me a purple hat to hide under?

You can DONATE TO MY PAGE  FOR THE LEUKAEMIA FOUNDATION”S GREATEST SHAVE  HERE

*** Edited on the 6th Feb. So Far internet, 40 people have donated $1231.00 I am thrilled to bits. Thank you all so much.

***Edited on the 7th of Feb. 46 people have donated $1418. Thank you *grins*

To the words that pop into my head. Or to the order in which I do things.

I am so time poor at the monet internet that this blog is sorely, sorely neglected.

Maybe tomorrow I will write an insightful blog post full of charm and wit.

I am typing so hurriedly that I wrote monet instead of moment in my second sentence and I sat for ten minutes pondering the significance of that word exchange and I thought it looked so nice that I have left it there. I am now thinking about blurry paintings and what a shame it was that Monet had a hissy fit and destroyed so many of his paintings.

Speaking of paintings.

I am part of a group show in Burnie in the north west of the state, that opens in less than four weeks and we have all been given a canvas to use as our Artist Statement. I painted my canvas yesterday. I am going to add some text to explain my work as well as some photographs of  the work in progress and maybe glue a cigarette lighter onto the canvas as well.

The hardest part about any job is starting.

Apparently you have to rub some white spirits over the canvas to break down the fibres. As the canvas was propped up on the shelf drying, I asked twitter how long I should wait before I started chucking some paint about. The answer I liked the most was straight away. So I set to work

These photos were taken with my phone.

I started off using a piece of cardboard as a paintbrush and smeared some yellow poster paint all over the canvas.

The cardboard soon became soggy and left little pieces of itself on my canvas, so I changed tools and started to use a cigarette lighter as my brush.I also fingerpainted quite a bit as well.

And this is the finished background to my Canvas Artist Statement. All I need to do now is tell the story of the body of work that I have made for “Fired Up” and have it all done by the end of February.

And of course remember to breathe…

Hello my lovelies, number 55 has a nice ring to it don’t you think? I am at work in the Off Centre again today so I don’t know if I will have time to visit you today or not. Anyhow without any further babble from me here is…

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

Melinda Tankard-Reist shouts a lot.

She shouts about porn and the exploitation of women, she presents herself as a feminist and campaigns against the sexualisation of our girls.

Playboy bunnies on eight year old girls knickers make me a bit shouty as well and I think we should all be making a lot more noise about the sexualisation of our little girls.

BUT

What Melinda Tankard Reist would prefer that we didn’t know about her is that she is a fundamentalist Christian.

A god botherer of the first order who attends a Baptist church.

I didn’t know this, because to be honest even though I follow Melinda Tankard Reist on twitter I find her hysterical screechings to be a bit exhausting and I only notice her occasionally.

Once I was made aware of Melinda Tankard Reist’s religious leanings a lot of her opinions were immediately put into context.

A context that Melinda Tankard Reist doesn’t seem to like me having.

And it also seems that Melinda Tankard Reist  would prefer that her religious preferences aren’t talked about.

Melinda Tankard Reist says,

“She tries to follow Jesus, but she doesn’t want anybody focusing on her religion because that will distract from her work.”

I tend to disagree.

I think it is of critical importance that we have a context within which to frame our responses to Melinda Tankard Reist’s anti porn and anti abortion campaigns.

I think that  Melinda Tankard Reist’s religion is very, very important to how I perceive her and her work. It doesn’t distract me from her work at all, it gives me the previously mentioned context.

Dr Jennifer Wilson has been persistent in her  public questioning of Melinda Tankard Reist and Dr Wilson writes that she is now being sued by Tankard Reist for declaring on her blog, “No Place for Sheep” that Tankard Reist is a Baptist and attends a Baptist church.

MTR threatens Sheep with legal action if we don’t censor our posts about her immediately

In the conversation that ensued on twitter between No place for Sheep, Weezmgk and myself, I offered my public support to Dr Wilson

This conversation in turn inspired  Machine Gun Keyboard to write this post in support of Dr Wilson

Melinda Tankard-Reist is not the internet nor sex police

So here I stand on my soapbox on my blog declaring loudly that I am Spartacus, because it is incredibly, incredibly important that WE DO NOT LET THE SHOUTERS WIN.

We the public should always, always question the motivations of high profile public campaigners,politicians or anyone else that purports to speak in our name.

I AM SPARTACUS!

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

I am tired internet. The let down from the preparation for the Exhibition Frenetica has left me drained. It is also the MONAFOMA festival and I am tearing all over the countryside enjoying myself and listening to great music and esoteric performance art.

So I only have one photo for you this week and It is a snap I took with my phone on the way to Phillip Adams Ballet Lab last night.

I shared this on twitter last night with the caption,

“Look Twitter, a uteload of ninjas. Ha! Now I know how they get everywhere so silently.”

New work by Kim Foale and Philadelphia Hanson-Viney

These next images were very hurriedly taken in my studio last night. They give you an idea of the work, that will be on display in the Off Centre Micro Gallery from today the 12th of January until Wednesday the 8th of February.

Now I have to race up to the studio, wrap the pots up and transport them all into the city, where Philly and I will set them up in situ in the gallery later on this morning. I will take photos of the work in the Micro Gallery and do an edit of this post this afternoon. Wish me luck internet.