Making Noise

My Personal Time Capsule

toni

Growing our set out of Mushrooms

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I have a very elaborate three dimensional set design for my new 3D mapping show, and we are now going to grow the individual components out of mushrooms! How about that. The idea came to me whilst working in Katherine in the Northern Territory. I could not believe I hadn’t thought of it before. The one good thing about Covid, it has given me a lot of time to sit with a problem and explore different ideas.

We’ve now altered the design set to have more visual movement and bigger spaces between the panels in order to get the most out the live action footage we are utilizing, as well as the 3D mapping technology. The purpose of the set is to effectively feature both. We are reducing our set’s three dimensional profile to enable a better projection surface that casts least amount of shadow and still give the dimensional quality that the 3D mapping attribute can fully utilise. (You can see below that the profile of the panels are quite deep, this is a problem for projecting live acton on to and mapping technology.

You see, I had a real problem with my set being made out of plastic. I am not a fan of plastic. It goes against the grain of who I am and what I am about and everything I am wanting to inspire. I started a dialog with two New Zealand companies a couple months ago that grow mushroom packaging to replace Styrofoam and Cardboard. Talk about a sustainable material! Growing my set means that my set will be light weight and easy to take up and down. And, it will be very cost effective to replace different sections should they be damaged on the road.

I could not be more delighted that both companies are interested in doing something. I will be producing samples with each company soon to see which one can produce the smoothest and hardiest product. (The darker sections in the above design will be the mushroom components.)

The image below will give an idea of what the original panels were made of and we intended to manufacture to our specifications.

A problem solved, keep watching this space for updates! Did I say I was fricken excited?

 

The Music – It’s All a Beautiful Noise – You can listen here…

Posted by | Music | 34 Comments

Last January and February at the very beginning of 2020, I was recording in Victoria, BC Canada with my Producer Joby Baker at Baker Studios. I remember hearing this thing about covid 19 in the background of the recording process, but never in a million years would any of us seen this coming!

After my two weeks of recording finished, I flew back to Byron and straight into rehearsals for a 17 date tour in Australia. My dance card for the year was maxed, and finishing the album was number one. I needed to get back to Canada to record a final vocal on one last song that Mik and I wrote called, Time to Heal It. In addition, Joby and I were scheduled to travel to Mali in May to record some beautiful singers for a song called, I Am a Candle, remix I Believe in You, and then do final mixes for the two previous mentioned track before mastering the whole lot. Not too much to do really! Oh and I forgot, meet with set-designer to finalise the set and prepare for rehearsals in September.

At first the lockdown was hard. But I must say after the dust settled, its been a bit like a holiday as I’d literally been running all over the planet: meeting with a close friend and one of our producers Alex Melnyk at Storyworks in Boulder, Tigrelab, the animators in Barcelona, Lennart de Vos at Crowdled in Berlin who is providing the controller technology for my masks, Brett Jones in San Fransisco at Lightform who signed on as an in-kind sponsor – giving me the capability to use new cutting-edge projection technology for some out-the-box promotional ideas for the Bee Friendly Installations, and recording with Joby in Canada.

Yes, 2020 was a bit of a kick in the guts on a few levels: it completely halted production of our the show. IAABN was scheduled to go into rehearsals in Sept at HOTA, now the recording schedule is shot, and the money we were expecting dried up from the shows for our production (As we were only able to do four out of the 17 shows) was a massive loss to Big Mother my touring company.

However, on a brighter note, it did give me the time to focus on my Bee Friendly Installation and Reef’s 360 underwater concert (I got in the water and sang last year to the fishes). It has been wonderful to have the time to focus on them, actually. And let’s not forget covid gave me the time to travel to the Northern Territory and connect with local Aboriginal communities here.

Interesting new adventures have presented themselves to me whilst I’ve been in the NT. Now, instead of traveling to Mali to record with Joby, I will be traveling to Alice Springs, where I heard a recording of some beautiful singers who are about an hour west of Alice. I think their voices will be perfect for I am a Candle. What is crazy still – covid just locked down Alice!! Arrgh!! Still hemmed in at the moment – thanks Covid!

Relax and trust, trust, trust is my mantra and the only place to stand in within myself at the moment.

Ok, yada yada yada… let us get back the music.

I want to share with you some new music I am just loving! This is fresh vibrant music. I feel like I have grown as a songwriter and singer and storyteller. And I’ve got my radio songs for my productions!! Woohoo a huge win!! I’ve gone down sonic roads that carry a very wide landscape, and works wonderfully with animation and striking visuals.

I Am a Candle – written by Toni Childs and Joby Baker

Ok, the first song I want to share with you is I Am a Candle. This is a raw recording with Joby Baker and myself at the piano. I’m showing Joby the musical threads I am following to get the idea down. This will give you an idea of how a song comes together for us. And then, I am going to play the recording from last February 2020 with the final vocals – it’s a ruff mix without the singers in Alice Springs which I’m hoping to record this year, fingers crossed!

