This painting is the backstage version of what happens in the changing rooms during a fashion parade, it is part of a diptych I did on the subject close to my heart. As many of you know I was an international model (former Australian Model of the Year), modelling as Marie Jonsson (maiden name) after emigrating from Sweden with my family well before I started to paint for a living. Modelling is something that came about after I was a finalist in the then Beach Girl Quest held at Glenelg Beach each summer.

ACRYLIC PAINTING

In this acrylic on canvas board painting you will find Tanya with the stopwatch in her hand waiting for the right cue to get her models going through the curtains.  The male and female models are being helped by the Dressers and the running sheets for the models are on the walls.  The models are brushing up on the choreography as well as having a drink of champagne.  Tanya’s trusty assistant Michael is in the foreground with the hats and ties.  These days when political correctness has crept into our society, the models may not get a well deserved glass of champagne nor change all together and smoking is a thing of  the past.

MODEL AND BEAUTY QUEEN

The former beauty queen and model Tanya Powell had just opened her own modelling agency and was looking for fresh faces to add to her new agency and called me up after my photo appeared on page 3 in The News (the newspaper of the day, since closed down).  Of course I felt very flattered and excited and it was just a matter of time until I left my job and started to model full time. The TANYA POWELL MODEL AGENCY very quickly became the most successful modelling agency in South Australia and the only one that also has a branch in Melbourne which is also still going strong to this day, run by Tanya’s equally stunning sister Candy.  Tanya’s highlights includes managing and choreographing the Elders Woolboard fashion parades for 5 years in Perth, Adelaide, Queensland and the Victorian rural wool growing areas.  She has also produced and choreographed over 900 fashion shows throughout her remarkable 38 years in the industry.

There are many wonderful qualities Tanya possesses but the ones I value the most is the fact that no matter who or what she is dealing with she is always very warm and down to earth.  You won’t see any diva behavior from her nor any airs and graces but you will find a genuine person, beautiful both inside and out.

THE ART OF STAYING YOUNG

Just this week Tanya was interviewed on Channel 7’s program Today Tonight in reference to being in her early 60’s and still a knockout.  As she said she has never had any problems about disclosing her age, after all age is just a number and Tanya believes that good skin care, eating healthily, exercise and being happy is what has kept her looking decades younger than she is. She does have a rather unorthodox exercise regime though which includes walking around her hills property followed by her 2 dogs and her goats!

ARTISTIC INSPIRATION

I also happen to know (insiders knowledge, lol) this fitness regime also includes tending to the prizewinning chooks, mucking out, changing the hay, watering etc, using shovels and a wheelbarrow.  Something I will just have to paint one day as I have never seen Tanya with a hair out of place and my imagination sees her doing this work in her Chanel suits or at the very least wearing last year’s George Gross and Harry Who’s outfit!

MORE PAINTING IDEAS

I probably wouldn’t be that far wrong anyway as one weekend when we still lived on our farm in Balaklava our house quests included Tanya and her husband Jack as well as Candy (Tanya’s sister)with her then partner  Bob “Bongo” Starkie (guitarist & backing vocalist in the 70’s band Skyhooks). The wonderful image that stayed in my mind is of Candy, a natural in the saddle, was riding my horse Rumor in a big circle in our paddock when Bongo went out and stood in the middle serenading her with Skyhooks songs and playing his guitar.  The fact that Candy was at the time wearing a $4000 dollar lime green Armani jacket and Bongo was in one of the most successful ever Australian bands Skyhooks are just mere bagatelles.

THE ART OF MEDIA

So Tanya Powell became my close friend and mentor many moons ago and oversaw the start of my career (as she is doing with my daughter Hillivi now) as well as managing me whenever I arrived home from interstate or overseas.  Tanya with a dance background choreographes and supplies models to all the major department stores, shopping centers, fashion labels, TV channels, for commercials, movies,  magazines and the like both here and in Victoria.

She also organized several overseas tours to Manila for a group of us models to do lunch time parades in some of the top hotels there as well as touring to other parts of the Philippines with the show.  The show was called Jungle Fever and we were courted by the jet set with their learjets, fancy yachts and champagne all under the watchful eye of our “mother hen” Tanya.

