Friday, April 17, 2009

Kimberley Wilderness Threatened !!! Wilderness is Precious !!

People of Australia and the World, Please Stand Up and Speak Out Against this atrocity about to occur.

Watch these videos and write a letter to those who need to hear from US as we are SOMEONE.


I am sickened and appalled at the recent announcement of the Green Light being given to the LNG Gas Processing Precinct, and DeepWater Port , with it's 5 km Jetty !
The local Indigenous Community were forced into agreeing, by 'Blackmail' by a White/Puppet/Premier and Those Evil/Greedy/Wielders of Power, who control our Governments !

They were told we'll give you better Health Services, Better Housing, Better Education for your Children......ALL things that should be theirs anyway, and are the NORM for Australians in the non remote areas !

And if they didn't agree " We'll just Purchase it 'Compulsorily'" ,*(and you won't get as much then)*



The Kimberley has been Named as One of The Last Remaining Wilderness Areas in the WORLD !

An industrial deepwater port at James Price Point,will open the Kimberley to Large Scale Industry, the export of minerals including Uranium, and Strip Mining of Bauxite on the Mitchell Plateau !!!


Wilderness is Precious


16,000 individuals, the World's Largest Population of Humpback Whales return HOME every year, to mate and give birth in their sheltered warm water Maternity Wards, after making their 13,000 km journey to the Antarctica to feed.
The entire coast from Broome to Cassini Island is considered to be a whale calving area.
Camden Sound is the main maternity ward for the Humpbacks.
At 292km Montgomery Reef is Australia's Largest Inshore Reef, and subject to a Mining Exploration Tenement.

The Kimberley also has the highest diversity of coral species of any area in Western Australia.

We need real and urgent protection for our
wildlife and the Kimberley Coast

In the form of Marine Protected Areas, and a Whale Sanctuary

The Liberal Government of Western Australia, intends to push ahead with legislation to give the premier the sole power to approve industrial projects.

Industrial shipping noise affects the cow and calf's ability to communicate.
In the US, a third of all Right Whale deaths are caused by shipstrikes.


We already have an industry that is totally sustainable.......Tourism


Whale Watching worldwide is worth $1.54 billion per year and over $45 million in Western Australia alone

Wilderness is Precious

Sunday, April 12, 2009

When I was younger.........

My very first stall at St Andrews market back in the early 80's


Thought it is about time to start relating some of the stories and events of my earlier life. Writing this blog is a good way to begin working on the art of writing again.

As a teenager I wrote a lot, but then life really started happening and I 'got too busy' doing interesting stuff.

I once shared a studio with an amazing sculptress artisan Lizmania, who constantly wrote snippets of her life story on 'scraps' of paper, then stored them into small suitcases.
I'd always imagine the job she, or a biographer, would have one day of un-ravelling,
re ordering, deciphering, these random pieces of her life.

Well apart from an A2 sized folio of photos and a very different sort of Curriculum Vitae in it, my life story is in my head.
This will help me begin to document some of the interesting parts in the hope one day that I will actually print a book with patterns of hats made without patterns, recipes of food made without recipes and inspirations for a creative life. This has been an idea in the back of my mind for some time.

Having spent 12 years living as a traveling nomad has provided me with some almost 'unbelievable' stories ! ..... but they are in the future.....LOL



Well......... as a 14 year old I was very fortunate to attend an Alternative School, called ERA (Education Reform Association), where I began, to be allowed to think for myself, to decide what I wanted to do with my life.

It was a valuable experience , and we loved going to school. I didn't want to do my Higher School Certificate, but elected to stay at school that final year, and study things I wanted to learn about whilst still in the security of the school.
It was a year of learning how to motivate myself to try new things, something that has helped me throughout my later life.
I was also fortunate to have the time to work with the drama teacher Lynne, as her assistant/apprentice drama teacher, with the attached primary school.

Had I been doing my HSC, like the two other students who began this with me in the first term, I would not have had 'time', for the valuable experience, of learning how to create lesson plans with Lynne all year.

