If you’re not familiar with this project, that is so very dear to my heart and always a constant work in progress, go here to learn more. The issue features: Duane Peters & Corey Parks, Franklin Rhi, Ben Weasel, Russ Rankin, Brad Warner and Lord Ezec (snippets from the chats below). CWP #7 comes in a variety of (200gsm cardboard) covers including purple, blue and green, featuring heart cut-outs in its design and a decorative lace feature. I’ve also handwritten the introduction in every single zine! Subscriber zines will be mailed out first thing tomorrow morning. If you’re interested in getting a copy please email me: conversationswithbianca [at] gmail [dot] com.

Duane Peters & Corey Parks snippet:

DUANE PETERS: …Religion is all about fear. Spirituality is all about yourself and tapping into something else that’s bigger than you that’s maybe running the show. Maybe not just one thing but an element of things—you can tap into good shit or you can tap into negative shit.

The word ‘spirituality’ only makes me think ‘hippie’ because of the way I was bought up. In the early punk rock days it was against the law to be spiritual so you never did it. You ran off fear, ego and through battling this that and the other and not dying. You came to the conclusion—if your brain is still working by the time you get to the conclusion—that maybe something else is running the show. Maybe I can tap into some of that. Maybe it’ll help me lighten up. Maybe it’ll help me find something. Maybe it will help me get out of this fear running the show and ego.

COREY PARKS: I’m about nine years off from Duane. He’s a ‘Kennedy era’ kid and I’m more of a Baptist upbringing, the Rapture and a lot of hell, fire and damnation, the devil.

DP: My grandpa was a Baptist minister. There’s all this heavy religion on one side of my family and the other side are cool.

CP: I was born and raised in Southern California in the 70s. My parents were hippies and the only church my mum took us to was self-realisation fellowship, meditation class and the whole concept of there being a power greater than myself. It’s a little bit closer to what I’ve come to believe as an adult. It was a real positive thing. ‘Spirituality’ was a word that I always associated with God not religion that was always too scary and weird to me… like the Revelation, that was all such weird science fiction.

Ben Weasel snippet:

BEN WEASEL: …I had a little revelation when I came home from Baltimore and I knew a door was closing. I knew that it didn’t have anything to do with me in a sense. For years I sat around and had these ideas, almost these revenge fantasies about how I leave music and I’ll make a big announcement and I’ll walk off into the sunset and tell everyone to fuck off! That is like my happiest fantasy [laughs]. That’s not what this was though; a door was closing and one of the things I realised is that, even though this part of my life is pretty much over, it’s not necessarily completely over. I don’t have to close the door completely. I don’t have to go anywhere. I can continue to work with and ideally mentor young bands, which I enjoy doing, and if one day an opportunity comes up to play a set, I’ll go do that. If an opportunity comes up and I can tape some of my songs I have, then sure, assuming I have the time. It’s not a matter of leaving it behind, it’s about leaving behind my attachments to all that. You don’t have to leave music or the scene behind you just leave your attachments to it. Once you do that ironically, you’ll enjoy it more.

Ben photo by Marc Gartner.

Brad Warner snippet:

BRAD WARNER: When someone asked the guitarist from The Cramps – Poison Ivy – if she had some advice for girls wanting to play the guitar she said: Give up, don’t even try. That comes to mind. There are things in the so-called spiritual world and religion that are worthwhile. You shouldn’t just reject everything straightaway just because it seems religious. It’s more to the point of just staying true to you. A lot of the problem is that people just fall into the same patterns, like how the punk rock way of dressing became just a uniform in the same way that everybody else has to have Louis Vuitton bags or whatever the trend is. When everyone in the punk scene has to have a leather jacket, exactly the right leather jacket, it kind of loses its meaning at that point.

Brad photo by Svetlana Dekic.