Those were the days!

Here is a quote I believe fits rather well here by Marie Stopes;

“You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen.  But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing”.

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all. Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

This painting “Christmas for the Elders family” was commissioned by Jim Elders from the Elders Fine Art Gallery in Adelaide, South Australia, a man I much admire and without whom I would not be enjoying this wonderful career as an Artist.

I have told you how I started painting in How it all began, which is something that I did every minute of the day (in-between looking after a new baby & going back to modelling) early morning, late into the evening, when baby Kai had his naps, and all weekend when hubby took over the child minding.

PAINTING OBSESSED

Friends and family was highly amused at my newfound love of painting and would come over to see the latest artwork.   They would giggle and laugh and I am sure in a lot of instances pat me on the head, shake their heads and think that at least I am amusing myself but it won’t amount to anything much, LOL.

JUNK ART SCULPTOR

Not that I thought it would either I just knew that I could not stop and if I wasn’t painting I thought about painting, dreamt about it or talked about it, like a woman obsessed.  My dad, who is an artist himself but generally more in the abstract area or as a junk art sculptor, would encourage me and buy me paints and materials.  After a while he said:” you know honey I think you are on to something – there is a genre in the art world called Naive Art and although it does not look anything like yours it seems to be in the same vein.”  So dad got me a few books and I started to dream that maybe one day I could become a “real artist”.

It took about 2 years for this penny to drop and I thought I should see if I could get representation from a gallery.  Now obviously as my father was already an artist with gallery backing and I had quite a public profile from being the Australian Model of the Year it probably would have been much easier to take advantage of that but I wanted to make it on my own arts merit.

CALLING ART GALLERIES

So armed with the Yellow Pages (Telephone Directory) I started calling galleries.  I started with the less known and worked my way up the list.  In the most polite of fashions I explained that I was a new artist and was wondering if at some stage I could either come in or send them an image of my work.  Without fail every single gallery I called said: “sorry we are not interested in seeing any new artists, or we are totally booked out”, and some of them were rather rude and abrupt.  At this stage there were only 2 Galleries left in South Australia (that I hadn’t called) and that was the two most famous ones 20 years ago;  BMG (Kim Bonython’s) and Elders Fine Art Gallery, and as luck would have it I called Elders first.

Jim Elder answered the phone himself and I couldn’t believe it when he said; “sure come on in!  I will warn you however that I very rarely take on any new artists but I always look”, and with that we made an appointment.

ART GALLERY APPOINTMENT

So on the allotted day I turn up, Jim is very busy getting a show up and hardly acknowledges me but points at where I should put my work along the walls on the floor.  I had 14 works with me so it took quite a while back and forth from the car and finally it’s all in and eventually Jim comes to take a look.

His face gave nothing away, he looked grumpy to me and sort of huffed and asked what the price on this and that one is?  I said that I had no idea at all what the prices were, so Jim said, well that painting I think would be 300 dollars, and this one 500 and the artwork with the flowers 950.  By this stage my eyes were round as saucers as I listen to this obviously quite mad man, lol.  But who was I to argue and when he then said he would buy, this one and that one and the other outright, counting up 10 of the artworks and taking in the other 4 on commission basis I nearly fainted.  I left Elders Fine Art Gallery that day with a cheque for nearly 7 thousand dollars, which with a young family and a mortgage made me skip to the car!

The paintings sold the following weekend in their Christmas show and I now had a new career painting full time and the rest of it is history as they say!

So thank you Jim and Helen Elders, you provided the most wonderful start to my career and I am forever in your debt.  It goes without saying, that if the Elders had not changed the gallery to an Auction house: Elders Fine Art & Auctioneers, I would still happily be on their books.

So here is a quote by George Allen,  I think fits very well in here with light of what everyone thought initially about my art career, lol.

