My old studio at the arts factory

Hi Guys, this is my new and first Blog, Yayh :)
I will start of with some pictures of my old studio at the Arts Factory in Byron Bay.
I have spend over three years there, two and a half I slept out the back in a tent,I enjoyed the outside nature, reduced my luxuries and focused on painting. A big difference to cold and wet Holland where I grew up. I even got flooded a few times which was quite an experience.
In my time here I have met 10 live times worth of people. the best lesson I learned here was how to let go and enjoy the moment, someone new comes into your live, great, they go away great, they have entered your live and therefor never really leave:)
I came to Byron Bay after staying in my birthplace Perth for a year, I came to Perth in October 2002 to unite myself with my biological father and half brothers who I had never met before. This went better then could have been expected, I spend a year there, working with my father and hanging out with my ultra-cool brothers, developing my dip-and-groove dance.
Then the road called, I decided to pack up my canvas and hit the road with some of my dear friends. We traveled for a few months around Oz to end up in Byron Bay, I wasn't very impressed at first, but decided to give it a second chance. It seemed busy, commercial, packed, although it was the 5Th of Jan which makes it one of the busiest days of the year. I almost left, but it was running late so I managed to get the last small spot behind the toilets on the arts factories campground. I set up my small two man tent and walked into the Buddha Bar... Holly Moly, that was something else, aboriginal culture show, live music, hippies, nice people, drinks, dj's fun!!!
Spend a few months getting into my yoga, drumming and all the Byron stuff you do, but I had to paint, gotta get a studio. I ran into Jarrah Tree who was painting a huge and gorgeous mural on the outside of the historic piggery building, which is part of the Arts factory. He could use a hand, which I was happy to give. Whilst I was painting away I had my eye on this little garage, that was used as a little surf clothes shop, but didn't really run. Then the idea came to me, arts factory, hmmm, it could really do with some art:). I asked the manager Sein if I could transform the old entrance to the piggery into a studio, and in return I would teach a small live drawing class. I was ever so passionate, a three hour class, full of exercises guided by music and often two models. I regained my passion for live drawing and painting with people, and started to paint like there was no tomorrow. One person more beautiful than the next, I discovered that if you open up you can fall in love with any person or else the moment, and use this energy to create. All right, so love, emotion and creation are all linked together, what a surprise:), lets see if I am able to take that with me outside of the studio. Painting is a wonderful tool for training your non- judgemental observation skills, or as my friend 'the baron' said awakening the silent observer, you know separating yourself from your mind and all that Buddhist Jazz.
So over those three years I painted several hundred paintings, close to a thousand drawings, some murals, several live performances, teaching and organizing workshops and a small festival, called the Byron Bay arts fest, which emphasized on the exciting side of 'art' with a lot of participation for the patrons. Always having two or three jobs on the side as well.
It was time to slow down a bit, focus, work with maybe one model for a while, go in depth, think about concept, where do I want to go next, what do I really want. This is when I made the narrative of motion series, which will get it's own blog section. I started to feel cramped in the studio and was craving a light, spacious studio with no distractions. No matter how much I loved all the people walking into my studio before I needed a bit of solitude to take my work to the next level.
The new studio was starting to take shape in my head.