Lord Ezec snippet:

LORD EZEC: …If you don’t believe in yourself, who the hell will? …I do everything at 110%.  I am like a pit-bull; I can’t do it half assed.  Got to go with all heart and balls!  There is always someone younger than you, smarter than you, better looking than you and more talented than you who is willing to sell their soul to take your place! You can’t let them take your ground.  You’ve got to fight for what is yours and guard it with dear life.  You’ve also got to understand that it is not only about you, your fans are the reason why you are where you are so you got to be cool to them.  Also remember where you came from.  That is why I always tell people I am from Queens!

Ezec photo by Estevan Oriol.

Franklin Rhi snippet:

FRANKLIN RHI: When I was leading a straight edge kind of lifestyle, I did it because I got into the Krishna movement and the Hare Krishna philosophy. I never got into it because ‘Ray (Cappo) of Today’ told me not to have a beer. Getting into those kinds of bands added to my revolutionary spirit at the time, it made me look at things a lot deeper.

The first band I joined was 108. That band had a lot of spirit. You felt that on stage. Everyone in the band was a devotee. The more people you have that follow the exact same thing makes things a lot stronger on stage. Visually people feel it. Vic [DiCara] was living in the temple, Rob [Fish] was living in the temple, and I was living in the temple. Same thing with Shelter. People can see straight up if you’re following what you are preaching. I don’t really want to spill dirt on any body’s lap but, some of the things I saw in those bands also drove me away from the whole spirituality thing.

Russ Rankin snippet:

RUSS RANKIN: …I can think about being a better person all day long. I can think about being a better citizen. I can think about making then world a better place but, unless I’m taking action it’s just thoughts. When I take action my thinking follows. The first few simple steps of hitting my knees and saying these words, saying these prayers – even though I didn’t believe there was anything out there listening to them – the fact that I was taking action caused my thinking to change.

A big thank you to everyone I had a chat with for this issue, love you guys lots! Thanks for inspiring my life with your creations. Thank you to the photographers who let me use their beautiful work. Thanks to my dear friend Franklin Rhi for being all kinds of awesome! Much love to my subscribers for being patient, supporting this project and being interested in it… you all mean the world to me. Thanks Jhonny for the constant inspiration and for being the best person ever! And lastly, thanks to Vincent for the quality control help ;)

Gratitude, Love & Light,

Do you create art every day?

Certainly, I finished a painting this morning. I was working on a song very late last night and I mixed it this morning. I create something every day because it is a reaction. I don’t make art to be popular or seen, I make it because my hands have to, otherwise I’ll extinguish my own life. We’ve all had strange experiences in our lives; to deal with different things, many times, people make art and make music as a catharsis, as a therapy—that’s what I do. I have to do things with my hands or with my voice or with my brain so that I don’t get extremely depressed or extremely angry at the world.

I read in an interview with you once that you love old burnt out buildings and things like that and that you feel really at peace in places like that.

It’s my favourite place, a space that no one wants anymore. Architecture I love, I think architecture is so beautiful, especially abandoned architecture is really, really special to me because, at one point it is valued so highly. So much of America, maybe not so much in Australia, we’ve abandoned so much of our country. If you look at New Orleans or Detroit, they don’t give a shit about anything they built like more than 50 years ago. Those spaces we often reclaim as artists, we do a painting on the wall or bring in a little chair or something. I feel most at peace in those spaces, yes that is correct.

I once thought of doing a photography book or zine that would have pictures of old buildings with plants growing out of cracks, kind of taking back the structure.

Yes! Nature taking them back. That’s one of my favourite things.

Exactly! Before we were also talking about the feeling you get from drumming and you were saying that you believe that there are people that are put on this Earth that have ‘the gift’…

I think more than that, I think it’s a race. Where a lot of people want to talk about their race and pride in their race, I have very little pride left for America. I do know that I am a member of a strong race of drummers and that I have done this before in my life. I had a shaman tell me once that I walked out of Africa over fifteen hundred years ago and that I hadn’t chose to come back to the Earth until now. Ancient things make a great deal of sense to me and new things are very confusing to me, that I know to be true because, drumming is a snap to me, I can do it with my eyes closed. I’ve been doing it since I was 4 years old, even before that. I think it’s a race of people put here in order to lead people out of darkness, to use dance and to use rhythm as a healing tool.