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      I-Am-a-Candle-4.1

I Believe in You – written by Toni Childs

In this video, I introduce you to Joby Baker – a wonderful human and a great producer and songwriting partner. Joby walks us through the production elements of the song. The version of I Believe in You in the video and the version below the video is till not the final mix. I am saving that… for the final release. I am so happy in my heart to be making some really fresh music and is all mine.

In 2019, when we toured 57 regional theatres across Australia, this was the last song of my Retrospective Show. My God, the reaction at the merch table after the show was off-the-hook. People were literally on their knees – begging ways to get a copy of the song! I just love that!! People are just going crazy for it.. it is like music crack!

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Love You’ve Been Looking For  – written by Toni Childs and Joby Baker

Joby and I wrote this song together from scratch. Normally, I will write on my own and bring sketches to him and we work from there. But in this instance, I just shared with Joby the direction I wanted to go in and he went from there. Joby spent about six hours on his own working on this, and in the end I loved it and audiences love it too, which makes it even more fun! Enjoy!

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Stardust  and Time Dreamer – written by Toni Childs and Mik Lavage

This is two of fours songs my future-self sings in the show sings and I am singing to whales and dolphins. (to learn more about my future-self go to the blog post I Guess it Started with a Flower )

Mik is known for writing musical scores for documentary and film, as well as creating beats and dubstep landscapes which feature in our show. Mik presented me with several ambient pieces of music, I couldn’t really relate to at first. But I now know, Mik’s music created a portal for a very special part of me to show up. Life has become a very special journey indeed, and one I would have never have imagined.

I want to give you the opportunity to hear two of the songs that have inspired me to create two very unique production, IAABN and Reef 360 where I give underwater concerts for whales and dolphins.

I start with Stardust and leave you with Time Dreamer. If you’ve enjoyed this post please leave a comment.

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      03-Time-Dreamer-1

 

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove #BeeAware #10000Beekeepers #beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees #beeswax #yearofthebee #savethebee

Beautiful Noise? I guess you’d say it started with a flower…

Posted by | Bee Friendly Installation, Beekeepers, Broadford Paper Mill, Music, Set Design | 2 Comments

 

I certainly do have a paper fetish, I guess you’d say it started with a flower…

But now that I think of it…

No.

It started with music, and then I noticed the bees and other insects were collapsing.

My whole life I’ve been following threads. Inspirational threads that come to me out of the blue like the smell of fresh baked cookies waft from the kitchen enticing my taste buds to sit down with a large jug of milk. Invisible threads beckon me. They are extremely successful in wooing me; serving up tasty visions of possibilities along an invisible corridor that may take decades to land me in the kitchen of life’s accomplishments.

The threads that I follow are just that, threads of inspiration.

They call to me, sparking my imagination to see possibilities I had never seen before nor dreamed possible. They give me vibrant energy to envision the end result and the power to persevere no matter what.

In 2014, seeing a book called, Trail – Paper Poetry by David Pelham for the first time was a massive inspiration for me. An intricate sophisticated pop-up book it caused me to ask a question, “What if we could design a pop-up set of the natural world out of paper, and how about a cd cover?”

I bought six of David’s books, and took three of them apart to better understand how they were put together, and how exactly the various sections worked. With his book, I created my own template and redesigned the individual parts to create my own popup experience, with the desire to create a large one for a record jacket when I pressed vinyl for It’s All a Beautiful Noise.

You could say, I became obsessed…

From this, I learned how to create a pop-up flower inside my cd cover with a future thread of employing six smart phone augmented reality animations for people to play with. Click here to see what Mattar is doing with augmented reality.

This in turn, inspired me to start playing with paper on a bigger scale – life-size paper animals that lay flat on the stage and are popped up at certain times during the show. And then, over a year of working with that idea, I came across a simple canon-creative park website that has a massive selection of small three dimensional paper animals. I was inspired to explore blowing up some of the designs into life-size paper animals as a stand-alone installation that could go up before my show came to town. I thought it could act as advertising and bee centric activities could be its central focus.

But the question became, where does one find paper big enough to make a life-size elephant or a giraffe? I had no idea.

I’ve learned life is a treasure hunt, and it comes when one commits to following invisible threads of desire. It can turn getting lost on a back road out of Melbourne heading to Sydney into a magic act!

This is my story…

Driving through some beautiful landscapes on a cool cloudy day with no cell service trying to find the Hume Hwy, I came across the 126 year old Broadford Paper Mill with its big factory doors wide open. I spotted it right before the hwy turn off.  It’s fun to reflect on the fact that we were in Melbourne just the night before to have dinner with my booking agent at the time. I knew he was friends with someone at Visy and I asked him if he could hook me up. Visy, if you don’t know manufactures recycled paper and other products.

