Mad Men, Mad Women and Vintage Fashions

Mad Men, Mad Women and Vintage Fashion
It never takes long once you start to watch an American TV drama series to become hooked… and we have.. on the award-winning Mad Men on SBS Thursday nights. I must admit though I am as fascinated by the props, set design, and most of all the vintage sixties fashions as I am by the storyline and changing social mores of the main characters. Set in Madison Avenue, Manhattan at the fictional chain-smoking sexist advertising agency Sterling Cooper, the show revolves around Don Draper the creative director and everyone that passes in and out of his life.
I adore the dresses the female actors wear throughout the series. I have always loved vintage fashions..(and of course now wish my Mum had kept all of her clothes!). Tonight I am off with a girlfriend who collects antiques to a Vintage Fashion Fair at Davies Park, West End, always fun to fossick amongst the frivolity of the fifties!

Hanging Around

It's been a busy cuppla weeks of non-stop hangings, both Corporate and private individuals adding to their eclectic collections. Meanwhile artist Banx has been interviewed on the radio about his upcoming art exhibition in the City (345 Queen St) 22-31 July, and getting on with all of the illustrations for our client's new children's book, expected to be out by Christmas. It's a beautiful story - so watch this space!!

Bath Time

Why does a very early morning bath filled with bubbles, scented oils and one glowing fragrant candle feel soooo decadent and sooooo luxuriously good?! Not sure, but that is exactly what I indulged in early this morning. It's amazing what creative thoughts I seem to have at that hour; what world problems I seem to solve; and what inventions I seem to come up with at that hour, that seem a tad ridiculous in the cold hard light of day hours later ha! It was chilly in Brissie this morning and the steam from the hot bath combined with the wafting candle scents was a heady combination. A dear girlfriend of mine the other asked me what my favourite saying/ piece of wisdom is (as she is collecting them in one of those old fashioned autograph books we all had as kids)and I immediately thought of: 'To Thine Own Self, Be True'... and that was what my bath was all about this morning, being true to the inner girlie inside me and enjoying every solitary moment. I think that is why I love Degas' series of 'bathing' paintings - he somehow captured the intimacy and sheer enjoyment of bathing. I just had to include this pic of one of the funkiest baths I have ever seen - UK clothing designer Selina Blow's bathroom in her UK house, how fab! And the gorgeous painting is by artist Banx, see his blog sometime too, www.artbanx.blogspot.com or his website www.banx.com.au....Mmmmm must almost be time for another soothing bath. There are so many different types of baths: relaxing after a day's work; soothing after a run/exercise; to get clean, romantic with another, or like mine - for pure selfish decadence when no one's awake!

Tapping into Creativity

If only there was a tap we could turn on for creativity when we really needed it! Well this morning I tried a different way of tapping into the right-side of my brain… a NIA Class. It was so much fun. NIA is a holistic fitness practice that allows you to discover new, creative ways of moving. As an ex-ballet dancer and teacher of fourteen years, I have been searching over the years for something that isn’t aerobics or pilates. NIA combines free dance, with yoga and a bit of martial arts movement and healing philosophy thrown in for good measure. What was most fun was the laughter, the sense of community and self-expression in a totally non-threatening environment – all to really groovy uplifting world music. I could just let myself go! It literally is the ‘joy of movement’..you know, the kind of dancing you do in your own lounge room while you’re vacuuming. Julia Cameron in her book about creativity The Sound of Paper believes we should do morning pages/journal; morning walks and takes ourselves out on dates – I’d like to add dancing with ourselves to that list!! Remember how unrestrained we felt as kids, well that’s how I felt for an hour this morning.
(Photo courtesy of NIA Australia website).

Tree Change

On Saturday we headed off to the Scenic Rim, a stunning day for our ‘tree change’ weekend. We drove all the ‘back roads’, the roads less travelled, and stopped at historical Harrisville, home to pioneer female filmmakers at the turn of last century. The thing that strikes me immediately as we leave the city behind is being able to ‘breathe’ again – yes, literally breathe! The air is crisp, fresh and so unpolluted, and we could tell the birds loved it too as they chirp louder! Whip birds, bell birds, hard to imagine that 20 million years ago this was the centre of a volcano. We arrived at Boonah and had a sensational dinner at Vue Restaurant in front of the fire: huge king prawns and barramundi by a very talented chef. Today after an early morning dramatic thunderstorm, we headed off to Queen Mary Falls via Spring Creek café. Sometimes two days away in the country feels like two weeks holiday.

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!

Tour of Duty

Today we toured a massive building site that is about one to two months away from completion. Once the project is completed, in various stages, artworks, installations, glass art, you name it, will be required inside the building. We were invited to take a tour for photos and measurements in order to put our proposal together, what I hadn’t bet on was having to change into a hard hat (that kept slipping off my head!); huge work boots, about four sizes too big (I resembled a cross between an eccentric bag lady and Minnie Mouse!) and a very (!) fashionable fluro vest.. wow did I look a sight. Banx took these sneaky pics when I wasn’t looking! To say I am not accustomed to noisy dirty dusty building sites would be an understatement! If someone had given me a dustpan and broom at that point I would have started sweeping up that dusty mess straight away and that’s really saying something as I’m not a Domestic Goddess by any stretch of the imagination… so stay tuned for the “after” pics in a few month’s time….