Art School building: things my Mother never told me....

The first thing my Mother never told me about building an Art School is you need a separate building to build the Art School bits and pieces in -
Otherwise you will end up with your lovely print and paint and design studio becoming a carpenters workshop..


and the artist's lounge, life drawing room and bed-sitting room will become a dumping ground for furniture and paintings and frames and glass and stuff...


and the guest room will become a workshop crammed with a whole hardware store..

and the carport becomes an etching press manufactury and the Toyota (poor wee thingy) sleeps out in the cold and wet.
Work proceeds on the school and the funding and the new website and the planning of courses and accommodation for the coming Summer but all I really wanna do is build me a big shed and go hide in it.
A man-cave just for me where I can lurk, sulk, scratch me itches, pick me scabs and go feral to my hearts content.
Don't tell my Mother I said that..

Girl Friday and the Smallest Art School in the World

A new addition to the life of this artist is Girl Friday, who I met at a printmaking class I was teaching at our local High School.
At the end of the printmaking course I invited all the class members to continue their work at my studio.
Keri Ann leapt at the chance and in a matter of a week or two had become Girl Friday, super hero, planning strategist, marketing manager, chief collaborator and an indespensible integral part of the studio and all that pertains to it.
And all this while holding down the job of wife of Mark and Mother of two young sons.
I tell ya she's near as manic as me, maybe more so. What a score!!

There are three businesses going on here; various art workshops, artist backpacker accommodation and the manufacture and sale of artist's etching presses.
Girl Friday sees the etching press side of it as a means of funding the proper set-up and ongoing maintenance of the art courses and backpacker accommodation.

We are committed to a year of getting this show on the road just for the fun, making art and to meet people and maybe even for profit or at least the partial underwriting of the cost of our many and various habits such as our addictions to print-making, drawing, painting, coffee, and sticky buns!

A major stumbling block to the official opening party for the Smallest Art School in the World has been the delay in the creation and launch of the new website because of our inability to find a suitable name for the enterprise. A few friends have joined in the hunt for the perfect name and the only thing they can agree on is they don't like my choice; the Smallest Art School in the World . .
Girl Friday wants to get some of her clever girlfriends onto helping make the website with domain name and all and she has experience in newspaper, radio and marketing and reckons that's the way to go John.
Ok Keri Ann, just hurry up so we can have the party!!
I can turn a radio on, light a fire with a newspaper, I know where the supermarket is and what is this that I am writing on right now but a website with an international following of four people???

My musician friend Graham likes the Little Art School and promises to play at the party and do his fire juggling act and his 7 year old daughter Soraya likes Johnny's Little Art School.
I came up with -Art Workshops Waihi- but that is so prosaic and I still like Smallest Art School in the World and all I want is to get the name sorted and invite all my muso and artist friends to the opening so we can PARTY!!
Maybe you can help dear reader?

Someone in Singapore who liked my writing style wanted me to do a blog on certain restaurants and a hotel chain in South East Asia.

As I wasn't offered an all expenses paid trip around SE Asia staying in those hotels and eating in those restaurants I let my new writing career die stillborn.
Well, hell! You are the only person reading this anyway, what were those Singapore advertizing people thinking??


The etching press business has been moved out of the studio into a shed of it's own. Space is at a premium around here with so much going on.

Sunday School of Art

I like to share the studio with other artists every Sunday. Sometimes nobody comes, no matter it's my day in the studio doing art stuff regardless of all other demands on my time, with company or not.
Today was a sunny spring day and Bill and Janice were here painting and my new flatmate Theresa was working on some ink designs. I worked on the painting below.

The Life Drawing Class starts again

School holidays are over, the kids are back at school and the Life Drawing class resumes for the new term in the Drama room at the local College.
I made this drawing at last night's class, an artist at her easel, seen from below. How I got to be crawling around the floor while everyone was busy drawing the model I do not know but I was intrigued by the view of a face from below and there on the floor was Janice's cardboard drawings satchel and a big box of chalk pastels just laying beside it and no one looking so I got to work...
Because I teach the class I don't usually get the chance to draw but take opportunities as I find them.