Chit-chat Wednesday Follow the Artists!

Hello!
Thanks for popping in. I'm frantically typing this whilst Play School is playing in the background and my daughter is recovering from her day at preschool.

I've spent a lot of time this week trying to come up with a header for this Blog. I'm so not technical and so this is a total PAIN for me. It will happen but you may have to be patient as I work out which fabbo header I want to adorn this space.

I have been working on some fairy stories for my book Poets Cottage which has been the most enormous fun. I would really love to write for children one day! I get so much out of re-reading all my old childhood favourites to Daisy.

It struck me this morning as I walked her to preschool how very different her childhood is to mine. I grew up in New Guinea and Tasmania and I had a very outdoor, magical childhood with lots of imaginative game playing and heading into the bush to explore for an entire day at a time. I'm often wondering how healthy it is for children to grow up in the inner-city. The Scribe however did grow up in Sydney and so he doesn't suffer from the same questions and nagging anxiety that I do. Children seem to grow up so quickly these days and I want Daisy to stay a child for as long as possible.

This morning it was pouring with rain and I enjoyed a very long cuddle in bed with her. Yes, I knew I should have been up writing but I feel these precious times won't be forever and I want to hang onto them as much as I can.

When we first moved into our little house the Scribe was still working in television production and I was an art student (We were different people then. I was definitely blonder!) This area was also very different. It was filled with bohemians, artists, Goths. You would walk down our street and it would be covered with syringes and there would be drug deals taking place in the house next door. I don't miss the syringes as we've watched this area gentrify seemingly overnight - but I do miss the creative funky vibe that used to permeate the suburb.

I know there are still artists working in our area as they have a few warehouses rented around here but they are getting scarcer. I think I see a Boyd walking around with his beret on (I'm too shy to ask but one day I will summon the courage)

I have a real-estate theory that I settled on at artschool - FOLLOW THE ARTISTS. I saw it work in Paddington and Glebe. The artists move to a cheap area in Sydney and start working in their studios. They begin to sell their works and create a 'funky' vibe. The doctors, lawyers, IT folk sense the vibe and like it and move into the area. With their arrival, the prices are forced up and the artists disperse quietly to cheaper areas to work again. Meanwhile the areas they have vacated gentrify and gentrify.

I used the FOLLOW THE ARTISTS theory when we bought our current little brick house. We bought it at a very low price for this area and have been slowly renovating it since Daisy arrived. Prior to that we were too busy jaunting away to Paris and Venice and other incredible destinations to worry about renovation. It has been incredible to witness what was once a unpopular inner-city suburb transform into what they are now flogging as ' the boutique suburb'.
I'm not sure if my FOLLOW THE ARTISTS theory applies overseas as well or if it's just a Sydney thing.

But for now, I'm looking around my up-and-coming 'boutique suburb' and wondering where the hell did all the artists go?

I'll be back on Fabbo Friday if you would like to catch up. Cheerio xx