The Metamorphosis of a Man Cave.

Having started the day mild and sunny, the weather has descended back to skittish and unpredictable - blustery and cloudy with the occasional burst of rain. Still not indicative of spring yet. A very good afternoon to be indoors.

We were delighted to welcome Bob Johnson for a fleeting visit to the East End Gallery. Driving a campervan up from the Big Smoke, companion Rachel in the front, along with champagne and cheese, Bob, larger than life, entertained us for an hour or so.

Bob and Michael are kindred spirits in many ways. Both are highly intelligent, with constant overriding anxiety, an ability to absorb others' emotions and difficulty with filtering the excess information that is flying around them. They react in very similar ways - a need to retreat from the hordes, quieten their minds and bring their anxiety back to a manageable level.

For Bob, this may translate in becoming house bound. For Michael, he has his familiar haven behind the Gallery - his beloved workshop. Escaping from the noise and pressures of the universe is now available to Michael, a place to call his own that he has been lacking since we moved to Beverley.

The original space was like rolling back the boulder to Jesus' tomb on the Third Day to peek inside. Except if there had been a boulder across the workshop's entry, we might have felt tempted then and there to replace the rock back in place. And then run.

In short, the ninety square metres behind the Gallery was a hovel, a disaster and a dive with all the charm of the black hole of Calcutta. Hot as Hades in summer, colder than a brass monkey's in winter, draughty with a seized roller door, dodgy floorboards, and a leaking roof, not to mention various partitions that extended from the old residence, this part of the building had no redeeming features whatsoever. At least it couldn't go downhill any further.

The original renovation to improve its climatic extremes was carried out over four months in the later months of 2014. We laid a concrete floor with plumbing that was connected to the main sewerage pipe, insulated the roof and added a ceiling of one-hundred-year-old corrugated iron sheets from Gwambagine Homestead. A complete rewire banished the dingy darkness, the partitions were demolished, most doors to the remains of the old house were bricked in and the thirteen-metre-long east tin wall was insulated and then covered with a handsome veneer of hand-made, air-dried bricks sourced from an old backpackers building.

Even so, the workshop had yet to receive its soul. Michael had to throw himself back into the renovation of Shop Four, which was to be resurrected as our main Gallery. This back-breaking, frustrating and tedious job took another fourteen months, during which Michael utterly lost his renovating sense of humour.

The miracle finally occurred. We opened the entirety of the East End Gallery on 19 March. Now was Michael's opportunity to claim the workshop. Except it wasn't quite as simple as that. In dribs and drabs, we had been carting the tools of his trade from the House that Rocks to his workshop. With the Gallery finished, he urgently needed to create. And this Michael did, at a pretty frenzied pace, over the next five months.

The majority of twenty years of fossicking was still in the sheds at home. This all needed to be shifted into the workshop. However, the task was so huge that Michael fled in mind and body every time he considered Where to Begin.

Salvation arrived in the form of Loic and Manon at the end of August. Initially, Michael's anxiety hit the roof and he resisted any suggestion of commencing the Great Move of Materials. After calming down, he recognised that the kids were a gift from God and we should take full advantage of them. And the show commenced.

Three weeks later, having organised and sorted the workshop with Michael, carried out massive amounts of weeding and whipper snipping, collecting firewood, helping with housework and generally doing anything we asked them, Loic and Manon spread their wings and set off for wildflower picking in the Northern Wheatbelt.

Their lasting legacy is the workshop now has its heart restored. The space bulges with Michael's treasure chest of metal objects. History exists on every shelf and in every container. All his work benches are in place. Davros has his own nook. Bottles of bolts and tacks and screws and nails are within his reach. Other tools are neatly organised. And for the first time in the best part of ten years, Michael knows his workshop and its contents.