(Taken from an in-depth interview in a forthcoming issue of Conversations With Punx)

Ian Vanek is one half of NYC-based art project Japanther. I love Japanther! They’re always involved in, and create, such awesomeness; collaborating with such a diverse range of musicians and artists such as Crass’ Penny Rimbaud, Spank Rock, Dan Graham and more!

Japnther in 3D:

For more Ian Vanek. All art featured by Ian! :)

Create forever!

Before I discovered prayer I used to have crazy panic attacks—I would think I was dying. I would go crazy. I thought I was having a heart attack. It’s the worst! I couldn’t even leave my house.

I would look at airplanes and have an anxiety attack. I knew I’d have to be in a plane at times in my life. I always thought, how would I escape this claustrophobic feeling? I had doctors telling me I should take Xanax and Prozac. I started to seek this other lifestyle: prayer and meditation.

I had a life changing moment the first time I flew to Australia. Goldfinger had been together for around four years. I had been suffering anxiety attacks. I knew I had to do an eighteen hour flight. I was like, how am I going to do it? Halfway through the flight -I had this little meditation CD -I had this sense that everything was going to be OK that I was going to be taken care of. It was a really life changing thing for me because I had to do so many flights after that to play shows. Ever since then I’ve been rid of anxiety attacks. It was a spiritual awakening to a certain extent. It wasn’t a big white light or anything but just a sense of comfort and ease.

I’ve done a lot of other work on myself too. I started running every day to get the physical stuff going. I stopped caffeine and sugar. I started meditating. Even after all that work though, it comes back to that moment on the airplane where I realised that everything will be OK. I still get an anxious feeling sometimes, but it has never been a full blown panic attack since then.

…When I pray, whatever it is that I’m praying to, the universe, whatever—to imagine a human God to me is ridiculous—I just look up to the stars and think, “What the hell is going on here?” When I pray I guess that’s what I’m praying to—the Universe, nature.

(Taken from a forthcoming issue of Conversations with Punx)

John is the frontman for band, Goldfinger. He is also a passionate vegan, father, animal & human rights activist, A&R rep and producer—working with bands such as The Used, Panic! At The Disco, Good Charlotte, The Veronicas and more!

Make each day count!

*Photo: courtesy of John’s Facebook.

One of the first punk rock vocalists I ever heard was Keith Morris. My brother gave me Circle Jerks’ Group Sex on vinyl when I was a teen, it was one of the records that was my gateway into punk rock. Later on I’d pick up Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP and over the years amass quite a collection of Keith’s work with all of his bands – most recently I’ve added latest musical project Off! In the week just passed Off! Played two amazing shows in my hometown of Brisbane. Keith was kind enough to speak with me for my Conversations With Punx project. Here’s a little snippet (we talked for over an hour). The full conversation will feature in the next zine in the CWP series (which I’m putting together at the moment). This conversation means a lot to me, Keith is one of the loveliest people I’ve met in punk rock. I’m so stoked that at 56-years-old he’s creating even more than ever—it’s truly inspiring!

You’ve been working on a book and a film. Can you tell me about them?
KEITH MORRIS: I’ve been working on the movie for about five to six years. I probably started working on the book about two years ago.

Is it fiction or non-fiction?
KM: The book is: Circle Jerks, Black Flag, Off!, working for a record company, working at a restaurant, working for The Commodores – you know The Commodores?

Yes!
KM: Slippery When Wet, (She’s A) Brick House. The movie is my take on the Wizard of Oz.

Wow! That’s like my favourite movie ever!
KM: Well you know how the Wizard of Oz starts in black and white and when Dorothy and Toto get to Oz everything becomes beautiful and all of the colours are bright well my story is the Wizard of Oz upside down.