The beautiful people at the mill (NPI) would provide me with two unused spaces in their factory for several years and unlimited amounts of paper to work out my paper animal prototypes. Whilst at the factory, I would fall in love with Visy paper and make many animals out of their product. Thank you a million times, thank you!

The Music

You see, the nasty little secret is, It’s All a Beautiful Noise was meant to be an album of music no one would want to buy.

Now, I know that sounds crazy, but let me tell you it was necessary.

At the time, my intention was to throw a bone to a gangster record company who had licensed my Keep the Faith record for the US, Canada, the UK and Japan to protect an album of music I had finished recording – Citizens of the Planet – from being pirated. They were in breech of contract for illegally selling distribution rights to two European distributor. They did not account for the amount of money they received or number of units sold, as was stipulated in the contract. In the end, they did not stop selling my album for the next several years. When I called the president of the company and asked him why he was not complying, he said, “Sue us.”

He knew I had no money to take him to court. And I knew that Citizens of the Planet and its state-of-the-art production would be very successful internationally. I had the radio songs and I had the production values, and most importantly, I knew they were not men and women of their word, and if they smelled money, I could count on them tying me up in court to get at it.

I had two options; one was to wait several years till the original contract and their right of first refusal was no longer a threat, or create a new album of songs – an album no one would want.

There was one little tiny problem, I fell in love with the music Mik and I began to write and produce. And, I can truly say the music I created with Mik Lavage would change me forever. It would open me up to greater creative threads of possibilities – Global First Threads – with a deeper purpose than just being about at a time when its needed the most.

Future Self Inspiration

I will never pretend to understand the full mystery of how life works, where we come from and where we go when we die. All I can say is the instrumental musical compositions Mik presented me with opened a portal – connecting ever deeper – to my future-self.  A future-self I met in a dream when I was 21.

 

When I was 21 years old, I had a dream.

It was either the morning I turned 21, or the morning after I turned 21.

I can never remember,

so I always have to start the story this way.

 

In the dream, I’m standing with my hands on a stone balustrade in front of a French Chateau in the Hollywood Hills, which you can do in the Hollywood Hills, and you can do in a dream.

In the dream the sun had set and from where I stood, I looked down on the San Fernando Valley just as the city lights came online, section by section across the valley. I’d never seen that before.

It was a crystal-clear night; not a cloud in the sky. In front of me, in the distance, was the sharp crisp silhouette of the Angela Crest Mountain range against a massive backdrop of orange. I remember, I had to look straight up into the sky above me to see where the massive bandwidth of orange stopped and a Maxfield Parrish Turquoise Blue kicked in, and the first star appeared.

It was the time of the year when the sun goes down you can feel the crisp bite of the air on your cheeks, and the smell of damp earth as the evening dew is absorbed into the ground.

I find myself basking in the beautiful moment, and then laughter catches my attention. I turn around to look behind me. And I see two very tall narrow French doors. Inside is a full-blown Hollywood party. People are laughing and drinking and smoking and being all-fabulous. I don’t want to go inside, I just want drink in this stunning moment. But as I turn to look back at the view, I notice someone out of the corner of my eye – to the right of the far-right door.

It’s a woman… and she’s floating a foot off the ground. She has no clothes on and she has no hair on her body. And her body, is like a jellyfish… she’s like a combination Box Jellyfish /Gecko. What I mean by that is her breasts and muscle pads in her arms and legs and neck are clear like a Box Jellyfish, but her torso has the transparency of a Gecko. I can see her ovaries and her heart pounding inside her breast. I become so caught up in her anatomy that I totally forget this is a woman, and then when I finally do look into her eyes I freak out!!

“Don’t be afraid,” I heard her say, but her lips didn’t move.

“Are you speaking inside my head?”

She said, “When you reach a certain level in your human development, you’ll no longer be afraid to allow people to know what you think or feel.”

I thought for a moment. “That sounds true”

“Who are you?”

She leaned in and looked at me with loving kind eyes, “I’m your future self!”

And I woke up.

That was a rad dream. Meeting my future self all those years ago gave me a trajectory – a star on the distant horizon to point my inner compass toward. I have now shared this dream with people in more than 20 countries around the world. I believe Mik’s music created a portal for my future self to come through. The impact of this story, and experiencing the effect some of the songs on Beautiful Noise has on people is really something special to experience.

In the show, I share my dream moment in a more dynamic way by allowing my future self to come to life. I give my future self the opportunity to sing (More on that in another blog post.) and talk directly to the audience. She see us differently than we do. she trusts us to make the exact choices we need to make to restore balance.