He is currently working on an art piece which has the sides of a 1903 ore wagon as the superstructure. Loic assisted Michael welding the parts together on the kids' final afternoon with us. Michael is now constructing "shelves" of horseshoes and miners' boot heels in a circular pattern. In time, she will need a name that reflects her historical origins. Perhaps a title with a French twist thrown in to honour Loic and Manon's efforts as well.

Michael is recovering well from the stent surgery. Unfortunately, he has picked up a chest infection and is taking the usual atom bomb antibiotics.  So, he needs to take life a little slower for a few days to defeat this bug.

Then, when he is ready, his workshop will be waiting for him.

Goodbye floorboards, hello cement

wait for it...

ta da!

Other side ready for plumbing pipes and cement

getting there

Done!

Now for the walls

and the electrics

half up

Finished wall!

Still life of insulation, ceiling and whirly bird

Beginning to transfer

Whilst producing Magda the spider (in bulk)

and the fire grate and screen (ably assisted by Ryan)

Then Loic and Manon began moving mountains

of fittings

and equipment 

and lots and lots of Michael's found metal treasures

Michael's almost clone - Loic in Michael's shirt, gloves and welding helmut

and the next piece which Loic helped create

Sign of a content, happy Michael. Playing with horseshoes.

3...2...1...BLAST OFF. The "Amazing Race" is GO!

We have woken to an absolutely stunning spring morning here in Heavenly Beverley. Just as well. A momentous event is taking place today, organised by the brilliant, imaginative and efficient staff at our Community Resource Centre.

Keeping kids amused during the school holidays is always a bit of the challenge. Especially if the weather has been a bit dodgy. How to prise them away from their electronic entertainment and out into the real world. I suppose we have Pokemon Go to thank for chiselling some children out into the Great Outdoors, but there are only so many hours they can stare at a small screen before their eyes go square.

How's this for an idea. An old fashioned treasure hunt based on the hit television series "The Amazing Race". Teams running around town to venues they may never have entered, receiving "roadblocks", challenges and then a clue for the next location. All on foot. A stroke of genius by our CRC for an awesome school holiday activity.

The only possible downer is the need for parental supervision for the teams of the younger participants. So far, this outcome is not evident. Groups have started streaming past the Gallery and everybody, including all the adults, have huge smiles all over their faces. So far, so good.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I think we have seen the last of the contestants. We have had wave after wave of excited parties coming into the Gallery, tearing open their "detour" envelopes, following the instructions and finding the five carefully chosen required items. Once their mission has been accomplished, they have been signed off, received a star, a handful of jellybeans and the next tantalising clue.

The parental supervision appreciated the jelly beans as much, if not more than their charges. As the East End Gallery was venue 12, blood sugar levels had dropped by the time the groups staggered in the doors. The kids loved the freebie jellybeans, but most of the adults just were in dire need of a boost and were exceedingly grateful.

 An "Amazing Race" it has been. I have a sneaking suspicion this may become an annual event. Congratulations to everyone who made this event possible. Roll on the next one.

And for those who couldn't attend "The Amazing Race", here are a few highlights -

Some of the Teams!

and the Challenges -

Find the blue peg (Shane Moad's "Happy Bower Bird")

How many bends in the spider's legs (Michael Sofoulis' "Magda the Redback)"

Bicycles anyone ...(Christine Davis' "Parlour Seat")

and one more. (Michael Sofoulis' "Bicycle Express")

What is the creature in the black and white photo (Colleen Sleer's "Little Frog" not her boys!)

How many beach paintings on the walls...1...2... (Mandy Evans' "Vasse Series")

3...4...( Shirley Gillis' "Footprints Left Behind Today" and Gracie Courtney's "Breaking Waves")

5...6... (Shirley Gillis' "Overlooking the Sand Track" and "Track Through the Sand Dunes")

and last but not least Len Zuks' "Antipodean Reward")!

