RAW natural born artists

As soon as we arrived we saw our grandfather, Tony, or as we like to call him Papi. I don't remember where the nickname came from or when he got it. All I know is that either Kashmia or I invented it and it has been that way since, well since i first remember. 

He's an interesting character being a Gibson, they all are but I'll always remember him singing and his story. He would sing all kinds of songs from american pie to chikeraka chikeraka bomb chikalora to some song about a straight banana. One thing I'll always remember is his story about grandchildren. The Gibsons are all great teasers I don't know one that won't tease you a bit and I know a couple who can't take a tease and obviously as it is with my grandfather it is with my mum and it is with me we tease each other. Well this story about grandchildren is my granddads way of teasing his grandchildren. It will always start with "grandchildren, grandchildren I've got em coming out of my ears". Then he would go in chronological order starting with me and going through all 7 children ending with Andalucia talking about how annoying each of us were. It would often fluctuate with the younger ones (still innocent one) being called little angels or little pains depending how calm, nice or cheerful they were and the other six fluctuating depending on behaviour. We would either cringe at his exaggerated rant or laugh at his description of other grandchildren.

A little later Abbie and Kashmia arrived. With Kashmia I think its safe to say we have a love hate relationship because last time I saw her I just wanted her to buzz off cause she was being an annoying pain in the arse and the time before we were best buds. I was hoping it wouldn't happen again.  Abbie on the other hand is my cool aunt who is into art and music and has a weird fixation with skulls that my grandfather never actually noticed (must be because of his age :) ).The next day we left for the gold coast, Currumbin. 

My aunt for the last few months has been working on an exhibition called RAW. now if you look up raw on google you'll probably see some naked buff people trying to grapple on to each other, that is not it. Now if you focus your search to  'RAW - natural born artists' you will find it. Its quite a big exhibition, its been on in New York, L.A., Brisbane.

My aunt saw me visiting as an opportunity for unpaid labour or compulsory volunteer work, whichever you prefer. So my 72 year old grandpa and I with the help of other volunteers lugged cement bricks up the stairs that would support the metal railing that we would later carry up that would hold the art works that would be lit up by the lamps we would end up carrying up too. Only once we set every thing up and did a couple of trips to Mitre 10 to buy light bulbs and some pipes did we go to our hotel.
It was a nice hotel it was plain but in a great position right in front of the beach. After lunch all we had to do was wait for my father to arrive with the girls before we went back to the exhibition.
The exhibition was quite fun there was all kinds of art from visual to performing to fashion and even makeup. There were even artists creating stuff there.

The next day we walked around a small town market before heading back to byron bay.

For the few days we had left we surfed with a 1968 surf champ at Wategoes, ate, visited Kashmia's horse, played games and watched the world cup final before saying bye to Abbie and Kashmia and heading on to our next destination.