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I’ve been incredibly busy working AND playing in the last few weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion (like I always do) that Brisbane is a fantastic city with so much going on. Growing up here, I’ve heard all the snide “big country town” references and watched friends and family move interstate and overseas to find their glory, but in my lifetime I’ve witnessed the city mature into a vibrant hub of creative activity. I want to be a part of Brisbane’s flurry of creativity, and invest back into the city that has invested a lot in me.

People who moan about there being nothing to do and no opportunity haven’t really opened their eyes, in my humble opinion. Just by grabbing any one of the free street press (mX, Rave, Scene, Time Off, Tsunami…) you’ll have access to any number of free and low priced events, and if you have an internet connection you can be even more plugged in with the fantastic Brisbane Creative Industries monthly events list!

Just in the space of one weekend I went to Brisbane Twestival, an all ages fundraiser with burlesque, cupcakes and bands; a talk by erotica authors at the Brisbane Writers Festival; saw incredible fireworks; and enjoyed a Chris Isaak concert under the stars. I feel so fortunate to be able to say that I am completely exhausted from all the fantastic things I did on the weekend.

I might grumble in summer when Brisbane’s cloying humidity drapes over me like a wet flannelette, but generally I love living here. Nick and I have discussed moving down to Melbourne, and at the beginning of the year we were seriously considering making the move for 2010, but I just don’t think I can bring myself to do it. My family and friends are all here, and I’m beginning to carve a niche for myself (slowly, with a butter knife!) too. To move to Melbourne would mean starting again socially and professionally, and as many artists flock to Melbourne… I mightn’t even get a look in! While I love Melbourne, it’s not my city and it’s not a city that’s undergoing rapid cultural growth like Brisbane. So I’ll stay here and reinvest my time and passions into the people and the city that have nurtured me!

Do you love where you live? If you could live anywhere… where would it be?

In this exciting installment I divulge five more names from my list of the world’s up and coming awesome folk. They dabble in writing, modelling, designing, entrepreneurship, art and being pretty cool.

Heidi – writer and fat celebrity

Heidi has to be one of the sweetest and most honest people I have ever met, even if we’ve only hung out via email and IM and never shared a coffee. Over the past few years, Heidi is one of the amazing people who have provided me with support and love, not just for my career but personally and emotionally too. Last year I collaborated with her to create the “Pretty Face” t-shirts – a reaction to one of the lines often heard by fat people. Dammit, of course I have a pretty face, there are no buts! (You can buy the Pretty Face shirts from her etsy store!)

Chloe McGenn – artist

Chloe started painting last year, and I have been amazed at her progression! She paints cupcakes and animals and other things in a very whimsical and colourful style, and is now selling greeting cards with prints of her original artwork on them.

Anekie – model and designer

Ms Anekie is a most delightful young lady, with various talents that extend to being incredibly photogenic and creating beautiful garments. She also has a kick arse sense of humour – something I rate very highly! See the dress in this photo? Anekie made it and modeled it, and Kate took it… it’s amazing to know I live so close to such talent.

Jesha Rowlands – t-shirt entrepreneur for Owl Movement

I have only known Jesha for a short period of time and already knew how great she was, but it was only recently that I discovered that she ran Owl Movement: a t-shirt company that specialises in chronically adorable gear for your top half. Because I am totally the sort of person who is impressed by this kind of thing… Owl Movement’s shirts have been worn on tv shows like Veronica Mars, VH1’s Best Week Ever and Top Chef!

Natalie Tan – illustrator

I met Natalie through Tumblr only in the last few months, but I very quickly came to adore her personality and her illustrative style. There’s a lot to be said for young women who put it all on the line, and I think Ms Tan’s star will rise pretty high because of her kick arse attitude.

People often tell me that I’m “so creative” and that they wish they could be “gifted” in similar ways. When I thank them and tell them that I’m still learning and that they can probably draw too, they usually look at the ground, put their hands in their pockets and kick at something imaginary on the floor while telling me wistfully that they simply don’t have the talent. To which I say with much enthusiasm “THAT’S CRAP!”

I have always believed that everyone can learn artistic techniques that will help them fully utilise their creativity, it’s just that the culture we’re in seems to dictate that art is some kind of flight of fancy that isn’t very useful at all; hence it isn’t developed as a priority in school curriculum. I even went to uni with the intention of becoming an art teacher so I could try and teach young people that, but quickly discovered that I wasn’t going to change the world in the ways that I had so naively assumed

Kirby Ferguson from Goodie Bag has an awesome name. He also has a point. You should watch the above video and be enlightened; then you should write a list of all of the things you’ve wanted to do but thought you couldn’t – and then set off on your 10,000 hours of practice.

