Progression at Emerald Arts Newcastle.

The start of a mural which will feature one of my girls and a full moon.

Sorry this photo is a bit dark, but I have the markets tomorrow and much as it pains me not to fix it, I'm off to Bedfordshire after this post. So, this photo is the Valentine display.

This is the "current project" wall. At the moment I'm painting a canvas sign for Emerald Arts.





The photography section. This contains portraits of the creatures in various locations around Newcastle. Taken by the v. talented Ten.


Dangly glass constructions by Kim. So lovely. The butterfly one on the left is my favourite so far ;)



The zine table so far. There will also be a "swap box" where you can swap things out. If you have a zine that you are done with, it goes in the box and you take a different one out.



A slightly wider view showing the Toy Bed that lives underneath and will serve as a daybed for parents etc. to sit on reading while classes are on. Or they can go shopping or do coffee ;)


This is the rear wall of Emerald Arts so far. Black and white photography (mine) mixed with favourite images by fashion photographers, more to come.

blergh

So I am not to be a homeless person after all... my lovely friend Andrew is lending me money so I can get my business officially registered then get the bank account and blah blah ohdeargod I am so relieved.

I wrote a massively long post but blogger ate it :( So I'll give you a link to my facebook album instead so you can see the scrubbed up and repainted shop.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=206361&id=656225390

Will try it again tomorrow, but for now I am off to Bedfordshire.

-Emmeline

Arrrgghhh

The problem with not having enough money, working for yourself as an artist and business owner, is that collecting a safety net is impossible. After a year of hard work, slogging it out, I'm now a week away from an eviction notice. We're behind in rent and it's my fault. I have managed to get myself an artspace, I've spent forever making stock and planning and longing for a place to call my own. I achieved all that but now I'm about to be out in my arse because I'm unable to pay the $140 dollars to register my business so I can get a bank business account and use overdraft to pay my rent.

I'm feeling like the worst person at the moment. I can't bear to think of losing my beautiful house because I broke my foot and couldn't go to the markets to earn money. My beautiful Ten doesn't deserve this. I guess I can do right now is spend every waking (and when I should be sleeping second) on getting that place going. I have to hope that I can make enough money in sales on the weekend to keep the wolves at bay. So scared.

Blooming lovely

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Introducing Cas.

Whilst lurking on Facebook waiting for the day to cool down so I can go work in the shop, I came across these photos of my sister in someone's Christmas party photos.

Cas is Cassandra Jane Stronach, she's four years younger than me, but people often mistake us for each other because we're both tall and brunette, even though we're built differently and have quite different faces. Cas is about two inches taller than I am and slender, I'm almost six foot so I'm hardly tiny, but I'm more of an hourglass, very curvy. Also, Cas has blue eyes with flecks of gold, whereas my eyes are swamp green (long story... how the name came about I mean, not infidelity or being swapped at the hospital :P).

So this is Cas at her work Christmas party on Sydney harbour. Feb last year she started work with a company called Nettleton Tribe on the North Shore. She's an (incredibly talented) architect.

Keeping up the family tradition of being total junkies when it comes to Champagne. I remember when I was going through the gamut of testing to figure out what turned out to be coeliacs, the doctor read out a list of what I could and couldn't drink. My Mum asked in a tiny sad little voice "Does that mean she can't have Champagne?"

The doctor laughed and said "It's ok Mrs Stronach. Champagne is gluten free."

Big Sigh of relief.

Anyway, back to the Cas One. What else can I tell you about her? We sound alike on the phone and often confuse Mum. We both count "Zoolander" and "Fogetting Sarah Marshall" as cinematic classics. She sets me off on such laughing fits sometimes that I double over and no noise comes out. She's never been a great reader of books, but she's getting back into them which makes me really happy cos books rock. She bosses me around FAR more than I boss her, but it's like water off a ducks back with me anyway haha. Also, we can fight like cats and dogs about the stupidest things, but five minutes later we're over it.

Whenever we go on family holidays, Cas and I go into sleepover mode and annoy our brother by talking all night, but then Lachy and I fight over who gets to share a room with her because she can snore if she has hayfever, Lachy snores too though, so he loses :P Plus I'm the eldest, so I just keep repeating that as the answer to every argument he puts forward.

Cas is the most excellent sister.

Dropped by the space tonight on the way to Scotty's poncho party. I forgot to wear one cos I am a n00b without a filofax on me. Need a PA or something :P



Sculpture from the Waste as Art exhibition holding place for things to come. Had to put something shiny in the window cos I am just so damn proud to have the place... even if it has been too Dayam hot to clean it hehe


Hmmm, hard to take photos with a camera phone through dirty windows. Note to self, next time remember the windex





So yeah, probably should be playing guitar hero with the boys last night, we came home early from the party cos Ten is still a bit sick and Harvs (Benny) has almost no voice because the Big Day Out was THAT good ;)

Instead I am displaying to you dear reader the "Holding" window display at my new shop Emerald Arts. I could not be more giddy with excitement. like seriously ;)


-Emmeline xoxoxo

Feel the lurrrve baby

Even though I have a boyfriend, I still feel that Valentines is kind of lame and generally forget it's even on till Ten comes home and sqidges me and tells me that it is. Then I usually kiss him and tell him that our presence is presents enough to each other and we get something tasty like Thai takeaway from The Grange and watch silly movies.



