The Alleyway

'Rosemary' by Peter Hardie

We live in the inner city of Brisbane, in a very creatively vibrant, urban eclectic ‘Hood’. Our funny cottage which also houses our gallery is a very ‘old lady’ indeed, one of the original houses built in the 1930s by Italian immigrants who first settled in this area of Brisbane. We call the house a crooked old lady as our back lounge-room floor is literally at a slant! But ‘she’ has character that’s for sure! Underneath serves as Banx’s studio and on one of the concrete stumps under the house are the height measurements of every growing child who has once lived in the house, measurements from the 60s and 70s. The house backs onto an old alleyway. In days gone by, the outside loo man would bring his truck down the alleyway and change the sawdust etc (!) in all of the outside ‘dunnies’. Today when I stand on our back landing overlooking the alleyway I have witnessed the most extraordinary sights over the past four years we have lived here… you name it, we’ve seen it happening in that alleyway. It’s like a parallel universe that alleyway! This morning was no exception… bizarre but hilarious.. yes, three large garden gnomes, strategically placed overnight on the side garden beds on the alleyway. I LOVE the mysterious underground movement that is ‘Gnomes’! I loved them in the film Amelie… and several years ago, when my niece and her partner went to live in London, they snuck my Mother’s (her Grandmother’s) gnome off her front steps into their suitcases without her knowing and took him overseas with them. He sent ‘Nana’ postcards and pics from all over the world of his travels.. he even had his own email address! I just know when we wake up tomorrow those gnomes won’t be there anymore…. Mystery, and magic and the eccentric bizarre – the world needs more of it! This gorgeous photo of a Gnome is by my fab photographer brother Peter Hardie, check out his website sometime!