The year before Lynne had taken a 'Term of Absence' to live in the bush, while she dealt with personal life.
We drama students, who had become very close and dedicated, from a Traveling Theatre Group earlier, decided to do our own Drama for the duration of her absence.

We wrote, directed, sang and danced an original Rock Opera, 'Genesis' , and helped the Junior High kids, with their own version of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
An incredible experience, to be involved in, as were our weekly drama sessions with Lynne.

We were actively working in some very avant garde forms of theatre, from 3-5 every Thursday after school, a form of Movement Drama, non verbal Experimental Theatre. We once explored' Sanity and Insanity' for several weeks or months, taking the final product to the school community as a performance.

A small group of us attended a Master Class held by the extraordinary Lindsay Kemp, at the suggestion of Lynne, who had been to the first one offered.
Before it started we felt very young and inexperienced, watching professional ballet and theatre folk 'warming up' !
But as soon as Lindsay 'bounded in wearing a bright red leotard suit, we were in our element, and some of the trained ballet folk were out of their depths, unable to 'let go', and "SHOW us that you ENJOY! a grand jete".

All of these experiences, paved the way for my desire to create more understandable Non Verbal Theatre, (parents in the audience would say "Wow that was great !, but what did it mean when you all did......this or that......") We were still working in a 'personal dream state' .
'Seeing' and 'walking/dancing', thru an unseen world of creativity, self expression, and therapy, but it needed to be 'enlarged, and made clearer for an audience.

This work really helped me overcome a very debilitating, and isolating case of Stuttering, and Stammering, an inability to speak, that had plagued me, since the age of eight.

So when we saw an article, about another Australian returning home, from studying at Marcle Marceau's International School of Mime, I sent an application to join !

I then went off on a hoilday to Tasmania, with a friend, ending up staying there for 8 months. I received a reply to my application saying ' Dear Mr Jack Megan, Sorry not accepted" .
This was followed two weeks later by a Telegram saying " Further Cancellation, Has been chosen for next fall. Kindly advise your decision by return and send registration fees "!

And so, off I headed to Paris for an extraordinary year with the famous mime, and a school of International students from 19 countries!



Went searching thru Facebook recently to see who I could find, and found another student of the Ecole, and he sent me this photo of us showcasing our work on the school stage.


If you'd like to view some of Claudes work now, a mixture of spoken and mime/comedy, check out his adds for his father's invention the Twist Mirror, which he now sells. He was one of the most talented and comic of the students, the youngest at 17, he'd have the whole room in hysterics. Once when he had nearly upstaged Marceau, Marceau told Claude, to try and use his facial expression a little less ! But Claude was just a natural Chaplinesque comic, even when he was being himself, and shyly bobbing and saying "Pardon, Pardon " excusing himself for just being in the room ?? http://www.twistmirror.com/epages/61625346.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61625346/Categories/%22Clip%20Vid%C3%A9o%22


........to be continued..........

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Aussie Autumn SALE

Well now it's April, and the start of the Etsy DUST Team's Aussie Autumn Sale. This theme, has given me the added incentive to actually finish a hat I started ages ago in the Heat and Humidity of February or March.

On Monday I finished it off, then made two more slightly quicker hats, as the rain poured down unceasingly. Perfect weather to crochet in.Today the rain is back again and we hear that the creeks are rising rapidly. If it keeps up overnight and tomorrow, we could see Floods in the lower Tweed valley like last year.


This one I have called Shades of Autumn


Three hats, very different to each other, that will hopefully appeal, to three very different people.


This one I have called Autumn Bee Hive, as it somehow reminds me of Bees


This one I like , for it's rich vibrant Amber Burnt Orange colour. It has ear flaps , that keep the ears and side of cheeks nice and snuggly warm, on even the coldest days.
For those of you who have not seen and held one of my hats in Real Life, they are very thick, tightly crocheted work often using double yarn to create a dense fabric that the wind does not penetrate thru.

Click to see the DUSTers Aussie Autumn Sale