Archives: September 2010

I haven’t blogged for a while because I’ve been busy living my best life!

We sold, found our new property and moved earlier in the year to South Fremantle.  We’re settled into our new home and our first short term accommodation guest arrives next week.  We now have 3 businesses in the family – Forrest Menswear (John also has a new shop which is gorgeous in Hay Street, Subiaco), MDC Places Group (core business for me) and Green Door Hideaway (the short term accommodation cottage on our property).  All 3 businesses allow us to meet many, many wonderful people and continuously grow our relationships and networks.

Thanks to all those who have supported us over the past months and helped us maintain some balance and fun.  We love, love, love living in Fremantle – it truly is a great place and is continuing to grow and change daily.

I will be blogging more often now and really want to catch people up on some fabulous work and life projects I’ve been involved with.  My time over the last month has been taken up with:

1.  A cool Town of Claremont project where we have been interviewing people about their mainstreet – Bay  View Terrace.  We did some of this sitting on ‘fatboy bean bags’ on astro turf which was filmed and is currently being edited!  It was the most fun and really proved to me that you can evoke what’s possible by infusing places with color and vibrancy on a temporary basis.  It’s got me really thinking about use before design ie. demonstrating ideas to people before the big bucks get spent on buildings and infrastructure. It also confirmed how projects can run very smoothly if all involved do what they say and work as a team.  Thanks to Sue, Gerald, Mark and Michael and all those who agreed to be interviewed.

2.  Art in Bloom which happens bi-annually at the WA Art Gallery in spring.  I collaborated with our fabulous community artist team member, Charlotte O’Shea and we created a huge papier  mache cake.  It was a homage to the artist Vivienne Binns who was a leader in the feminist and community artist movement.  We were given a painting to respond to with an installation (along with another 120 folk who were allocated different art pieces).  The painting was called ‘memory of the unknown artist’ and was a statement about the value of both high art and art in everyday life – we all have an opportunity to create, whether we are doing craft, choosing what to wear or even baking a cake!  Art in Bloom is also an amazing place making event in that it brings people to the gallery and in touch with art who don’t usually do so.  Am off there again tomorrow with my 7 nieces and nephews and it will be great to see the children’s response to an art gallery full of flowers, color and the amazing smell of spring.  Thanks to Charlotte for sharing her studio, knowledge and abundant creativity.  We enjoyed the collaboration so much we are onto another project idea already!

3.  When I arrived in Fremantle, I was very conscious of what kind of contribution I might be able to give. Some of that is living locally and spending my money there in unique home grown businesses, rather than franchises in a big box shopping centre.  It’s been great fun exploring all the fab shops, cafes and happennings.  As part of of emersing myself I nominated for a City of Fremantle Council committee and am now the Chair of the South Terrace Working Group.  Along with other community  and business reps, we are coming up with short and long term strategies for enhancing the cafe strip. At the moment I’m hatching the idea of a ‘wishing booth’ which will happen as part of the Fremantle Festival in November aimed at capturing ideas from the general public, which will further inform our strategy development.  I’ll tell you more as the project grows.  I used the idea of ‘wishing’ a lot in our work.  We often ask communities what their ‘greatest wish’ for their area is.  People respond well and reading other people’s wishes connects community members and inspires them.  Dublin have done it through Designing Dublin a not for profit group who have asked citizens to wish for the future of that city   http://design21c.com/wishes.  Have a read and do some wishing of your own.  I believe in the power of positive thinking, visualising and imagining what’s possible.  Wishes have come true for me many, many times. It’s a powerful thing.

That’s all for now gotten get on with cleaning house – general life chores get left behind when one is busy – but it’s important to keep my own place comfortable and fabulous too!  ciao for now.  M