Ever been to Papeete in French Polynesia? Me neither – one of my artworks spent 9 months there, enjoying the tropical sunshine and drinking coconut milk.

How about Brisbane, Australia? Another tropical city where one of my nudes spent 6 months.

Both these works made it back to wet and cold Seattle, who can blame them for wanting a bit of warmth and sunshine?

Why does my art keep taking sunny vacations?

Working part of the year in Seattle has meant rolling up canvases, squeezing them into tubes and shipping them to Australia with United States Postal Service. Why the post? They’re about one-third of the price of courier services. Saving thousands in shipping is worth the occasional diversions the artworks sometimes take.

Why they take little breaks, I don’t know, but they always turn up, eventually, until…

The wild ride of $30,000 worth of art, destined for two galleries in Australia.

Recently, I had two exhibitions scheduled almost simultaneously. The Road to Wee Jasper at Tyger Gallery and a Special Release at Michael Reid Southern Highlands.

The only trouble was, there were so many artworks, I had to send them in two separate tubes, about 30 canvases rolled tightly like filo.

One tube arrived. One didn’t. I imagined the second tube lazying away on the exclusive beaches of Pangkor Laut.

As the exhibition deadline came and went, I had to open the exhibition at Tyger Gallery with only two-thirds of the artworks – 12 works instead of 19.

And then, the lost works turned up, two weeks into the two week exhibition! The exhibition was extended and it inspired a very creative approach by Martyn Pearce and his crew.

Almost all the works sold out, a truly remarkable art adventure.