That will be amazing! I’ve heard that you’ve talked to Josh Homme from Queens of the Stoneage and Chris Goss [Masters of Reality] about working on the film score?
KM: And Daniel Lanios [who has worked with U2, Brian Eno, Neil Young and more]. Daniel said, ‘Keith when you’re ready to create these songs this is how it normally works – you’re pretty much playing other people’s music anyway because it’s all been played before so all you do is change what you need to change. If you’re writing these pieces to fit certain scenes in the movie, the music is going to move to what’s happening in the movie.’ If something is moving real slow then you’re just going to [makes sounds at a slow tempo] ‘wamp wamp wamp wamp wamp wamp wamp.’ When it starts to get energetic you’ll toss in a [picks up the tempo] ‘wa boom boom boom boom.’ It will be a guitar orchestra. I’m thinking maybe ten guitar players. You put ten different guitar players in a room and everyone wants to solo! You’ll have a couple of them whose egos are bigger than everybody else’s, it’s like ‘oh I have to play more notes.’

Do you find that when you create things whether it’s writing a book, lyrics, film or making music that you do it sometimes to help you make sense of your own life?
KM: That’s a good way of putting it. Most of the stuff that I write is mostly stuff that just bothers me, stuff that affects me; like I just need to purge myself of that, I need to blood let and just let it all out. A lot of it’s out of anger; a lot of it’s out of frustration; a lot of it’s just out of being depressed; a lot of times (like we were talking about) going down town to skid row; a lot of times we don’t have the opportunity to do that and we find ourselves in a situation where I feel like I’m in a hole. I feel like I’m in a ditch, how am I going to get out of here? Maybe the only way that you can lift yourself out of the hole or climb out of the ditch is just by screaming and yelling [laughs]—well that works for me! I don’t know if it would work for anybody else.

I also find when I do interviews with people that it helps me with things in my life.
KM: I have a lot of friends who are creative people and I believe that the majority of them don’t create out of anger or out of depression. I find a lot of their stuff to be more cheery and not so dark, not so heavy, but I like that. I like that ‘well let’s take this colour and through it against the wall. Let’s take some pink and toss it in there.’ Dimitri [Coats – guitarist for Off!/producer] and I, we think black and white. I eventually want to get to the point, well there’s some green, there’s a couple of dabs of some yellow. Why not add some red and some blue over here.

Off! live instore:

Keith Morris with F*cked Up live:

For more Off!

Peace & love,

On the weekend as part of Australia’s leading independent arts festival This Is Not Art - which “is a supercharged convergence of writers, performers, thinkers, independent and industry musicians, creative researchers, electronic artists, dilettantes, and DIY culture makers in a showcase featuring over 400 local, national and international artists” – The Golden Stapler Awards for zines and celebrating zine making were held (presented by Format and the National Young Writers’ Festival). And guess what? 

I won the Australian Zine Maker of the Year award as well as a second award for the Best Zine Produced in Australia (as a series this year) for Conversations with Punx: A Spiritual Dialogue!!

 I am beyond stoked! As regular readers of CWB know I’ve been making zines for 17 years, since I was 15 years-old. It truly is one of my favourite things to do in the whole world. I look forward to making many, many more. Thank you for everyone who helped make Conversations with Punx what it is, you know who you are! I’m glad I decided to follow my heart and make it a limited edition zine series before I turn it into a book. It was important to me to be able to be hands on with the process of releasing it. Each zine that I send out is personally copied, hand-bound, sometimes hand drawn on and made by me (with help from JR with the cover screenprinting). If you’re interested in getting one please go here. Questions? Contact me at: conversationswithbianca [at] gmail [dot] com.

 Thank you to everyone that has supported and encouraged this project. It truly is super appreciated. It has been, and continues to be, the most AMAZING journey! Conversations with Punx is dedicated to the True Hearts, True Believers & Truth Seekers.