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove #BeeAware #10000Beekeepers #beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees #beeswax #yearofthebee #savethebee

 

My 8.5 Meter Bee Prototype Goes Up in Katherine at the Godinymayin Yijard River Arts & Culture Centre GYRACC

Posted by | Bee Friendly Installation, Beekeepers | No Comments

In Katherine in the Northern Territory….

my big 8.5 Meter Bee Friendly prototype goes up at GTRACC.  For many years I have been exploring different types of installations that could be made out of paper for 30 Bee Friendly installations. These installations will launch three months of Bee centric activities as a part of my new show called, It’s All a Beautiful Noise (IAABN).

The three months of activities are inspired by visiting the Bees BIG IDEA project and visual arts exhibition in Sun Valley, Idaho. Click the link to view the type of community activities we will be curating. https://issuu.com/sunvalleycenterforthearts/docs/bees.final_web

Watching how bee populations around the world have been disappearing, and learning that their immune systems are compromised by chemicals and lack of foraging, I was inspired to create a groundswell of support for our pollinators, and the local beekeepers – who are the real Rock Stars on the planet by creating ‘spectacle community experiences’ to start a conversation:

What does a bee friendly community look like?

What does a bee friendly household look like?

What does a bee friendly farm look like?

What are the things our town can do to make it Bee Friendly?

I am so grateful to my good friend Jo Gillies at Archisoul Architects for supporting my vision to build a Bee. Jo enlisted her student Harrrison Dumesich to work with me on my design! Thank you, Jo and Harrison, I could not have done it without you both. It means so much that you were both able to travel to Katherine and build the bee with me. I also need to say, a very special thank you to Rhan Cain. Thank you beautiful man for your super hero support. And a very special thank you to Rob Stoneham for your continued support!

One never knows when creating something physical for the first time if it’s going to work, particularly out of materials you’ve never worked with before. A lot can go wrong, but in our case it all went right. Harrison designed our bee using a CAD program. Our bee is made from recycled card;  2 – 16mm thick white card glued to the outside of a 30mm card to meet our specifications. The 27 glued sheets were then shipped to Darwin where the various sections and pieces that make up the bee were then cut out on a CNC Router. A special thank you to Brad Sisson SignCityNT in Darwin who cut our bee, and Brad Hugget at Rebul in Melbourne who supplied the card!

A thousand kisses to everyone who made it possible!

What an amazing feeling it is to see people engage with our bee. I love touching it and walking inside it. It was absolutely delightful watching little kids jump in and out of the butt of the bee! Fun! Of course there are tweaks that need to be made to design, like the wings and the bolts. The wings are too small and the bolts too big and bulky. Both Harrison and myself were a little too conservative with the wings. But no matter, we now know what needs to be done to make it perfect.

Assembling it with Harrison and Jo after putting after months of work into the design was pure gold… needless to say we celebrated with a nice bottle of Prosecco!!

We designed the bee so it could easily be put together like IKEA flat packed furniture. My brief: I want Bee Friendly to be something local galleries and their communities can build together effortlessly. It must be constructed out of lightweight materials, easy to handle, simple to put together, and include easy to read instructions and discreet connecting identification tags, and recyclable. And, because our bees will traveling overseas, reusable.

We did it! So fricken excited to come this far.

 Next Steps…

Our prototype will now travel to Melbourne where it will sit in storage until October, when we start the silkworm portion of the installation during Mulberry season. There will be a lot to learn in October, I am really looking forward to it. Inspired by Neri Oxman’s Silk Dome project, You can click the Neri’s name to watch the silkworms weave the her dome.

If you’d like to know more about how you can be involved, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Here’s what went out to the press:

International Recording Artist Toni Childs invites the Katherine Community in the Northern Territory to experience her 8.5 meter bee installation called, Bee Friendly. Toni has been working on the design with Sydney based Architects, Archisoul Archisoul to design a bee you can walk inside and share how we can create Bee Friendly communities.

The Bee featured this Wed evening is the prototype for 30 – 8.5M bees that will be installed in Regional Australian towns at the end of 2023, launching three months of bee centric activities while 300,000 silkworms weave the the skin of 30 bees.

https://www.katherinetimes.com.au/story/7261508/toni-childs-bee-friendly-movement-takes-flight-from-gyraac/

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove#BeeAware #10000Beekeepers#beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees#beeswax #yearofthebee  #savethebee

 

Meet Tigrelab – Producers of 3D Mapping Animations, Motion Graphics and Live-Action Environments

Posted by | Animation, Set Design | No Comments

We are presently working with Tigrelab, a creative team that specialises in 3D mapping animation and set design. Based in Barcelona they are tops in their field, and I am honoured to be working with them and other animation teams here in Australia.

