Category: Uncategorized
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After banging on about fitness in the last few posts, I thought I’d celebrate the schizoid nature of this blog by returning to one about creativity. I recently helped paint some sets for Maitland Repertory Theatre’s annual melodrama ‘Pure as the Driven Snow’. Snow tells the story of a mysterious young woman, who stumbles…
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Sometime it seems that gyms are like foreign countries, with everyone speaking a strange language, and as if you need a passport to get in. Despite working out quite regularly, and being genuinely interested in fitness and exercise motivation, I don’t feel like I belong in this world. Even though I do it myself, I…
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Lately I have been meditating on strength. It began simply enough, thinking about physical strength and has since expanded outwards, until everything seems connected to the idea. For the last few days everything I see, think, feel and do seems connected to the process of becoming stronger. Here’s how it all started… About a week…
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Q: What’s the next best thing to actually going to the gym? A: Reading about going to the gym. Q: How can you fit personal training into your busy lifestyle? A: By sitting down with an article by a personal trainer. Q: How can you feel toned, lean and muscular without any physical effort? A:…
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Maitland Repertory Theatre and its young adult company, Reamus Youth Theatre, are hosting a fundraiser for Tammy Tomkins on Saturday 27th July from 7.30pm onwards. For more information about Tammy and her family, please see this moving story in the Maitland Mercury. Reamus will be performing Shakespeare’s much loved comedy Much Ado about Nothing. This production is…
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I recently painted the set for a Maitland Repertory Theatre production of Deathtrap, directed by Letitia Plume, which opened last Wednesday. Written by Ira Levin, Deathtrap holds the record as Broadway’s longest running comedy-thriller. And it’s not difficult to see why. Deathtrap is intelligently written, with plots nestling inside plots, like sinister Russian dolls. At…
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Yesterday my Grandmother died: she was 93. Up until a few months ago, she was still living at home, and fiercely independent. Even the day before she died, she was still getting up, dressing herself and talking to people. She was the kind of person who believed in doing things well, and fighting any battles…
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Recently I got all nostalgic about 80’s paint effects, largely as a result of working on the sets for The Guardsman, a play produced by Maitland Repertory Theatre. Described as a ‘light comedy about marriage’, The Guardsman was written by Ferenc Molnar and directed by Frank Oakes. The green paint under the dado…
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An odd instance of life turning full circle, but lately I’ve been working as a set painter for an amateur theatre company. The last time I did this job I was about eighteen, so more than twenty years ago, and I find I’m enjoying it just as much this time around. I got into it…
Helen Hopcroft: an artist's life 