 CREATE FOREVER!!

A thought for your day:

I don’t believe that music can have a healing effect. I think it can get your heart rate up and get you to snap out of a funk you’re in as it’s often an extreme stimulus. I think it can redirect and reprioritise your energies at a given moment. It takes a lot of calories to be depressed. I think a lot of people don’t realise that. When someone doesn’t want to get out of bed, a feeling I have all the time, they might not see that lying around in bed all bummed out takes a lot of energy as well. Lying also takes up a lot more energy. It’s why Dick Cheney looks so bad all the time.

 ~Henry Rollins (taken from Conversations with Punx #2 Courage) 

Do something awesome today!

 *Art by Dan Bolton

Related Posts:

 Ian MacKaye: The Power Of Now

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez: Leaving Punk Rock

Faith. Conversations with Punx #6 was finished this week. This was the cover art in progress. It was so nice to cut & paste, I find it quite meditative.

Tea. It’s one of my favourite things in the whole wide world. Currently there’s around 12 different teas in the cupboard! It’s what fuels my days—jasmine green or rose green are my drink of choice. I love my teacup and teapot collection.

Reminders. My big sis Julie gave me this sign as a housewarming gift. Seeing it everyday reminds me not to sweat the small stuff and that if I fall down in any part of my life, things will be ok, I just have to take a breather and get back up and keep going forward.

Rubaiyat Records rules! This seven inch arrived in a package that the lovely folks from Rubaiyat (a little indie label from Europe) sent me when I wrote them wanting to buy a record they put out several years ago by Designer Imposter. This particular seven inch’s art is AMAZING! Each copy is unique handmade, stenciled and limited edition. I wish more artists/labels took time to do art like this.

Bizoo. Staples co-founder of the Paper Cuts (zine) Collective sent me this, it’s a collection of work/features from his former zine/street press he once did. It’s an interesting read. Staples’ zine was around at the same time my old zine 15^th Precinct was happening. Reviewing my zine in Bizoo, Staples kindly called it “the Australian punk rock bible” …it also mentions ‘beef’ we had way back when but you know what? I have no recollection of this! I’m super curious to know what that’s in reference to because I’ve racked my brain and checked back over our correspondence and things seemed all good to me.

Father’s Day. Though I didn’t get to spend the day with my dad I was thinking about him often throughout the day. I have a photo of him in his racecar on my office wall (pictured). He’s a great man. He’s helped my mother raise five kids—they’ve been married 55 years this year! That to me is an achievement! He also selflessly looks after my ma who has advanced Alzhiemers. He’s one of the best people I know. The photo of the man in the hat is my grandfather (my dad’s dad) Jose who was a writer.

Paints! The homestead is always full of art supplies and ready for creation at a moments notice! ha ha! It’s so lovely to live in an environment that nurtures the creative spirit.

Om. This is one part of a four part art piece that was made by my friends Greg Attonito and Shanti Wintergate for my Conversations with Punx project launch I put on last year at Bleeding Heart Gallery. The work is one of my most treasured art pieces, the om is made from a map and the border is all handwritten with wonderful positive thoughts.

Fresh flowers. I love bringing nature inside. I adore keeping fresh flowers on the kitchen table and at my writing desk. These roses were so beautiful I simply couldn’t walk pass them. Why not give someone that’s awesome in your life flowers this week? You don’t have to spend $ buying any, just pick some from a garden! I guarantee it’ll make whoever you give them to smile. The two little pups in the photo are my salt & pepper shakers, a gift from JR! Too cute!

I hope your week is magical!

Create forever!

A thought for your day:

When you come up with it [punk rock], it almost becomes a safety blanket. It becomes your identity. It’s what helped point you in the right direction. For me it was easy to move on because of, once again, my rebellious nature. All of a sudden punk rock became the father figure that was like, “No, you can’t listen to Vietnamese music because it’s not punk rock.” Punk rock means that you’re your own person, a complete individual, you think for yourself, but you’ve got to do it in these guidelines. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, and you can’t be seen at a Grateful Dead show [laughs], you can’t hang with the hippies.

