Sisters Antoinette and Amanda Ratcliffe dropped the nzgirl team an email to tell us all about their upcoming joint project, an exhibition entitled Shooting Spree and Duke heart Maddie.
The one night special event (10 March 5.30-9pm at Galatos) will contain new installations by Antoinette (of The Plush Room) along with a selection of live and backstage photographs by Amanda (aka amandashootsbands) alongside a carefully compiled soundtrack including the likes of 2 a.m. Orchestra, Aum, Bear Cat, Charlie ASH, Collapsing Cities, Deer Park, Dick Dynamite and the Doppelgangers, Dylan Storey, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, Glass Owls, Grayson Gilmour, Great North, John the Baptist, Popstrangers, So So Modern, Sora Shima and Stevie Starr. To get involved, email a few sample tracks to contact@amandashootsbands.com!
We thought they sounded like our sort of nzgirls, so we asked them to share some of their favourite things…
Antoinette and Amanda Ratcliffe’s Favourite Things:
EAT:
- We are both HUGE fans of Aglio Olio – a delicious garlicky pasta concoction that we make quite regularly together after discovering the recipe for it in the beautifully compiled Martha Goes Green vegetarian cookbook.
- Amanda is the world’s best baker when it comes to Afghans & White Chocolate Chip cookies (straight from the Edmonds cookbook). It’s true. They’re amazing.
- Wellington’s Midnight Espresso down Cuba Street is by far a favorite of Antoinette’s – they even supply late night treats like Cocoa Pops AND they put cream in the hot chocolates and mochas!
- Floriditas in Wellington gets two thumbs up from both of us for their delicious soy-lattes and amazingly presented boiled eggs & toast. Eggs are placed into ceramic animal eggcups to make you feel extra special! Last time we went there we got a rabbit and a badger. Incredible.
- Not sure if they still do it, but cups of tea at Smith in Auckland were a favourite last year – especially the day after Big Day Out. What a treat!
BUY:
- LUSH!!! Between the two of us, we’ve most likely tried every one of the products in their stores, plus the sales assistants are lovely. Amanda is particularly favourable of their Big shampoo and Jungle conditioner.
- There’s no doubt about it – Antoinette has a massive problem when it comes to Frutti in Wellington. They are locally owned and operated, and what’s best is that its all New Zealand made!
- Amanda recently bought this fancy new app for her iPhone that makes any video look awesome! It’s called Vintage Maker and it does just that. The setting most used is the 1920’s black and white one, which speeds up your ‘film’ and adds lines and ‘dust’ to it. This ‘camera’ comes out all the time, and recently made a good job of making the part where the man gets catapulted into the bucket in the game Mouse Trap look amazing. It’s only two dollars or something, so you should get it too.
- Every time Antoinette is down Cuba Street, she has to stop into Eyeball Kicks, who first opened on the 1st October 2005. The store specialises in selling limited edition, fine art prints, books, magazines, stickers, patches and collectables as well as doing custom picture-framing and print publishing. Fancy.
- And how can you not love Apple laptops – all the cool kids have them, and it’s always best to put good looking shots onto good looking laptops. Teehee!
KNOW:
- Don’t push ‘send’, push ‘save’.
- Amanda: You can’t please everyone. This is an interesting one, because it took a lot of drumming to get this into my head, and still I have problems trying to really live by this. The way I like to think is that if someone has a problem with you, it’s most likely a problem they have with themselves. And some people are just plain stupid.
- Antoinette: ALWAYS get antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and pain relief for bad cat scratches, hooks and bites. This might sound excessive, but trust me, you’ll know all about it if you don’t (visuals: fat little sausage fingers with a nasty infection).
- Amanda: That purple eye shadow DOES NOT look good on you.
- Antoinette: If your cat is licking gravel or eating kitty litter, take it to the vet ASAP!
ENTERTAIN:
- We’re both very much in love with The Mighty Boosh television series, and own all the DVDs – the crimps that come out of that show are to die for.
- Frankie magazine is a massive favorite of Amanda’s – she claims to love the content as much as smelling and feeling the yummy paper that it’s made up of.
- OMG! LOL! WTF?! Is that MCR?! Yep! Antoinette loves those lads, and has had their latest CD Danger Days on high rotate in her CD player since the day she unwrapped it from its shiny seal. After rescuing a black bird, she even decided to call it Dee Dee (as in DD – Danger Days). That’s dedication.
- Antoinette is quite the fan of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Graeham-Smith – although she admits that it took awhile to get into this one, it was worth the work…try it out yourself – next thing you know you’ll be reading the sequel!
- www.whokilledbambi.co.uk You just need to see this yourself. It’s what the kids would say…awes.
PEOPLE:
- Noel Fielding because he’s a babe.
- We both have a small collection of Wellington artist Miss Mika Still’s work (above) which consists of paintings, drawings and installations.
- Junko Mizuno – she makes comics for girls who like a bit of blood, guts, giant eyes and nudity.
- Amanda is also very fond her handsome cat Mark – he knows it so he gets everything he wants with just one look at his mummy.
PLACES:
- Amanda is having an affair with K Road in Auckland. Although she denies it, she says she’d happily walk up and down that road every day, because there is always something new to look at, plus she loves how filthy it is. Although it’s mainly for the photographic side of things, you have to wonder why words like love and filthy would come up in the same sentence. Yep. It’s definitely an affair.
- Antoinette: down at the river close to home, running around with Slim the Rottie early in the morning.
- Or cuddled up in bed with the cats on a rainy weekday morning.
- Or getting to my studio at 5am, and listening to the 0800 down cow jingle on the radio(!).
- Or having breakfast at Floriditas on a day off watching people go to work who look really pissy about it.
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