It sounds a little like a fairy tale or something worse, something from the Grimm brothers.

I have wanted to do this portrait of C., the guy I know from when I was just five or six. Living in scary Java, where nobody seemed to like us. Then Iran, where nobody seemed to like us either. After Iran on to Holland, where they noticed we were not wearing clogs. Now in sunny Queensland where I still feel often the white man. Or the pink man.

Anyway, I asked C. if he could give me some time to pose for me in the back garden. Sunny and stark naked.

I started to plop him on the canvas. A few rough outlines and 'full stops', the navel, the nose, the eyes, the nipples, his knees and the penis.

Read the whole story... on http://paulbakker.id.au/

We should tell those Hindus to stop harassing their kids and let them eat meat, for God's sake.

Muslim women are not allowed to wear their burkha in France. I heard the French President talking about it.

The Muslim burkha symbolises subservience. Can't they afford a cute Dior hat? Otherwise, bloody hell, a handkerchief.

The Catholic church should be forbidden to force people when getting married to promise things nobody, certainly not two young hot bodies must do. Make love, ONLY to procreate. Kids, kids and more kids. No giggles or panting.

The painting shown here I did in 1975. It is of a man wrapped up in bandages and next to him the covered body of a child. Scary stuff? Absolutely; but not really. The small body was in fact my daughter Renate who I asked to lie on the floor with a sheet over her so I had a 'model'. Renate wasn't afraid at all as she knew how it had started. The life sized bodies I made out of clay she quiet happily sat on while talking to me. She knew it all started with lumps of clay. Lumps of clay that end up looking like dead bodies in the eye of the beholder.

I did these things as I thought I was so afraid of so many things I'd make the creepiest of all things and as the maker, I couldn't scare myself. I would be without fear. I was even scared living on my own in the 'big' city of The Hague. I had just arrived back from one year on Santa Maria, Azores, were nothing could harm one.
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When I walk down a street in Cairns, Sydney or New York on a normal day, sun shining or the street lights bright and safe, I pass all these bobbing heads.
Some with a smile, some not, but mostly with that focused look to find their way wherever they are going. They have a certain lovely rhythm.
All bobbing their way to home, work or mischief, a loved one or who knows.
These bobbing balloons have one thing in common. One thing they do all agree on: They all think they are RIGHT.

I gave up smoking a year ago.

Then busted and gave up smoking one year minus a day ago, then gave up 363 days ago, and 362 days ago and so it went on and on and on.

But everything changed. Truly, I am so exited. Today. I gave up.

Yes, yes, I know what you will say next.'Very good Paul. You are a pillar of strength.' Thank you so much. So I haven't had a smoke for about half a day.

Of course the Neggies, those people who never see good in anything, will say something like: 'Bet you'll smoke again.....'

But honestly and deeply serious, my way of thinking. And seeing my brothers and sisters change by the puff. If I am smoking or if I am not smoking.

And what on Earth does it do? A drink makes you feel relaxed and oh so romantic, cigarettes from Babylon make you feel musical and smile. Food happy and fat.

I was a student at art school.This is 1962. In The Hague in The Netherlands.

I remember when I was 17 I thought it a fun idea to go with a friend to a pub, called a cafe in Holland. Cafe's were not the place nice boys of our protected background went to. So it was not only fun but an adventure. To go where the ordinary people huddled together. We chose a cafe near the centre of town of The Hague.