Nothing is stopping you, except a little bit of hard work (and PS: I’m still doing my hours!)

I present to you four more of the most awesome people around, including a musician, burlesque star, jewellery designer, writer and photographer! They all have my seal of approval

Sharon Walker – jewellery designer for Kittycat Black

Sharon’s polymer clay sculptures caught my eye years ago, and I got to know her through our hugely irregular but always fun Stitch n Bitch sessions. She is a huge role model for me, being incredibly focused and driven to make her business succeed and caring for a growing family as well!

Chelsea – “Erin GoBraughless” with Big Star Burlesque

Chelsea is a hot redhead who performs with Big Star Burlesque as Erin GoBraughless, the daughter of a potato farmer and a whiskey heiress whose three passions include drinking, fighting, and dancing. I think Chelsea has huge balls to do what she does – recently she even performed in a bacon bikini!

Melissa Maples – writer and photographer

Melissa has a fabulous way with words, and she is my go-to lady on what I can and can not do with the English language (though I probably fall foul of these rules daily!) She blogs about living in Turkey, and posts photos of garments with hilarious slogans available for purchase by the discerning tee collector at her local bazaar as well as other very beautiful shots of Antalya and surrounding areas. Melissa and I are suspiciously similar in personality, which is probably why I think she’s so great!

Bryn Ridd – Twist Oliver, Twist

Bryn plays the synth for Brisbane band Twist Oliver, Twist, and has always been a lovely supportive friend. He manages to have the most fabulously groomed facial hair, and always makes me laugh! Bryn also does film, photography and painting. Oh is there no end to your creative scope, sir?

I have a lot of talented friends, and I only realised it when I sat down and thought about writing profiles on all of them to share with you here! I have friends who are photographers, artists, designers, models, performers, publishers, writers, musicians and activists. For most of these guys, I’m lucky to have fallen into their company as just a “friend” while others I met in a professional sense and then we developed a friendship. Because there are so many, I am going to break this up into a series of sorts, to allow you to digest the sheer amount of talent and creativity I have around me!

Tea Tasbihgou – jewellery designer for Sacré Coeur

I met Teayam online so long ago now! She does heaps of creative things – illustration, modelling and jewellery design. She recently started up Sacre Coeur, and creates steampunk styled accessories out of the most beautiful found objects. Of course, I chose the above image because there’s a paisley pendant in it, muahaha!

Mark Payne – artist and designer

Mark and I struck up a friendship on Red Bubble when he sent me a ffffound invite (no sorry guys, I still don’t have any and even if I did I’d give it to one of my mates!) Since then he has been one of the biggest supporters of my art practice – he even won the auction for my drawing at the Brisbane Twestival! His graphic work is beautiful – foreign worlds of fragmented and dizzying objects twisted like bright alien car crashes.

Kate O’Brien – photographer

I had the fortune of befriending Kate a couple of years ago when I was planning my wedding. I had admired her vintage-esque photographs for a while, and nervously emailed her asking if she’d like to photograph our wedding – she agreed and we became friends! She has also never done another wedding since

Ashley Moyer – fat activist and Chunky Dunk organiser

It may or may not come as a surprise, but I am fat and I am a fat advocate. Ashley is one of my fat activist friends: she has been a cheerleader and is running Chunky Dunk in Portland this year. Chunky Dunk events are private pool parties for people of size and their allies, and were started last year to provide a shame-free venue for swimming, bathing and bomb diving for fat folk. I really want to be Ashley when I grow up, and start Chunky Dunk parties here in Brisbane, Australia!!

Stick around for the next few days to cop a load of my other talented friends!

Yesterday I attended Semi-Permanent 2009 in Brisbane at the Convention Centre. I left feeling overwhelmed, inspired, intimidated and SORE… my head was so full of ideas that I was a little scared, truth be told. I guess if you are scared of ideas, you shouldn’t go to these things

The highlights of the day for me:

Timba Smits is a co-founder of Wooden Toy magazine, a marvelous publication that I’ve only just heard about this year in the backwaters of Brisbane! So much of what he talked about I could relate to: working obsessively, being anally retentive about certain projects, hand lettering, going the long way around instead of using shortcuts… seriously, the guy is doing exactly what I want to be doing!

Ron English was inspiring because he has balls. I would be too nervous to go paste up my own versions of billboards but the guy has nerves of steel! I have a terrible memory for names, so I didn’t realise exactly how much of his work I was familiar with either. Most of the anti-theistic/ atheistic billboards I had seen before, not to mention the fat Ronald McDonald and Obama Lincoln!

