hard rubbish

hard rubbish is a series of text work stencilled on objects that have been left in the street.
Click here to see the earlier work from this series that is located on the I love St Kilda blog.

Another Furphy #2

“Unemployed at last”, said the main character in the the opening line of one of Australia’s literary classic.

In the first chapter of ‘Such is Life’ the narrator, Tom Collin is overjoyed that he will have the time to write a novel that will be ‘a fair picture of life’.

Written by Joseph Furphy or Tom Collins, to use his pseudonym, this classic is a rambling series of loosely interwoven stories told by the narrator about the various people he encounters as he travels about the countryside in the late 19th Century.

A “furphy” however, is a story of dubious veracity but one that gains popular currency as it circulates through a community,

Another furphy #1

Found: Dandenong Road, Windsor on the median strip in the middle of 8 rows of traffic and a tram track.

J had just finished stencilling the couch when she noticed a woman watching and waiting.

“Am going to get yelled at?”, she wondered, “it will happen one day, and after all, this isn’t the back streets of St Kilda.”

When she crossed the road, the woman was smiling sheepishly. “That’s my couch” she said.

“Well, not really, it belonged to my flatmate until he moved out. He left it on the nature strip and then decided to shift it over there. I feel so guilty, it used to be in my loungeroom…for years.”

“Now you don’t need to feel so bad” J replied, “it’s not rubbish anymore, it’s a piece of temporary art work.”

‘Such is Life’

Re-direction notice


“You can’t always take your stuff with you”, but you can you leave it in cyberspace at the old address.

‘I love St Kilda‘ is my other blog that investigates similar themes to ‘City Traces’ but is a more in depth exploration of a particular place. After running two blogs for the last 6 months I have decided to combine the two sites.

Click here to see the earlier work from I love St Kilda.

If you are interested in looking at the stencil work go to the stencil archive discarded or postings categories on the side bar.

The Commonwealth Games


Who has been edged out of Melbourne? The homeless, workers, kids from their schools, parents from their jobs, graffitti and stencil artists and Elizabeth St was empty at 5pm.

Has everybody left town?

Commonwealth Games clean-up #1

The banners all around Melbourne say “Melbourne Welcomes You”. However if you are homeless you’ll have to find somewhere else to sleep. Council pledged in the lead up to the games that homeless people would be moved out of Melbourne for the occasion.

In 1956 when the Queen opened the Olympic Games she did a tour of regional Victoria. In Shepparton, there was a large Aboriginal community living under the bridge so the local council erected a hessian barrier to make this problem invisible. Maybe they could do this in the City of Melbourne.