I started getting just as angry as I did in my adolescence that first took me to punk rock. I still have that anger inside me and I still hated the idea of someone defining what individuality was to me. All of a sudden punk rock became the establishment. There’s always been ways of breaking free of that. I would find circles of other people that felt the same way. Then after a while those people would have their limitations and it keeps happening because that’s the way our spirits work. It’s how the world works, nature works. Everything is in cycles of revolution and we have to destroy the old in order to make way for the new. It’s as simple as the way our automobiles run—you burn that gas till its empty; that way you can fill it up again and you can move further.

~Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (taken from Conversations with Punx #1 ‘Truth’)

*Art by Kaileena Farah

Be brave & go where the energy is! Don’t sell yourself short by holding onto your security blanket! There’s so much more out there to explore!

Try something new… & have a beautiful day!

 PS – Please don’t forget to vote for me and Conversations with Punx in the Australian Zine Awards! Go here to cast your vote! THANK YOU to all that have supported me and my project and voted already! Love you guys.

A thought for your day:

The present is the most difficult time for most people; it’s the only one actually engaging you. The future isn’t engaging because it doesn’t exist yet and the past isn’t engaging because you can’t do anything about it. The present is the only time when we can actually do anything. We can regret things, miss things or admire things about the past—there are all those sorts of feelings and emotions—we can delay decisions and wage bets on what we think is the future but the present is actually the only time when action has real place.

I think people—I include myself as people—tend to spend an awful lot of time not knowing how to go forward with the present. We defer to the past or the future. People tend to think if you’re not thinking about the future, you’re not being responsible, I don’t agree with that at all.

 I have this theory of the future being around the corner. If you think of a road, the road is always curved. The future is always that point just around the corner, you can’t quite see it. You will certainly get there but you can’t see it. You have no idea what’s on the road? You’ll never know until you get around the corner and by the time you get around the corner there’ll be more around the corner ahead. I don’t really think that we can prepare. What we can do is make sure we are healthy and in as good as shape possible now and flexible enough to be able to contend with whatever we are faced with—that we’re balanced. If you’re putting too much attention on the possibility of the future you’re probably likely to drive right the hell off the road in front of you. Its best just to keep the eyes on the road.

~Ian MacKaye (taken from Conversations with Punx #1 ‘Truth’)

*Art by Tom Burrey of Rock of Ages Tattoo Parlour has pride of place on my abode walls.

Have a thoughtful day lovelies!

Strawberries! Growing your own fruit and veggies is so incredibly rewarding. Nothing beats being able to walk out to the garden to pick some produce to make salads and delicious home cooked dishes. I’m currently growing strawberries, bananas, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, carrots, shallots, chili, parsley, basil, chives and more.  

Vincent is one of my best friends. She’s a fourteen-year-old mini fox terrier that loves hanging out and lapping up the sun when I’m out gardening. She even pitches in and tries to help me pull out weeds sometimes. I love animals, all they ever want to do is play and be loved.

JR’s art. I love my home so much! Lots of art all over the walls made by JR adds loads of character and interest to the white walls. Homemade art is the best! This photomontage is one of my favourite pieces.

