You were in LA for a show at Thinkspace, tell us a little about the show and the pieces you had for it.

Yes, I have just been in LA having lots of fun. The show at Thinkspace was called ‘The Drawing Room’, it was a group exhibition curated by Audrey Kawasaki and included many of my favourite artists. I had two pieces, two tattooed water nymphs looking quite mischievous. The opening night was one of the best I’ve ever been to, there were so many people and so much great art!

What is the inspiration behind your work?

Most of my images centre on female characters that represent the idea of an archetypal feminine. Recently I have begun focusing more intently on two distinct themes surrounding these characters, that of the sea and the home. To me, these two themes represent varying degrees of stability and instability and I love all the visual imagery that goes with them.

You have lots of tattooed women as subjects. Do you have lots of tattoos yourself?

I have one tattoo, just a tiny symbol that I got when I was 17. The tattoos in my images are more about creating a maritime feel than anything else. I recently got a Sailor Jerry tattoo book and became smitten with them.

What were your thoughts of LA?? Was that your first time?? What did you do, what were some of your favorite things? The weather is pretty consistent there, not like all season in one day Melbourne, eh?

I love LA! It was actually my fourth visit but I definitely had the most fun this time. We cruised around looking at some great art, shopping, eating chili cheese fries and peanut butter shakes at 2 in the morning… yum. The constant sunshine is definitely a plus.

Fries and shakes at 2am, you’ll have to tell me where! I met with Eveline before you came out to LA, another artist also in the Poketo-Aussie series… she was sort of stranded day to day without a car. But, I think she mentioned that when you arrived in LA, all was going to change–car rental, luxury hotel, and fun, fun… was it true??

Yep, Ev got the car and came and picked me up from the airport and we went and checked into The Standard in Hollywood. I only had four days so we crammed in lots of fun stuff and ate lots of good food.

We cruised all over Melbourne and went to some great places. Some of my favorites are the shopping arcades in the city center. What do you do on your free time when you are not drawing and painting? What do you like to do on your free time? Is making art pretty much your full time job?

After returning from five weeks traveling I’m slowly starting to realize how much I love Melbourne. It’s quiet and slow sometimes but I like it. When I’m free this summer I plan to spend time in the sunshine, go swimming at the local pool (when I can’t persuade my housemate to drive me to the beach), ride my bike in the twilight when the air smells sweet, eat watermelon, grow strawberries, drink lots of beer and have friends over to lie on blankets with me in the backyard on warm balmy nights. Summer in Melbourne is the best.

Sounds like a dream… like your art. Tell us a little about the Poketo wallet you did for us. What was the inspiration behind that piece?

The piece I did for the Poketo wallet is one of my favourite drawings. It is one of a series of two images called Sometimes of the Land and Sometimes of the Sea. Again it relates to the idea on stability and instability that I am interested in. This girl represents earthy things and she is the stable one, I think she has quite a strength about her.

You did a wonderful commission for Frankie magazine. The wrapping paper is lovely. How did that come about? Any new collaborations or projects you can talk about in the near future??

Thank you! I have a great respect for Frankie magazine, I think it is an excellent publication that supports many levels of creativity within Australia. The girls who run it are lovely, talented people and it really comes through in the magazine. As for projects, I have a few bits and pieces on the go, but I came back from overseas determined to make 2009 the year to do lots of drawing! I’m full of inspiration and ideas so I’m looking forward to see what happens.

Check out Catherine’s Poketo wallet here.
Visit Catherine at catherinecampbell.net.

Hi Fontaine! We didn’t meet up in Melbourne for the show because you are based in the UK. What got you out there, what are you doing there?

I have only been here six months, but I came partly to escape my parents telling me to have children and settle down and partly to see what I could find! My first job here was in textile design but I currently work for a design house that only does books. I have also done freelance work for the Guardian and the Telegraph as well as a childrenswear design studio in Denmark called Soft Gallery.

Ha! That’s really funny…. we get the same pressure, it’s normal. You are from South Adelaide, a totally different environment. What do you miss about home?

I miss the wide open spaces, the clean streets and the warm weather.

Your work and subjects is a mix of cultures and styles. Tell us a little bit about your work. What is the inspiration behind pieces.

I love fashion and textile designers, I get a lot of inspiration from magazines such as Lula, Visionaire and British Vogue. I am also inspired by different cultures - I love African masks, British suits of armor and the Japanese kimono. I also love nature and animals.

Tell me a little bit about the Poketo wallet you did. The girl you drew is so cool, kind of has this 60s, Japanese vibe to it. Am I totally off or??

The illustration was originally for my friends who own a retro clothing shop in Adelaide so I wanted the drawing to have a distinctly 60’s vibe. Japanese anime, textiles and patterns have always interested me and the dotted line I use is influenced by traditional Japanese sashiko embroidery.

Ah, I was on the right track. Thanks so much for the chat Fontaine!

Check out Fontaine’s poketo here
Visit Fontaine at fontaineillustration.com.

Hi Lilly!! Your work has such a soft lens, a very dreamy feeling… I feel like I’m looking into the past when I see your drawings, especially the Poketo wallet you did. Tell us a bit about that what inspired the imagery. The drawing has a kangaroo, koala, parakeet, and a ringtail possum… I think it is at least. All very Aussie!

Well, I like drawing Australian animals. At my family home in QLD there are always lorikeets, bush turkeys and possums visiting, and once a koala got stuck on the roundabout, which is pretty amazing becase it is a suburban area! My parents actually found an abandoned baby noisy mynah which they have been raising and I’m looking forward to meeting him.

What is it about the sea and animals that you love?

The sea always reminds me that there is a lot to explore, and it is nice to look out and think about what is over the horizon. My dad goes deep sea fishing a lot, I used to go with him, but these days I get seasick.

Both of my parents love animals, so i think i got that from them. We grew up with 20 chickens, tadpoles, some guinea pigs, a dog and cat, and we always had possums visiting.

What type of animal would you describe yourself as?? What animal would you choose to be??

Hm, I think I would be a currawong. They seem to have a good life, and they have a nice singing voice.

You are currently living in Germany with your husband. How did you decided to move there, what are you doing in Germany?

We decided to move here because it is so close to everything. We plan to move back to Australia in the next two years though. I’m just drawing like always, moving doesn’t really affect me because pretty much all of my work is done via the internet.

What are some of your favorite things to do in Germany on your free time? What do you miss about Australia?

On a nice sunny day, i like going to the Schwetzingen gardens, or going into Heidelberg city or working in our vegetable patch. On a cold day, it’s fun to go to the woods and collect chestnuts and in winter the Christmas markets are ace. I miss my family, friends, the sea, lamingtons and the good weather. Heiko and I are going to Australia for Christmas this year and I can’t wait.

Any last shout outs to friends and fans?
Hello to Elly Yap and Ricky Reyes!

Check out Lilly’s dreamy Poketo wallet here.
Visit Lilly at littlegalaxie.com.

Hi James! Tell us a bit about yourself. I know you are originally from Australia and now living in LA. Tell us how you came to be an Angeleno, why you decided to be here, was it a dream?

Hey there Ted, yes, I am originally from Australia, spent most of my life so far there - though being an Australian I tend to have pretty big eyes for the rest of the world and consequently I’ve traveled a fair bit ( Asia, Russia, Europe ), usually overland via trains, buses, boats…

My mum is originally English and is from a line of cheese farmers in an idyllic part of the west of England - think super fertile green hills, pulling vegetables out of black soil, rich smell of cows in the winter etc. etc… So LA is totally weird for me, I’m not used to the desert, it feels like Mars! I don’t know how I ended up here, when I passed through here a while ago, I thought I’d never be back and now I live here - weird how life turns like that! I came here at first largely because my girlfriend wanted to persue music here ( www.lenkamusic.com ) so knowing I could work anywhere I was happy to be away from my home town and live in another country. Now I think LA is great, so much amazing creativity and the American drive and spirit of encouragement is awesome! So it wasn’t really a dream to be here, but lots of dreams are getting fulfilled by being here!

When we first met at our Poketo party with Corduroy Magazine, we had picked you out and complimented you on your rad clothes– I think you were wearing a really colorful, geometric patterned jacket and cowboy boots. I remember you graciously replied and then asked if we knew Ted and Angie, which of course, here we were! It was a delightful first encounter. Getting to know you, your style, and your art since that time, your work is so playful, human, organic, colorful. Has it always been this way? How has your work evolved? How did you find your calling in illustration and art? Has anyone or anything influenced your work?

Yes! it was quite the first meeting! I had a jacket by www.peglegnyc.com on, I love it, it is super colourfull! I’ve gotten over cowboy boots, now I’m addicted to Carpezio’s, they’re basically shoes for doing Jazz ballet in, and my how jazzy they are - actually my all time favourite shoe store is in melbourne, Rocco’s shoes, it’s this old guy who churns out amazing hand made shoes, you can customize your own even, bit of snake skin here, bit of yellow patent here…. he doesn’t advertise or even have a telephone! it’s great.

I’m so glad you think my work is playful and organic, personally I tend to over analyze and philosophize things, I really need and enjoy developing a strong philosophy in order to make things, so it’s great when the finished product sheds this to some extent and stands as playful and organic.
I’ve always found it hard to categorize what I do, basically I make images, so within that I do a whole lot of different things from Visual art exhibitions, to editorial illustration, to set design, sculpture…. and I love it all. I try not to restrict myself with labels and just make what I want / need to make.

I started out doing pretty straight graphic design but quickly left that to work for myself doing more image making type projects. Illustration came along as a title because it really has the most flexibility in what it encompasses, basically I can continue to make whatever it is I make in whatever medium and call myself an illustrator. I can work for clients and do my own stuff and somehow it all gets tied in to illustration, even my sculpture work is quite illustrative and charming. Because of this eclectic practice my work is constantly evolving. I am being influenced by all the work I see around me, on the street, on the internet, on people… but the more I work the more comfortable I get with what I do, the more I recognize what I am and how I like to work, it’s a constant process, and illustration really lets me evolve in many directions.

Over the summertime, we’ve been over to your place in Silverlake where you have hosted quite a few BBQ’s. Great little garden you have and your studio is in your place. How is working out of the house? What around you keeps you creative. As an artist and designer, how do you balance work and life?

It’s insane, I really do go a bit mad being at home, maybe I should come down to your studio and say hi more often! I really need to get out of the house a bit more. I’ll be working away on different things and realize I haven’t left the house in days and I’ve run out of food! I sometimes wish I was in a much more public space to work, but I don’t think it hinders what I create that much, I can be a quiet little ferret sometimes, hiding away making things. I love this process of making a heap of stuff then pulling it out to show people at random times, improvised exhibitions happen at my place all the time! I hate being on stage, but I love making visuals that perform for me!

You just completed a residency on the east coast. Tell us a bit about how you got involved in that. What was a normal day like during the residency? Are doing artist residency like this crucial in your career? Or is it simply time to focus on creating work?

Oh yes, I’ve done quite a few residencies in the past in Europe and Asia, but this one in NY was quite different and amazing! The other ones I’ve done they typically left me to my own devices. After applying and stating what it is I want to do I basically got given a space to work and live and did just that, with no commitments. It was an amazing time living in Paris, Vienna, and Indonesia. But this NY residency, was more like an intensive camp, where 30 of us from around the world worked all day in our studios feeding off each other and making heaps of new work. We had amazing visitors from NYC like the curator from the Whitney biennial, and other amazing gallery owners from Chelsea. Residencies can be crucial I think, they get you connected to new groups of artists and help you find out about other opportunities, and they are like flexible versions of school, somewhere between an undergraduate degree and a masters.

Did you leave the residency with a lot of new work? Did you create art for exhibitions or commercial work?

I did all that! I left with a bunch of new work, mainly work on paper and sculptures, which I’ve exhibited here in LA. Following on from the work I did at the residency I’ve been making large oil paintings which I’m taking back to Australia for a couple of exhibitions there. I also did editorial illustrations for NY magazines over the internet while I was there, and also started working on Lenka’s latest album cover!

You have a wonderful collaboration with your partner, Lenka. Her singing career is really taking off, I hear her all the time on KCRW radio. Her songs are very whimsical and full of lightness. Seems so fitting for your art. Your art direction on her newest album, what was the inspiration, how do you tackle a project like that? Because you are partners, did you have freedom to design whatever? What was working with a major label (Epic) like? Were you involved with the music at all? Can you tell us about any music videos in the works? Will you be involved in that as well?

Yes, we have a lot of fun collaborating, you must know how cool it is to have a partner who is in the same business as yourself! Yes I think we’re a good match for her project, whimsical, cute, fun. Luckily the label is really supportive of our collaboration and we get a fair amount of encouragement and support. In fact part of the appeal of Lenka to the label was that she has this visual world already worked out. I think a lot of the time major labels have a hard time with new artists because they have no idea what they like or who they are visually so they have to start from scratch. It’s the polar opposite with us, we’re actively involved in creating the right style for lenka and because she studied art too she is always making visual decisions about everything and helping me with designs and animations too. The videos are fun! we’ve done a few of the low fi stop motion illustration ones which get used as viral you tube and promo videos. The music business is a strange one but Epic is really good in that they really recognize how it’s changing and are really interested in making new ways of getting music out there through things like these cute little videos and other little things we’ve done that are a bit left of field for a major label, it’s exciting.

Collaboration with other artists seems to be something you love to do. There is even furniture out of some of the drawings you made. How did the collaboration with Pep Heykoop come about and was that amazing chair ever produced?

Yes, it’s great! collaboration is awesome, though I seem to do most of it via the internet, so sometimes I never even meet the collaborators. Like with Pepe I sent him drawings I’d been doing and he interpreted them, it’s amazing seeing how someone else perceives something you’ve made, how it changes through interpretation. Collaboration really encourages this and makes you think in different directions to what you would by yourself. The chair was a one off, but I’d love to put a chair into production one day, in fact there’s quite a few projects I’d love to get mass produced - one day. I’m doing another collaboration when I go back to Sydney at the end of the year for an installation in a gallery. We’re going to gut a car and make an engine totem pole out of all the parts, that you can look into through periscopes and see crazy animated worlds inside.

You are part of our Poketo x Australia series coming out in November. Tell us a bit about your wallet and tee designs for us–The swirly cameras and the patterns of eyes. What is the starting point for works like this? Is it an idea? Is it design?

I get obsessed with elements usually, I’ll be drawing eyes for a whole week then next it’s cameras, then cars, then…. so most projects usually come out of what I’m into at that time, particularly when it’s something as fun and free as designing for you guys! I am interested in things initially appearing aesthetically pleasing but have a darker undertone, I think the eyes come out of that, it’s basically a nice pattern, but then under that it’s all these suspicious big brother like eyes looking at each other. The cameras is more playful, but comes out of a series of sculptures I’ve been working on that explore this idea of visualizing energies of unperceivable things, like the sight coming out of your eyes or glasses, or the creative energy spilling out of your fingers, or here, the spirit of taking a photo spilling out of the camera, rather than the light going in. Kind of like the energy of creativity in taking a picture.

We are going to be in Australia at the same time for the launch of the Poketo collection. Hopefully we’ll hook up in Sydney or Melbourne. We’ve never been there, so, where are we going to go?? Do you like how I’m already planning to make you an official Australia welcoming host? –ha ha

Yippee! I love it that we’re going to be able to hang out in my home town. It’s awesome when you’re away from home and you make new friends then you get to show them where you’re from, like taking your girlfriend home to meet the parents! We’re going to eat up a storm at all the amazing Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, we’re going to soak up the sun on bondi beach, we’re going to sit in the cafe all morning talking to friends, we’re going to go to some rad galleries! And we’re going to breathe the freshest air and the brightest colours you’ve ever tasted - can you tell I’m homesick?

Last but not least, what are you working on currently, any new projects in the works that you can talk about?

There’s always a bag of stuff going on, I’m prepping for 3 shows I’m installing in Sydney - including the Poketo launch! - all of which I have to somehow fit in my luggage on the plane. I’m doing an illustrated album cover for a children’s music record, I’m pitching on a couple of indie video clips, and I’ve just finished an illustration for Businessweek magazine here in the US, and making a hand silkscreened calendar.

Check out James’ Poketo tees… Camera and Eyes.

Check out both of James’ Poketo wallets here, Spray Can Swirlies and Eyes.
Visit James at www.jamesgulliverhancock.com.

We were so stoked to meet Beci Orpin. She is a highly regarded designer and artist…her art, clothes, and products found in select shops internationally. She is the founder and creative mind behind Princess Tina (you know, the sad tooth!) and now runs her design label, simply named, Beci Orpin. Beci designed a beautiful Poketo wallet for us and a matching Kokeshi doll for the Poketo launch in Melbourne. We got a peek into her studio and all the little things around that inspire her!

The Beci Orpin crew hard at work

Some new brooches coming out soon. We have some on poketo.com. Two styles, Fairy and bird flying and Birdie.

I love the labeled box of gocco screens there. Beci really does everything with her labels… design, production, everything… really inspiring.

Beci showed us her latest from her kids’ line, Tiny Mammoth.

Kids rule at the Beci Orpin Studio…. Tae Kwan do, painting, and rolling around allowed!!

Beci and her Poketo!!

Check out Beci’s happy Poketo wallet here!
Visit Beci at beciorpin.com.

Hi Eamo!! It was such a pleasure to meet you in Melbourne. You had a rocking polaroid and snapped a great pic of us. I love the old school feel of the original instant camera! When I think of Australia, I think of you. Your work seems to exemplify Aussie culture, tell us a little about it. What drives you to illustrate the Aussie life the way you do?

I want to express what Australia means to me and my experiences. I want to share the memories I have of growing up through Australian summer’s, backyard sprinklers, women’s weekly Birthday Cakes, Christmas in 40 degree Celsius heat, needle-less pine christmas trees sitting in a rubbish bin filled with sand, Caravan Park holidays, counter meals in country pubs. We had such an innocence, we where so isolated, cut off from the rest of the world, our art, television, culture, rarely made its way beyond the southern hemisphere. In a way we were like our flora and fauna, thousands and thousands of years of isolation and no natural predators. We have the most amazingly rare animals found in the world–the koala, the kangaroo, echidna, platypus, emu - so our culture was so unique, our characters, lifestyle, and climate.

Colonized by the British merely 200 years ago, the country’s terrain, climate and location was so vastly different from Britain that we sort of evolved as a nation developing our own culture and way of life, a more outdoor lifestyle. But it has been so fleeting that even in the 27 years I have been alive, I have seen alot of the things I grew up to love have disappear so rapidly. Without millions and millions of years of history, we are constantly making our own everyday but something merely 10 years old can be forgotten, I want to reinforce what is great about our culture through my art because we have a tendency to take it for granted. Australian History 101 as mumbled by Eamo.

If you were to show someone an Aussie day, the true Australia… what would the day look like?

Well I’d get them up at the crack of dawn, the morning heat would still be in the late 20s to early 30s (degree’s celcius) from the night before. They would have spent half the night sitting in the backyard trying to cool off listening to the cicadas and crickets, and the other half laying in bed with a wet towel and a fan. That morning we’d head to Bondi Beach for an early morning cool down, then take ourselves off to a pub somewhere for a morning tea beverage of cool amber fluid.

After a few beers before midday it’s off to the park to cook up some snags and onions on the barbie with homebrand white bread and dead horse (tomato sauce) don’t forget to pack the esky full of VB stubby’s and ice. and make sure someone brings the sunscreen, zinc and aerogaurd (insect repelant) After a good feed we’ll get out the cricket bat and tenno (tennis ball) and work off the lunch by playing some park cricket, a couple of the local kids will join in to make up the numbers, anyone who doesn’t want to play can watch the boxing day test on the portable tv Bazza brought with him from his shed, along with a couple of deck chairs and banana lounges.

After working up a sweat in the midday heat, it’s now pushing 36 degrees Celsius, we’ll catch the ferry over to Manly and spend the arvo sunning it up in the sand and cooling off in the shallows with a few body surfing comps thrown in.

Bazza has brought the deck chairs with him and we line them up in the shallows with the Esky choc a bloc full of beers floating by, we all sit submerged up to our waists downing more tinnies and stubbys till sunset. Shazza suggests we grab fish and chips up at the shops, Bazza orders a hamburger with the lot, no pineapple, Jimmy gets a piece of flake and some dimmy’s (dim sims) Kathy and Simmo get a Chiko Roll each and minimum chips and we grab another slab of Fosters. Finally after a big day and some sunburn we pack up our gear and head home, there’s a fireworks show on down on the harbour so we have a squiz at the harbour bridge and opera house lit up in glorious red’s and green’s, then catch a couple of taxi’s back to the suburbs.

Wow, I’m in! What is a typical day for you?? I bet it’s nothing like the above… or is it?

It has definitely been done, many times, it all depends on the time of year, whether it’s a holiday or summer, if the time is right for drinking, sunning, beaching, barbequeing. Alas it’s a rare occurence during the colder months of the year, especially in Melbourne. We have a really unpredicatable weather system down here as opposed to the northern states. For example, it’s the end of November here, a week away from the first day of summer, a week previous we had a 35 degree day (95 degrees Fahrenheit), which is bloody hot I can tell you! The hottest day of the year is usually 45C (113 degrees Fahrenheit) and people die in this heat.

A week later we get hail and snow and 13C! (50 degrees Fahrenheit) And Queensland has just experienced it’s worst storm’s in two decades. Enough education on the weather patterns of Australia. Back to my typical day. A work day would be rather boring compared to a holiday like the one mentioned above. Australian’s are known to work to play, we love our social lifestyle, and we play hard, it can be said a little too hard sometimes.

This is quite boring - I check the overnight emails, continue inking up a piece from the day before, head down to the PO Box and post off some artworks or products to as far as the Domenican Republic or as close as Fitzroy, update some new work on the website, cook up a feed for dinner on the barbie, watch Australia’s greatest television export since Skippy - Nieghbours, have a couple of beers, do a bit more work sometimes through the night if it’s for a U.S deadline, we are ahead a day in time difference, then do it all again the next day, or if the inking is finished change that part to scanning and colouring in ps.

That’s a crazy commission you did for Mountain Dew. You covered the whole jeep in your artwork. Tell us a little about how you approached that project. Do you drive around in that jeep??

I wish I did! It’s currently doing the rounds in Sydney promoting Mountain Dew to the people. I started with a technical spec of the jeep, front view and two side views. I had to work at 1:1 aspect so the files where massive. Because this Jeep was to promote the launch of Mountain Dew to Australia, and summer, spring was the launch, I knew the Australiana imagery would really suit this project. So I gathered all the icon’s and character’s and made a massive collage of all my imagery, then the artwork was vinyl wrapped to the Jeep. There where 4 artists doing a Jeep each, one for each state. Mine turned out to be the Sydney Jeep because the imagery really suits the lifestyle up there. Fingers crossed the Jeep keeps it’s skin for life and there will be an Eamo Jeep out there for decades to come.

Can you tell us about the imagery on the Poketo wallet. There are swimmers and smokes among this psychedelic mix of colors… there is so much detail and inside knowledge that I just don’t know about. Break it down if you can.

Eamo Encyclopedia or Eamopedia -
1. There’s the Bondi and Coolangatta lifegaurds, Coolangatta hosts a 46.65 kilometer ironman event known as the Coolangatta Gold which was also made into an epic 1980s australian feature film about a father and his two sons beating all the odds to win the Coolangatta gold!
2. The outback drover smoking a Winfield cigarette, the backbone of this nation are our shearers and drovers, they are the quintessential Australians. In Australia we have what is known as the ‘Big Things’ which are large sculptures dotted all over the nation’s smaller towns and off major highways to attract tourists to stop off in their municipal.
3. The big prawn from Ballina New South Wales is a massive Prawn laying sunburnt above a seafood restaurant / souvenir shop selling ‘craft’ ‘opals’ & ‘gems’. It has a viewing area through it’s of it’s glass eye’s.
4. The big banana from Coffs Harbor in Queensland has amongst other things a half kilometre downhill TOBOGGAN RIDE, an ice skating rink, the magical world of bananas is revealed in a 45 minute presentation of fun banana facts, top that off with a waterside and sky walk.
5. Another notable big thing featured, more hidden in the wallet is Larry the lobster from Kingston in South Australia, he houses a souvenir shop selling Larry the lobster fridge magnets and various other larry the lobster merchandise.
6. A tyre swan which are 1950s suburban garden sculptures of swan’s cut out of car tyre’s. Australia is known to have the deadliest species known to man, the blue-ringed octypus is regarded as one of the world’s most venomous animals on earth, the redback spider is considered one of the most dangerous spiders in Australia and can be found underneath many a dunny seat and we have the top 10 most venomous snake’s found in the world.

Don’t let this put you off coming here, we also have the weirdest marsupials on the planet, the platypus with a ducks bill, webbed feet and claws with venom, yes venom, a beaver-like tail, fur, that lays eggs. And we all know and love the kangaroo which is a 7 foot tall rat that hops and contrary to popular international belief, doesn’t hope the streets of Sydney and our other capital cities.

What’s up next, anything you want to share?

I’m planning two solo shows next year in Melbourne. After this speal, I reckon Tourism Australia owes me a job!

Check out Eamo’s “Aussie” Poketo wallet here!
Visit EAMO at eamo.com.au

Before we left for Melbourne, we had dinner with artist, Eveline Tarunadjaja. A little shy and full of cuteness, she was out in Los Angeles for a show at Thinkspace, curated by Audrey Kawasaki. As soon as she pulled her portfolio out, the shyness went away and the artist came out.






Eveline says helloooo from Poketo on Vimeo.

Check out Eveline’s beautiful Poketo wallet here!
Visit Eveline at lovexevol.com.

Hi Fleur! It was so awesome to meet you in Melbourne!! Your striking blonde hair was just like your Poketo wallet you did for us. Tell us a little about the wallet. What is “Terror in Tathra?”

Tathra is a country town in New South Wales, I had driven up their for my friends wedding. It was supposed to be a great weekend of fun and festivity, but the person I was traveling with flipped out. Amongst other things, he tried to set my suitcase on fire. My friend and were joking about how it would make a good horror movie and that “Terror in Tathra” would be the title, this was the beginning of my idea for the wallet. I wanted it to have the feel of a vintage movie poster. I’m really happy with the finished product and my family and friends that know that story behind it especially enjoy it too.

Thank goodness you can have a little laugh about it now! Tell us a bit the life there, what’s a day like for you?

I work on my artwork and design related projects from the morning until late at night and spend most of this time on my own and I absolutely adore being able to choose how I spend my day, especially compared to the craziness of my other job!

I know you do art, but, you are also an educator. How did you get involved in teaching? I used to teach as well, and it’s definitely a labor of love. Tell us about what you do…. Anything you’ve learned from your students or teaching them about making art that has affected the way you work? Some of your work has an innocent, child like quality to them I wonder if there is any influence from being around kids making art for arts sake.

I teach Art, Photography and Visual Communication Design part time at Secondary level. I love it. I also teach illustration at the Heidelberg Museum of Modern Art to young students and I also tutor privately. The students are awesome, they have such great personalities and the work that some of them produce is jaw droppingly cool. I rarely have discipline issues with them, so we spend most of the time making art and exploring new mediums and looking at great work by old and new artists. I love being able to share my passion with them and they respond with such enthusiasm that it’s a really inspiring experience. I admire teachers that work full time, I don’t know if I could hack it as you need to give so much in order to do a good job of it and I don’t know how I would balance my studio time with teaching full time. My situation right now is totally rad.

Any upcoming shows or projects you want to talk about? I know you have a show at Curtin House coming up. Seems like it’s art and crafts… which you do too! Your plush are crazy!

I always have little projects on the go, the one I am currently most looking forward to is my solo exhibition coming up on the 6th December on the roof of the famous Curtain House building in the CBD. It’s a showcase of my new series of papercuts titled “Something Wicked This Way Comes”. I have worked so hard preparing this body of work, so we are kicking it off with a big day party incorporating all sorts of crazy stuff and I am so excited for it! The details for this show can be seen in the ’shows’ section of my website fleurharris.com.

Check out Fleur’s 1950’s film inspired Poketo wallet here!