Mik brought Tigrelab to my attention in 2013 to work on the Citizens of the Planet production, which comes out in 2028. I believe the best way to introduce them to you is to show you their work.

Here is the promotional clip I saw for the first time that gob-smacked me, and solidified my desire to work with their creative team.

We are a creative studio focused on developing experiences through powerful content mixing design, scenography, interactivity and technology.

 

Federico Gonzalez Montoya, Mathieu Felix and Javier Pinto

In 2016, Mik and I travelled to Barcelona to finally visit the Tigrelab offices, and meet the team face-to-face for the very first time. This is when sh** got real! Talking on the other side of the world is not like sitting right across from someone. Particularly, if English is not their first language and you don’t speak Spanish.

Sitting in the room with Mathieu and Mery went through the initial vision for the show, and I share with them what animations I liked from work they had previously produced and played some music. We were given a date at the end of 2018 when they could begin working on the show and add us to their existing schedule. They put together a list of things to get back to them with that included: all the music, a solid brief for the set-design, and a script that included underscoring timings, songs timings and timings for our short-storytelling segments.

Because we are working with animations and visuals that are informed by the music, timing is everything. Music is non-stop in our production. Two hours of songs, instrumental musical transitions, visuals and storytelling. I’ve never preformed to strict timings before, this is a new thing for me.

I am delighted to say, I nailed the script along with underscoring and song sequence of the show. And guess what? The flow feels amazing!! My tail is wagging big time! Delighted, delighted, delighted!

In 2019, we really worked to nail down the design of the set – what it will be made from and how it will be packed and travel (I’ll go into greater detail in another blog post). Finally, we settled on a set-design that met Tigrelabs criteria for the 3D mapping visuals. We went through a few different ideas, here are some images from our journey.

Whilst shopping in a mall in Perth’s city centre, during my 2019 Retrospective Tour, I saw a massive architectural-element-meets-lighting-fixture. It took me weeks to track down the manufacturer, but I did it. My journey led me to a company based in Germany. I sent the Tigrelab team the photos below, and we scheduled a meeting with the manufacturer, acquired the dimensions of each panel and proper 3D CAD files so Tigrelab could put a design together for us.

 Here’s what

 Tigrelab

 designed

 for us…

 

Take a look at Tigrelab’s most recent Experience Reel!! Without a doubt they are working the creative edge!

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove #BeeAware #10000Beekeepers #beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees #beeswax #yearofthebee #savethebee

 

US Commercial Beekeepers and UC Davis Researcher – Hear what they have to say

Posted by | Uncategorized | No Comments

On my visit to California in 2019, I had the opportunity to attend a commercial beekeepers conference in the heart of Northern California Almond Country at the invitation of UC Davis researcher, Billy Synk who works at Apis. I wanted to learn more about their concerns regarding Bee Collapse and what they are doing to improve the health of the bee.

At the conference they discussed the challenges they face bringing bees into California and travel related stress factors and solutions. In addition, they focused on feeding solutions for the bees and spraying issues when combining fungicides and herbicides and best practices.

I wanted to focus on solutions and talk to bee keepers, scientists and educators who are actually doing everything they can to improve the health of the bee.

The commercial beekeepers I met at the conference truck billions of bees across the United States to meet the pollination needs across a wide spectrum of crops.

I had the opportunity to meet the three largest commercial beekeepers and transporters of bees in the United States at the conference and the head of the California Almond Board.

Please note in a conference environment, I am still new to how best to capture sound and vision in order to have what I need to tell a complete story. Happily, I am learning on my feet and learning as I go. People in the US doing great work on the ground to improve bee health. I feel it is more important than ever to share with Australian beekeepers what other communities are doing to support the bee.

I’d like to introduce you first to Billy Synk and the Seeds for Bees Program…

I had the opportunity to attend a Seeds for Bees morning introduction for Almond Growers. 100 acre farms are given free cover crop seed to ensure the health of the bee. Billy explains the benefits planting cover crop for the almonds themselves as well as to the health of the bee.

I am really delighted that I was able to attend his morning talk, and visit the Apis test plots to see first hand the two different ground cover crops he recommends planting in almond orchards. They are growing red clover and mustard. The mustard blooms first and help keep the nematodes at bay. Then the almonds bloom. Nematodes feed on the roots of the almonds. The almonds kill the nematodes, A very nice outcome for almond growers. The red clover blooms last and provide bees with a source of good nutrition, helping to boost their immune systems.

It would be great for almond growers and beekeepers in Australia to join forces and adopt this practice to support the bee. I am going to do everything I can do to help promote this in Australia.