Interview cassette tapes. I started to go through all my interview tapes from the last 17 years which is no small task! I have shoe boxes full of tapes & discs from all the chats I’ve had with punk rockers & hip hoppers. One day I hope to digitalize them all and make them available for you to listen to. (Pictured: Cyco Miko; No Doubt; Bouncing Souls; Hepcat; Toe to Toe; Voodoo Glow Skulls; Unwritten Law; Snuff; Pennywise)

Interview mini-discs. I’ve been finding it harder and harder to find blank mini-discs to record on, all of my usual stores have stopped stocking them. I’m on the lookout for some new technology to record my interviews, if you have any ideas please let me know! (Pictured: Marky Ramone; The BellRays; Conor Oberst; Danzig; The Scare; I am Ghost; Kill The Music; Dropkick Murphys; Good Charlotte; Pennywise; The Living End; Raised Fist; Avail; The Falcon; Royal Crown Revue; The Distillers; AFI; Less Than Jake; Mike Muir/Suicidal Tendencies; The Unseen; The Bronx; Henrey Rollins; Strung Out).

Mini-cassette tapes. These are so cute & tiny! (Pictured: The Transplants; The Offspring; Duane Peters; Tsunami Bomb; Sick Of It All; The Slackers; Ted Leo; Tilt; AFI).

The Nunnery. This is the view out the window of the guesthouse I stayed in while in Melbourne. My room looked down onto a quaint little courtyard. The Nunnery has such a rich history. The building was first built in the 1800s for a prominent Melbourne physician; he’s son was a pioneer of x-ray technology in Australia—x-ray equipment was installed on the premises in the early 1900s. Later it was taken over by religious group the Daughters of Charity and was occupied by nuns carrying out pastoral/parish work in nearby churches. For a time it also housed borders – young women from the country who came to the city to work and study. The nuns living there also fed the homeless and took in refugee women from Vietnam and Cambodia. Finally in the late 1900s it was purchased by a family that turned it into a backpackers and B&B style accommodation. Visually it was a lovely place to stay and conveniently located between the arty area of Fitzroy and the city but, honestly I wouldn’t go back there due to the rude staff on the front desk that acted as if providing (the most minimal) service was an inconvenience to them. Overall: pretty building, good location, unwelcoming bad service.

Jhonny Russell & the Mystery School @ The Penny Black. This was one of the funnest shows I’ve been to in ages. Three very different bands on the bill, JR&tMS (lo-fi-electro-rock-pop), Bits of Shit (punk rock) and Ally Oop featuring Noize Bunny and Ice Pick (hip hop). I’m forever being told that different genre bands don’t work on the same bill, this show proved that very wrong! I was thoroughly entertained by each set. JR & I also finally got to meet our pal Trav from great Australian band Wet Young Dolphin who made it out for the show. The Penny Black was such a great venue too (love the red curtain!)

The best macarons in Australia. I walked forever to find La Belle Miette ‘a small patisserie for small patisserie’ but it was well worth it. Hidden away on Hardware Lane in Melbourne’s CBD I found the best macarons I have ever eaten! I indulged in some of the most amazing flavours (pictured) lemon, cherry blossom & sake, olive oil & vanilla, rose and violet & blueberry—I also had a 72% cocoa single origin chocolate one that I ate before I took the photo! :)

Conversations with Punx #5 ‘Creativity’ limited edition zine. Finally zine #5 orders have been filled. They have hand drawn covers and are bound with rainbow yarn. If today goes as planned Conversations with Punx #6 ‘Faith’ will be finished ready for printing tomorrow. And in case you’ve missed my earlier post I have been nominated for Australian Zine Maker of the Year for CWP. Please take a moment to vote for me here: The Golden Stapler Awards.

Altar. To me, this is one of the most important places in my home. This is the first thing that gets set up in any new place I move into and the last thing that gets packed when moving on to the next place. It’s the spot where I do my daily meditations (though I haven’t been meditating as much as I would like lately). It’s a place where I keep my ‘specials’. I got the little doll on one of my trips to Mexico, having it there reminds me of my heritage. The Kuan Yin statue was purchased at my favourite eatery Tian Ran, I’ve been going there for almost a decade – they have the best Asian vegetarian. The mini teapot was a purchase from Prague. The tiny jar of pink fairy dust is a present from my best friend Dannielle. And, the photo is of my mother and father.

 I hope you’ve had an enjoyable week so far.

All the best,