Pineapple Ponderings: Mother's Day 2011

Aloha! from Queen Bee Ka-La Aloha Ferrari Pineapple. Please feel free to call me Queen Bee!

Annette Farrer with baby Queen Bee (Kerryanne)

On this Mother's day, I pay tribute to my royal lineage of Artistes, my mother, Annette (Netty) Marie Farrer (nee Ryan), my maternal grandmother, Kathleen (Kit) Mae Ryan (nee Noone) and my paternal grandmother, Elsie Violet Farrer (nee Brown-John). All three were artists, although none had the privilege of being able to earn a professional living directly from art practice. Both Netty and Kit were self taught teachers of speech and drama and art respectively. Elsie I don't know too much about, except that she kept her love of painting hidden from her presbyterian husband, and would hold secret painting circles while he was at work and remove all evidence before his homecoming.

Kit Ryan (centre) with her clan

Elsie Violet Farrer

I remember once hearing that for a true artist, practicing your art is not a job, rather it is something you are compelled to do, somewhat like breathing, you can voluntarily stop until the body takes over and you have to involuntarily take a breath. On this day I honour this gift given to me by my ancestors and particularly my mother, who gave me the greatest gift of life. I was in-spired when I took my first breath, and grew to value arts, colour, texture, music, rhythm, melody, literature, poetry, theatre, spoken word, fine food, cooking, festivals, aesthetics and creativity.

Netty as the Fruit Loop for
Doblo's TV ads in Rockvegas

This is the first Mother's Day spent without my mum, who passed away on 22 December 2010. And while this sounds sad, it doesn't feel that way, rather a confirmation of who I am. Oddly it feels like freedom, a release to be Ka-La Queen Bee Aloha Ferrari Pineapple in all her glory. It is this persona who can be fine, fruity and fabulous, a larger than life version of the woman I was destined to be! I wonder where I ever got this from?

Soooo... what better way to give to the amazing mother's in my life, past and present, than to create an edible bouquet for Carita (Mama to Moe and Eadie), my sister, Dawn, Carita's Mother-in-Law (Carita's husband Hayden's Mum) and Lorna (Dawn's Mum) for Mother's Day with my nephew Moe (5) and Eadie (3).

Welcome to Queen Bee's Kitchen...

Firstly you will need some very good looking fruit that will stay firm. I chose Pineapple (of course), strawberries, Figs (very nice), rockmelon (which we didn't end up using, but you could scoop into balls), honeydew melon, and grapes. You will need a florists block, waterproof wrapping (we used a metalic wrapping and cellophane) bamboo skewers, cookie cutters, knife and cutting board, bowls and a sense of humour!

The trick is to get the fruit on the sticks before its all eaten!

Once you have chopped the fruit and cut out shapes with cutters, it's time to start threading the bamboo skewers. This is quite tricky for little fingers so it requires a little bit of adult assistance.

Then the fun of arranging the "flowers" in the florists block. You can see I've recycled one from an old bunch of flowers, already in a heavy base, great idea as those skewers are quite top heavy!