The Art Shop Mona Vale

13/06/2026

Our 25% off sale continues. Open until 2pm.

07/05/2026

21/04/2026

Dogs in pubs or offices: welcome or no thanks?

In Australia, 73 per cent of households have some sort of pet, and almost half have a dog in the home. But while Australians love their pets, do our laws reflect that?

One brewery owner in Brisbane has started a community campaign to push for more dogs to be allowed in pubs after his dog Archer, who he named his own brewery after, was no longer allowed in the venue after someone made a complaint.

“As a small business, we don’t have a huge amount of money to throw at trying to change laws, and that is completely ridiculous for me to even dream about that,” says Stuart Martin, owner of Archer Brewing Co in Brisbane.

“The health minister in his email suggested to try and apply to change the law like Virgin Australia … but they can afford to go and challenge that and allow dogs on to planes."

“For me it seems the most contradictory thing, you allow dogs on planes in a small metal tube in a confined space where there’s food prepared, but you won’t allow dogs into my 550 square metre brewery with high ceilings and ventilation.”

To hear the full episode of Life Matters delving into whether or not dogs should be allowed in more public spaces, go to ABC listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

21/04/2026

“I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”
Charles Bukowski - Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories.

Jan L. Waldron - Storm Cloud, 2024.

21/04/2026

Seasonal Native bouquets created using fresh market flowers.

21/04/2026

John Wolseley’s stunning work in Holding Ground is based on Martin Royds magnificently regenerated farm Jillamatong near Braidwood.

' I was bent on researching the remnant bits of country where the river systems behaved and worked in the way they used to before white settlement. In particular, I became obsessed with how many of Australia’s inland rivers formed ‘chains of ponds’ along the floodplains.

Charles Massy wrote in his revolutionary book – Call of the Reed Warbler – “Like many before me, I dearly wish I could be transported back in time to go for a long walk through the pastoral ecosystems of Australia prior to white settlement. Just once to walk across grasslands un-grazed by the cloven-hooved animals of white settlers; …to feel the soft ground underneath and access the depths of layered mulch; to witness fully hydrated landscapes and see how the original chains of ponds looked and functioned; to hear the cry of bustard and reed warblers…to glimpse bettongs and bilbies busy about burrows beside inland streams, and to listen to insect and birdsong under river red gums and she-oaks.”'

Holding Ground is in its last weeks so hurry before it closes on Sunday 3 May.

image: Chains of ponds, moated dams, contour banks and the regenesis of Jillamatong (detail, third panel) 2018-22
watercolour, graphite, etching and charcoal on paper 56 x 67cm each; 117 x 240cm overall
Courtesy the artist & Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery