ANNE SMERDON

*original artwork by Anne Smerdon

I've mentioned this in the past, but I am really passionate about this blog being more than a collection of photos of me and my clothing. I am surrounded by insanely talented friends who live in gorgeous spaces, make incredible music, write, paint, etc, etc. I feel selfish for knowing about so much beauty and not sharing it on my most public of platforms, so that will soon change.

I don't know Anne Smerdon personally, but was so happy to receive an email with a link to her artwork. Her dreamy psychedelic folk art is literally my idea of perfection- my heart felt like it stopped as I clicked through each painting to the next. I would kill to own any one of her paintings.

Taken from her website:

"Anne Smerdon is an emerging artist from the Gold Coast whose whimsical folk-fantasy works reflect her meticulous design skills and education as an Architect. She has shown her works in exhibitions throughout Queensland and internationally. She was recently chosen as a finalist in the Border Art Prize.

Her works are a combination of watercolour, gold, ox gal and architectural ink on canvas, paper or silk. Her works tell tales of autodidactic girls who have bridged the animal and human worlds to become one with nature, symbiotically nurturing fauna and flora and in turn, being nurtured by fauna and flora. Each work conjures up memories of the fictional feral children from stories such as Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s The Blue Lagoon. Her works also document the architectural details, landscapes and animals which influence her visual narrations at the time of painting."

I'm no art critic, but I have always firmly believed that art is completely subjective, and it's kind of impossible for it to be labeled as "good' or "bad", as the way it inspires and speaks to people is completely different from one person to the next. While typing this, I was reminded of a Jesus and Mary Chain interview I've listened to countless times on their Stoned and Dethroned UK b-side that is seriously one of the most inspirational and true things that I've ever heard:

"People learn too much in this business. They feel as if you can't make a good record until you've spent 15 years learning how to play a guitar... and I think those are the worst kinds of records. I think something like Suicide's first album- if they had known what they'd been doing, it would have been crap. They were like feeling their way around and it was all imagination and inspiration- not a music lesson. I've been playing the guitar for 17 years, and I can't play as good as any 18 year old that started lessons last year, and I don't care. You make your own space and you do what you can in that space. Our songs are pretty simple in structure, but you know what, sometimes it's the hardest thing to be simple."

The first time I heard that, all of my preconceived notions of being "too old" to try something new just vanished. You don't need to be schooled or trained in any form of art to make something worthwhile. That's some seriously enlightening shit. To me at least.

Check out Anne's blog and pass around the beauty.