I was looking forward to the session from XYZ Studios because I’d seen several of their advertisements before and was way into it because of all the hand drawn animation. I loved seeing just how much effort the guys put into their projects, and I was surprised to hear that Tim Kently, the founder of the studio, taught himself animation! Self taught people always seem more approachable and down to earth, and they give me hope

It was also awesome to listen to Scott Dadich from Wired talk about their typographic systems at the magazine, mostly everyone was scribbling furiously when he reeled off the font families the publication uses! Also filed under “What an Awesome Freaking Job” was The Glue Society – a collective of creatives that do cool shizz. They’ve done said cool shizz for “The Chaser’s War on Everything”, ESPN, 42 Below vodka, Virgin Mobile etc etc etc. When I grow up I want to make money from ideas!

Unfortunately, I can’t speak rapturously of the venue. The seats at the Brisbane Convention Centre are not for people with hips! I’m keenly anticipating a bruise on my right hip… I know I’m fat, but I have never encountered stingier seating! I was seriously uncomfortable about 70% of the time, and I couldn’t get up and move around because people were stealing seats and there was never enough time! Debbie Downer also reports that the breaks were too short, there weren’t any activities that fostered participation or networking, food and drink stuff was too far away, our lunch break was too short, etc etc etc. I think Semi-Permanent events can be more than just talking heads, and I’m hopeful that the organisers will see just how awesome the scope is for the conference!

I wasn’t going to set one of those facebook pages up because I was worried about what people would think of me but I asked people if they’d be my fan this morning and at least 10 people said they would so I thought that was a respectable amount of people to warrant being a facebook Celebrity/ Public Figure. (lolololololol!)

Be my fan!

I was just recommending Illustration Friday to Tea when I thought I’d check out this week’s word. SIMILAR! It’s pretty awesome that I’ve done something that ties in so well quite by accident twice now! I am the IF psychic.

If you click on the picture it’ll take you to the Red Bubble page where you can enbiggen it to see the subtle variations in the hand colouring. Basically I printed the drawing out on my inkjet four times, hand coloured each girl, and then scanned them in and lined them up. It’s funny how I incorporate second generation scanning sometimes, maybe it’s the graphic designer in me? I do wish I could be one of those artists who plans everything out so that the final piece is all traditional, but it seems I like to take drawings on a journey of digital and traditional mutilation.

In which I admit that I don’t suck as much as I like to think

In other news, I just got an email this morning advising me that Heroine will be published in the 09 edition of Semi-Permanent. Props must be given to @mimobase and @annarchy for encouraging me to submit some pieces. I very nearly didn’t because I have a knack for predetermining my own failure, quite incorrectly in many cases it seems!

I am still hoping that my husband can spare the time to help me code the new layout for this here blog. I’m so sick of this layout!

I’ve just been working on stuff, you see. One of those bits of stuff is evident in the picture above… see the bunch of squiggly lines down the bottom? That’s mah paisleyz on the cover of the launch issue of Peppermint magazine!

The magazine is launching this Friday in Paddington, so I might scoot along to pick up a copy. I also contributed my pretty face drawing and some hand lettering for the fashion editorial. Peppermint is going to be pretty rad if you’re into green fashion (encompasing vintage, ethical, fair trade and hand crafted prettiness) and the first issue is freeeeee. You can get one from the following places:

BRISBANE
Bliss Ecowear – 15 LaTrobe Terrace, Paddington
Retro Metro – 297 Given Terrace, Paddington
Blue Lotus Cafe – Shop 16, Kelvin Grove Urban Village
Lyssy May – 676 Wynnum Rd, Morningside
Kropp Organic Hair Salon – 112 Bennetts Rd, Morningside
Box Vintage – 29 Vulture St, West End
The Region – Boundary St, West End
One Colour – West End Flea Markets

GOLD COAST
Inverse – 21C James St, Burleigh Heads

MELBOURNE
Bird Girl – 155 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Meet Me At Mikes – 63 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Thread Den – Level 1/16 Errol St, North Melbourne
Sankofa – 3/245 Adderley St, West Melbourne

ONLINE
www.ecodepot.com.au
www.ibutrade.com.au

NEW ZEALAND
www.endemicworld.com
www.kowtow.co.nz

And also from the Peppermint website, where you can organise a subscription for yourself.

I promise not to neglect you for so long dear blog. I just don’t know what to write… I have a few things happening but nothing I can really blog about, nothing seems interesting enough!