 

I’d like to introduce you to a few Australian BeeKeepers… put the kettle on, and take a moment to have a listen their concerns for the bee and thoughts about the importance of a Beekeeper’s Survey

Posted by | Beekeepers | No Comments

Doug Purdey Sydney’ Botanical Gardens Beekeeper

 

It was 2012 in the background of my busy life, I first heard bees were disappearing in the US and other places around the world. Quite honestly, I didn’t actually give it much notice at the time. I got married early that year and moved to Australia. However, each year, I would see more and more Facebook posts about ‘Bee Collapse’, and the loud booming voice from Biotech companies denying their chemicals have anything to do with it and could not be proved.

In 2014, I began recording a new album of music called, It’s All a Beautiful Noise. In 2015, I was moved to start developing a 3D mapping show of the same name to celebrate the bee and our pollinators. Realising one night’s performance would not be enough to inspire action, and seeing this as an incredibly important issue for our world, I began to consider ways to create spectacle and more audience engagement to inspire actionable-care for the bee.

In 2016, this led me to start to develop an eco-friendly installation that would launch three months of bee centric activities in regional farming communities where the bee is employed. This is the start of what would become ‘Bee Friendly’.

As I embarked on my journey, I needed to understand more about what was actually happening to the bee.  The US organisation ‘Bee Informed’ lists beekeepers loss at 44 percent of bees in 2015/16. As I dug deeper into the cause of collapsing bee colonies in the US, Canada and Europe, I learned more about the cascading effects. In an article written by Morgan Erickson-Davis 27 October 2017, Morgan brings to our attention some sobering facts. Needs must, I can see it is time to meet this head on and do whatever it takes to create a ‘Bee Friendly’ world! Click on here to read Morgan’s article.

75% of insects have disappeared in Germany over the past 27 years, with new

collections from midsummer showing an even bigger reduction –- 82 percent.

This drop has affected Germany’s bird population – 15% of the birds are dying

because their food supply is disappearing.

Morgan’s article and many others, galvanises the focus of my new musical production into a deeper level of action. I realised we needed to unite the beekeepers – the protector of the bee.

At the end of 2017, I began to reach out to Australian Beekeeper Associations to learn more about what Beekeepers are concerned about in Australia. I wondered, do they have the same worries and concerns beekeepers do in the US, Canada and Europe? I had a long, warm and very informative chat with Secretary of Brisbane Beekeepers Association – Elise Whittaker, daughter of former Biosecurity Officer and President of Brisbane Beekeepers Association, and author of ‘The Bee Book’, a book I’m told is considered ‘The Bible’ for beekeepers in Australia.

After meeting up several times with Elise, I learned the ins and outs of Beekeeper Associations in Australia and the challenges they face going forward: like the lack of funding to up-date important historical records into a modern nation database; the hermit like tendencies that can prevent old school beekeepers engaging with each other, and the new crop, of backyard beekeepers; the countless new backyard beekeepers who are not connected with local beekeeper associations and are out of the loop in terms of understanding how to identify pests and disease, and most importantly the lack of biosecurity officers in each state.

When asking Elise how she thought we could bring beekeepers together, she suggested a survey. As Secretary of the Brisbane’s Beekeeper Assoc, she could see for sometime the value a beekeepers survey could bring to her association and the other beekeeping associations across Australia. This was Elise’s secret passion waiting to be pollinated at the time.

At the end of 2017, Elise Whittaker, Laree Thorsby (BM Tour Coordinator), and myself began creating a ‘Year of the Bee’ Beekeepers Survey. Our aim is to give beekeepers the opportunity to add to the survey, whilst bringing backyard beekeepers and commercial beekeepers together to unite the beekeepers of Australia, and start a Big Bee Friendly Conversation. If your a beekeeper in Australia click and the link, participate and share with beekeepers you know. horturl.at/rEGLQ

Our survey gave me a platform to begin reaching out to Australian Beekeepers for interviews – to learn what their thoughts and concerns are regarding bee health and their thoughts about uniting beekeepers with a survey. I am excited to introduce you to a few beekeepers and honey producers here in Australia who would like to share their concerns with you and their personal thoughts on the need for a national beekeepers survey!

Little did I know these initial series of interviews would seed a full-blown beekeeper breakfast tour of Australia, which reached full steam in 2019.


I am presently reaching out to beekeepers in Australia and asking them to answer and contribute questions to a Beekeepers Survey to us help understand what the biggest concerns are for their community. The Year of the Bee Interviews aim to bring Beekeepers around the world together to mobilize efforts to protect and improve the health of the bees and pollinators across all borders! I plan to tour across Australia meeting with beekeepers and beekeepers California in 2019.

If your a beekeeper in Australia, please click out link and participate. shorturl.at/rEGLQ FYI: We are not attached to any corporation who has invested self interests in controlling outcomes of this survey.