How to Annoy a Mechanical Fitter

We have enjoyed a very busy long weekend at the East End Gallery. This particular Monday holiday is in honour of the Queen's Birthday. Who actually has her birthday in April. The rest of Australia celebrates the Queen's Birthday in June, whilst we in Western Australia earn a holiday for WA Day. Except Western Australia  wasn't settled in June.  Australian public holidays tend to have no relevance to their titles. For most of us, a public holiday is merely an opportunity for a prolonged lie-in, a chance to socialise with family and friends, and if the weather is reasonable, an excuse to fire up the BBQ.

Our steady stream of guests was augmented by the arrival of one of our artists, Brian Aylward, swapping over his artworks. This necessitated an edit of the Gallery catalogue. I had also been contemplating some movement within the gift shop, so a re-write of that catalogue was also on the cards. Given Michael's hospital stay and recovery, we decided against a wholly new exhibition, choosing instead to release an updated spring catalogue.

Other artists were coming and going.  A couple from Toodyay with family from South Australia. We had also been contacted by two Perth artists who came up to paint locally on Sunday. Gail and Shirley then brought in their paintings to show us at the Gallery. They had produced two exquisite landscapes of Little Hill, which they promised to finish and return to the Gallery for the Beverley Heroic weekend. We were thrilled.

Anyway, I've digressed from the actual point of this post. Michael's primary mission for the long weekend was to install a self-closing device on the double doors to the main Gallery. I was fed up with a multitude of blowflies entering our beautiful space whenever we left the doors open. Then they would insist on dying in the most visible and public parts of the Gallery. Hence, Michael's quest to keep the enemy hoards on the outside of the gates.

We had acquired the means at Bunnings on Thursday afternoon. Regrettably, the issue of firewood collection became the priority, due to our rapidly diminishing stocks. Once this was accomplished (with the welcome help of Ryan, electrician to the stars) Michael was ready to tackle the job of reducing the  numbers of flying fiends coming in through the open door.

Michael's plan was to quickly and efficiently execute this task. Almost immediately, he was stymied by the enclosed directions and associated drawings. Try as he might, they were unhelpful in the extreme. A whole afternoon passed with a great deal of bad language and a rapid rise in irritability. Eventually, in a fit of pique, he gave up and grumpily drove off towards the House that Rocks for a revitalising glass of two of vino.

He was furious. A mechanical fitter is supposed to be able to problem-solve. He is also a metal artist and prides himself on his ability to think outside the square. This door closer installation had completely stumped him and he was not happy.

In spite of his ill-humour, Michael slept better that night than he has for quite some time. He woke, more refreshed, and determined not to let this job get the better of him. Arriving at the Gallery, he assisted me in the exemplary hanging of Brian Aylward's three paintings and David Mizon's magnificent photo of the Wandoo forest,  Then, with a steely resolve, he revisited the door closer project.

His first action was to ignore the written instructions and diagrams and check out the device itself. He looked long and hard at it, turned it over, manipulated its mechanisms and clinically worked out how the closer could attach to the door. Needless to say, there was also much trial and error and frequent loud expletives. I ran backwards and forwards picking up screws and other bits he dropped whilst perched on the ladder. I also held my breath from time to time, hoping that Michael's natural ingenuity would triumph over useless instructions.

Which, of course, he did. Finally, he was victorious. The door closer was in place and carried out its allotted role perfectly. We opened the door, and if by magic, it closed itself. We were both ecstatic that Michael had finally won the war.

Last evening, after drinks and discussions about a commission with a Beverley local, he resembled the Cheshire Cat, reclining in his favourite spot on the couch. The idiot box was at full blast. He was relaxed and content and justifiably smug.

His only remaining thought was to send a sharply worded e-mail to Bunnings, in order to complain about the worst directions and illustrations known to Man.

The instrument of Michael's torture

Relevance of instrument's directions and diagrams

Which rendered the instrument...USELESS

Michael's proposed solution...

which led to this!

the Doors in question

Assuming the position...

Boldly going where no mechanical fitter has gone before!

Ye Gods - SUCCESS!