“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don’t know when to quit.  Most men succeed because they are determined to.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

As part of our trip to the US we were going to Las Vegas and having always heard about the Little White Wedding Chapel  and the celebrities who got married there which include Britney Spears, Demi Moore & Bruce Willis, Joan Collins, Michael Jordon, The Who, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Patty Duke, Mickey Rooney, we thought it would be lots of fun to renew our vows there too.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS

This naive painting is part of my Cat & Dog series and I have actually painted two very similar works but in different colors as it evoked such happy memories, one which sold in my Japanese exhibition and the other just recently here.

You see hubby was finally taking me to America something he promised to do 25 years prior, so you can’t say he doesn’t keep his promises.  The promise was made in a weak moment, lol when he was trying to get me to marry him – I had been in Europe modeling for the best part of two years and had come home to Australia to spend Christmas with my parents.  Bryan and I had taken a break from our relationship which had begun when I was 14 and I had full intention of fulfilling my potential and going on to New York where I had been offered a six month contract to model in the Big Apple.   Well the rest is history; I never made it to New York that time, instead stayed put, married the love of my life and instead was eventually crowned the’ Australian Model of the Year’ which was a pretty good compensation anyway.

Finally he makes good on his promise (lol, you know how kids, houses and life gets in the way) and after a week of Disney land and all the things LA has to offer we are on the plane for Vegas.  Kai and Hillivi our children are with us for the big family holiday, and the wedding is all planned and booked.  I have a beautiful pink dress,  Hillivi my bridesmaid will be in a matching dress, and  Bryan and Kai have suits with matching pink ties.  Every detail thought of.

ART OF THE WELL DRESSED HOBO

So we arrive in Vegas and are in awe already, all the lights are flashing and there are slot machines all around even at the airport.  We do meander a bit but not too long and get to the baggage collection area, and wait and wait.  Everyone’s bags turn up apart from Bryans, which just happens to be the one with all the important stuff in it – just bought Christmas presents, film camera, wedding shirt, as well as every single bit of Bryans clothing including the winter clothes for New York (where it’s snowing &  minus 11).

Luckily the suits were in a separate carryon bag and I had the ties in mine, as the wedding was that afternoon at 5pm with not much time to dally around.  We had to improvise and he wore a white striped shirt, which if he had taken his jacket off would have made you laugh with a huge emblem on the back! We never did find out what happened to the bag as it never turned up.  We imagine there is a very well dressed hobo wandering around filming at the airport!   Bryan had to buy a whole lot of clothes in Vegas – and we just couldn’t stop stirring him about the souvenir style gear he got with “I Love Vegas” on every item!

I am happy to say the rest of the day went off without a hitch, we stayed in a couple of gorgeous rooms at the very flash Monte Carlo.  The limousine picked us up and took us down the strip past all the iconic Casinos with a million people milling around and lights flashing.  The wedding chapel even has a Drive-through section but we had the ceremony in an intimate little room with a Negro celebrant who was fantastic and added to the atmosphere.

ART, ROMANCE AND WHOOPS!

It was really emotional and romantic and such a marvelous occasion to share with our two kids who looked just so beautiful and handsome respectively. After all the photos we returned to the hotel in the limo and found a wonderful  trolley laden with all kinds of cheeses, crackers, fruits,  nuts and a bottle of red in our room, which we thought the hotel had so kindly provided us with. So we hoed into that and had a wow of a time until we found a little card tucked under a napkin with a middle eastern name on it (now we got worried about the mafia, lol) but then found out luckily it was actually for the guest that had already vacated our room earlier in the day.

Whoops, lol, but the hotel were very good and just let us have it. Then still in our glad rags we went and caught the Monorail and explored Vegas and then finally at 11pm thought we better have our wedding dinner (we had stuffed ourselves silly on that cheese platter!).  Anyway we had our celebration dinner in a gorgeous little Italian restaurant in the Stratosphere Casino, and it was one of those nights were everything just fell into place and was wonderful.

Four very tired little vegemites caught the last Monorail back to the Monte Carlo at 2 am, exhausted with sore feet but very happy.  You may enjoy another travel and art blog, here is a link;90 I Miss New York and  137 ICE SKATING IN CENTRAL PARK

I will repeat this quote here as it fits so perfectly said by someone I greatly admire, Oprah Winfrey (Television host and Philanthropist)

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Love Marie xxx        (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.