I want to make this the year of the Bee! I am on a mission to gather 10,000 Beekeepers to join my effort to make a big beautiful noise for our pollinators!! Send us an email to learn more at theyearofthebee@tonichilds.com

Europe Insect Decline UpDate March 18, 2018 

‘Catastrophe’ as France’s bird population collapses due to pesticides

Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, because insects they feed on have disappeared. 

Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said. Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Benoit Fontaine, a conservation biologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History and co-author of one of the studies “Our countryside is in the process of becoming a veritable desert,” he said in a communique released by the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which also contributed to the findings.

The common white throat, the ortolan bunting, the Eurasian skylark and other once-ubiquitous species have all fallen off by at least a third, according a detailed, annual census initiated at the start of the century. A migratory song bird, the meadow pipit, has declined by nearly 70%. The museum described the pace and extent of the wipe-out as “a level approaching an ecological catastrophe”

#tonichildshive #beebeauty #BeeLove#BeeAware #10000Beekeepers#beekeepersofinstagram #beekeepers #bees#beeswax #yearofthebee  #savethebee

 

The Beautiful Noise Masks are Looking Good!

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I am sitting here with a big fat grin on my face, and it is because designs for six simple white paper masks are finally ready to be printed, and I could not be happier! These white hats are part of a new album and live production called, It’s All a Beautiful Noise.

BALI-HATSON

Wahya Biantara – Director of Lumonata

While on holiday in Bali, I found inspiration in two Balinese line drawings of the Barong created by local tattoo artists. The Barong for those of you who may not know, is a good spirit; a guardian and protector. I wanted the designs to carry this powerful resonance and to bring this spirit into my concerts.

schweiz-libido.com

Barong

Wahya Biantara and Purwa Suajaya from Denpasar who make up Lumonata’s design team injected the Balinese spirit into each hat they designed. Giving each pollinator a dynamic intensity in the eyes that I absolutely love! We’ve got one special collection of badass pollinators for you to wear!

It’s a funny odd impossible thing to try and trace where the desire and inspiration to create a specific thing comes from… whether it’s a piece of music, an invention, a story, a concept, or even a simple white hat.As I write this, I am struggling to remember when the Divine Spark hit me to want to give a simple white paper hat or mask to people as they came into our concerts. Now, I am only in touch with the ‘Why’.

The spark came from being inundated with Facebook posts about the bee collapse several times a week over the last several years. These posts brought to my attention that our littlest angels, the pollinators, are in trouble and need our help. And it’s not just the bees; the Monarch, the orange-and-black butterfly once a common sighting in backyard gardens in the US, and known for its long migration to overwinter in Mexico is now on the brink of collapse. And if one looks even deeper we learn some species of frogs, birds, bats, dragonflies and ladybugs are equally affected.

Now here’s what I think is the cool part of this story… we are very lucky chemical farming practices and foraging are the number one cause.

What? Lucky, you say!

I say this because this actually makes this problem a relatively easy fix. I say it’s an easy fix because what we buy we grow. So, if we stop buying the problem will stop growing. And that’s because our personal power is magnified in our collective buying power. Look, if we take a little bit of time to educate ourselves, and each other about which products contain the harmful neonicotinoids tied to pollinator collapse, and stop buying them, there will be no market for the biotech companies to supply, and we save our littlest angels and ourselves.

Marla Spivak a distinguished McKnight professor in entomology at the University of Minnesota writes, “Honeybee colonies are dying at frightening rates. Since 2007, an average of 30% of all colonies have died every winter in the United States. This loss is about twice as high as what U.S. beekeepers consider economically tolerable. In the winter of 2012-13, 29% of all colonies died in Canada and 20% died in Europe.”

Marla Spivak

“Wild bee species, particularly bumblebees, are also in peril. Anyone who cares about the health of the planet, for now and for generations to come, needs to answer this wake-up call. Honeybees and wild bees are the most important pollinators of many of the fruits and vegetables we eat. Of 100 crop species that provide 90% of our global food supply, 71 are bee-pollinated. The value of pollination of food crops by bees in the U.S. alone is estimated at $16 billion and insect pollinators in general contribute $29 billion to U.S. farm income. Fewer bees lead to lower availability and potentially higher prices of fruit and vegetables. Fewer bees mean no almonds, less coffee and less alfalfa hay available to feed dairy cows.” Marla goes onto say, “We need good, clean food, and so do our pollinators. If bees do not have enough to eat, we won’t have enough to eat. Dying bees scream a message to us that they cannot survive in our current agricultural and urban environments.”

When you consider how long bee collapse has been going on and increasing each year and the fact no organised effort has been made to take this on. I ask you, isn’t time we do something together?!!

Week Four at the Old Broadford Paper Mill

Posted by | Broadford Paper Mill, design, Set Design | No Comments

As you can see, I finally got my Orangutan up… and started on my Polar Bear. For those who are interested in knowing what paper I am using. It’s a Visy waterproof recycled paper. I love this paper it has such a nice feel, and it is easy to fold and at the same time retain its soft smooth look… it is perfect for my animals.