This year though, I've been making hearts because I liked making them at Christmas time for the tree and thought "Oh why the hell not". That and I had a whole lot of magenta coloured faux fur and a shop to fill :P

So this is my version of a Valentine present, the "I Heart Valentine":

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20080668

Ferris Bueller, you're my hero!

The day started off a little shaky this morning. Had Dad look over the paperwork for me yesterday but I was still chasing up a lawyer to explain a clause and sign the document. One place I called quoted $400 (for what turned out to be a 20 min job) but as I am an almost starving artist, (but for the grace of Ten) that wasn't going to happen. So I swallowed my pride and started calling around, explaining the community driven nature of the project and general poverty of artists to various lawyers that I found in the white pages, strangely enough... no one wanted to work for free. Put a shout out on facebook, called several family friends (everyone is still away on school holidays), nothing was happening and Emmeline was getting very stressed. It got to eleven am, I got teary, told the mormons who came to my door that I didn't need Jesus in my life I needed a lawyer... they made their excuses and left...

But then...

*BIG sigh of relief* a family friend of Ten's responded to his phone message and said that he would be more than happy to look over things for me and sign. I washed my face and put on some lipgloss then was picked up by Ten and taken into town to the place you see below:

This is the Newcastle office of Sparke Helmore, which is (quite hysterically now that I think of it) another quality Stronach construction, overlooking the harbour. Pretty rough view eh? I don't know how they get any work done with a view like that, the picture doesn't quite do it justice, but they are seven stories up and have 180 degree views... just gorgeous.

So, Paul Jayne, my knight in shining business attire, looked over the contract for me and signed the lawyery bit. Complete legend, saved my bacon. Without it I would have had to wait until Tuesday to (possibly) get it signed by someone at the Community legal centre, but no guarantees there, and then wait until RN was able to see me again. But it's done and I am so relieved still that I feel a little shaky. So glad.

After seeing Paul the Lovely Lawyer, we headed into town to pick up lunch at All Bar One where I told my favourite waiter ever that I'll soon be a neighbour. The little budda on the stack of coins here is their tip jar. He got bored and made him a little change plinth to meditate on. Then we headed up to see Marni from RN (who has a bike with a basket and a colour co-ordinated drink bottle btw, love it), got the keys and checked out the shop with the GPT site manager.

Will be heading back into the shop tonight when it's cooler to put a "Coming Soon" sign and a couple of shiny things to generate interest. This is one of the windows... not the best photo, but just wanted to give myself an idea of the space so I can start planning displays.


Someone left me a can of air freshener. How thoughtful :)



A display table thing that was left in the shop. Needs welding so I'll get Benny on to that. Thinking of filling it with sand so I can a) have a sand pit for the little kids to create in like I used to do in Kindy, or b) fill it with shells and coral for a jewelry display. Also, HOW GOOD ARE THE PURPLE WALLS??? Oh how you will soon be muraled my lovely lilac friends.


An old cash register stand that I found in the store room out the back. Going to clean it up, then hopefully find an old school register with the handle you pull down because they are awesome and made of win and I need it.

The store room is absolutely massive and full of shelves. Just huge. Going to take all the boxes and stuff out of the front bedroom at Buddy and store them in the shop so we can have a summer bedroom because I am SO over being woken by the sun at 6am. I do not like mornings.

So there you have it. The keys to Emerald Arts are in my pocket and I am so far beyond excited it's ridiculous. Going to wear old clothes and give it a damn good clean tomorrow (Sat), then Sunday is the markets, Monday is a public holiday and Tenski is off work, so we're going to drink all day and possibly go swimming in a place called the Bogey Hole which sounds gross but is actually the most amazing grotto swimming pool right beside the ocean, cut into the side of a cliff. Beautiful.

<3 and much excitement

-Emmeline

Since it's rainy and horrid here today...

Tim Burton's "Vincent" for your viewing enjoyment



Seriously lacking in motivation today, so I've decided to go to Dad's office and print out lots of copies of my zines and the Anti-Scrapbooking Society's Manifesto, then I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Grey's Anatomy and putting them together. Give the brain a break for a bit.

;)

Dusty McDust Dust

This is me being a dork at Ten's birthday shenanigans last weekend. I was showing my friend Dawes that I had cunningly matched my eyeshadow (thankyou Napoleon) with $1 chemist nailpolish. My hair looks so crazy because it was a bit windy on the waterfront, but I kind of like it.

Cleaning out my house, organising all the stuff that needs to go to the shop over the weekend... tried tying a scarf around my head to keep the dust out but my glasses kept fogging up. Took it off, but only when someone rang the doorbell... the lawn mower man from next door wanted to know if I wanted the two nature stips mown (for $30 when we have our own mower? I don't think so). He looked at me funny, I remembered I was still wearing my bright red silk scarf over face... whipped it off quick smart. Maybe next time I go on a mad cleaning binge I need to get a proper dust mask from the Man Shop (aka. Hardware Store).