My monkey constructing the monkey

My monkey constructing the monkey

My Orangutan

My Orangutan

The Polar Bear's Head

The Polar Bear’s Head

Last week, we had a bit of a challenge as the single ply paper was not rigid enough to hold the mass of the Orangutan’s head. And so, we had to wait for John at NPI to try glueing two sheets back to back to see if the paper would retain all the things I love about it.

Operations Manager, John, and crew took two rolls, and glued a massive amount of two ply paper for me to try out… and lo and behold the Visy paper is retaining all that is great about the paper and it’s rigid!!

Well… maybe I spoke too soon… yes, I built my Orangutan.. but two days later I noticed it imploding around the chest where the weight of the arms had pressure.

I now know I definitely need a three ply paper. I showed John the problem with my Orangutan and we looked at two different lots of paper to slip between the 2 sheets of the Visy recycled waterproof paper we have been using saznajte više.: a 190gsm and a 300gsm. I did a little test and it appears the 300gsm is going to work.

John will glue three sheets together for us this coming week before they break for Christmas. And I will have my paper issues sorted for all the animals… fingers crossed.

Good night and good luck from the Polar Bear

Good night and good luck from the Polar Bear

 

Week One at the Broadford Paper Mill – Swimming in Gratitude

Posted by | Bee Friendly Installation, Broadford Paper Mill, design, Food for thought, Music, Set Design | No Comments

Week One at the Broadford Paper Mill – Swimming in Gratitude

This is a very special week for me…  a week, I have been eagerly anticipating for many months. I officially begin fabricating the paper popup world that make up the sets and animal exhibitions for my new album, It’s All a Beautiful Noise. Woohoo my tail is wagging!

Now you might think my reaction is a little over the top as we are only constructing sets… but let me tell you this, it is anything but a little thing!

First of all, the Broadford Paper Mill has gifted me with an endless supply of large format paper of different grades and weights. And if that is not enough, they are also providing both Mik and I with an office each, and use of a very large portion of the mill to fabricate both the set and my 3D animals. In addition, they have provided tables, desks, chairs, cutting surfaces, a ten-drawer architect filing cabinet for my patterns, and our very own water cooler, fridge, kettle and BBQ to make our meals.

NPI July 2014-184

Plainly put, I am swimming in a sea of gratitude… What an incredible and delightful gift!

Thank you John Sapountzis, Neil Burgin, Reece and Mel Craker, and last but not least Carmel McCormack. And a very special thank you to Andrew Ball who no longer works at the mill. Andrew you embraced my project and my spirit, and you introduced me to everyone at the mill. I want you to know that you are a part of the beautiful noise that fills my heart!

For those of you who many not know, I am now a crowd-funded recording and installation artist. And as such, I am supported by the people who patron my artistic endeavors through special events, CD purchases and all sorts of goodies. The capital raised from these purchases go right back into my artistic endeavors, which can leave Mik and I with very little wiggle room sometimes. I can only imagine what it would have cost us to purchase all the paper we will be using, not to mention rent the space we will be working in along with electricity, and internet.

What the Broadford Mill is providing us is priceless!

Ok… I admit it, I am gushing! But how could one not swim in a sea of gratitude and not gush?

This first week, in the process of cleaning and clearing the space I will be using for my office, and where we’ll be constructing our sets and installations, I have fallen in love with this 124 year old mill, and all the special nooks and crannies filled with old machinery, empty offices, large rolls of paper, and unused rooms where Victorian machinery could once be heard whirring day and night.

Reese, the mill’s Maintenance Officer, informed me that the space I’ll be using for my office had not been touched for more than 50 years. Whilst cleaning the walls, I was personally introduced to the 50 year old grime caked onto the walls. It’s a job that’s gonna take a while – hehe… little by little.

NPI July 2014-141

Our first inspection of the space in July

John & I cleaning the space

John & I cleaning the space

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Getting closer – Reece power-washed the floor

MILL WHITE DAY-117

Wow! A white floor!

Let's start cutting

Let’s start cutting

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A new office!! Added a little life with a beautiful white Hydrangea.

Some of my help

Sharing popup inspiration with John, working out dimensions for pros arch backing board, and selecting where to hang long sheets of black paper.

Lets cut a shape!

I love my new electric scissors, lets cut a shape!

My first shape!

My first shape!

Over the coming weeks, if you’ve got a spare moment, you can check in to learn more about my adventures and misadventures with paper. I promise to post a weekly blog to fill you in on all that is paper; post pictures, give you the scoop on what we’ve learned, share some pop-up techniques, and other fun stuff.