Covered in dust, but getting there, just waiting for Ten to come home so we can go have a swim.

The gang hanging out at Inbetweendays (photo nicked off facebook). I'm the one in red, then on my left you have Tegan (girlfriend of Dawes but my friend for longer :P), Chris, the guy with the very interesting hairdo is Zane, then Tenski is on my left.

Tenski is home SWIM TIME YAY!

Two Josephines up in the Etsy shop

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20003069



http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20002539

LJ entry transferred

Over on my livejournal (my oldest but sadly these days most neglected interweb obsession) I am a member of a group called Molskine users. There artists post pages straight from their sketchbooks... some rather groovy stuff can be found:

http://community.livejournal.com/moleskine_users/

This is my latest post on there, just explaining the sketchbook zine a little more, thought I would put it here as well, since this is my official record or whatevah


I'm not sure if anyone on this lovely moleskine group is into making zines, but I've gotten involved lately over at the Ning network "We Make Zines". There are a few artists over there who like taking pages from their sketchbooks and turning them into little self-published magazines.

This ego-titled tome is my offering for a mini-zine swap. I kept the scans true to size and drew on double page spreads in my sketchbook, so when arranged in publisher they would go neatly into a little booklet. The character on the front cover is called Widget the Brave. He's one of the toys that I make.




Jemima on the left was the first toy I ever had and is still my favourite. A friend of my Mum's made her for me when I was born. She's lovely. The Twig on the left is a DIY instruction. How to make a twig display to hang your favourite necklaces on.




My subtle way of getting the grown up Mini-Zine folk to do a bit of colouring... which we're never too old for... right? right!

Anyway, so that's what I've been doing lately with my moleskine... am stuck on the couch for the next few days with a broken foot (long story, but basically, if you injure your foot on boxing day you should probably not then wait three weeks to see a physio :P) so I'm going to do some colouring in.

-Emmeline

How wooOod!

This is totally inappropriate, but it's so bloody cute I had to share it.

(Caution: contains imagery of a sexual nature)

Renovating Emerald Arts with Cas and Eddie

Eddie Bear Rug came down to visit while Cas and Lachy were helping me to pull up the completely sodden carpet. It was so gross. Clearly the windows have been leaking for some time, cos the damp smell was horrid.


Cas at work. Architecture has made her such a handy girl, call me biased, but I'm thinking someone should give her a TV show

Cas not only helped with the carpet, but also helped me to rearrange the shop so that most of the stock was in the front part, which makes it look like there is a lot more there than there is. Also rearranged tags under paintings and photos so that they are all in a uniform spot. Helps the customer's eye apparently.



We painted the shop name on the inside of the glass, so that I can clean the front without having to do the words each time. Putting the black around the lettering made it stand out more.


Found this little guy underneath the billiard table while Ten and I were hiding from the adults hehe, I think the cat had brought it in. Picked it up in a dustpan then set it free in the next paddock.

The view out my window on the drive back from Lismore. Such a long drive, not something I'm keen to do again anytime soon. Road trips are annoying at the best of times, but for someone like me (who requires vast amounts of space) being in a car with three other adults (one of whom had a habit of commentating on every single sign and cow we drove past :P)... really not my thang.




Drawing sketchbook: ideas for Creatures and Dreams vol. 3


The morning class yesterday at Emerald Arts. We started by collecting leaves from outside, then the kids traced around them and painted on their own designs. Making a huge tree mural on the back wall.

Renovating Emerald Arts with Cas and Eddie

Eddie Bear Rug came down to visit while Cas and Lachy were helping me to pull up the completely sodden carpet. It was so gross. Clearly the windows have been leaking for some time, cos the damp smell was horrid.


Cas at work. Architecture has made her such a handy girl, call me biased, but I'm thinking someone should give her a TV show

Cas not only helped with the carpet, but also helped me to rearrange the shop so that most of the stock was in the front part, which makes it look like there is a lot more there than there is. Also rearranged tags under paintings and photos so that they are all in a uniform spot. Helps the customer's eye apparently.



We painted the shop name on the inside of the glass, so that I can clean the front without having to do the words each time. Putting the black around the lettering made it stand out more.


Found this little guy underneath the billiard table while Ten and I were hiding from the adults hehe, I think the cat had brought it in. Picked it up in a dustpan then set it free in the next paddock.

The view out my window on the drive back from Lismore. Such a long drive, not something I'm keen to do again anytime soon. Road trips are annoying at the best of times, but for someone like me (who requires vast amounts of space) being in a car with three other adults (one of whom had a habit of commentating on every single sign and cow we drove past :P)... really not my thang.




Drawing sketchbook: ideas for Creatures and Dreams vol. 3


The morning class yesterday at Emerald Arts. We started by collecting leaves from outside, then the kids traced around them and painted on their own designs. Making a huge tree mural on the back wall.