Meet Bertie Blackman, our latest Art Bag Project Artist.  We (technically just Sophie) sat down with Bertie to ask the all-important questions from music to coffee to adult sized wolf costumes. Grab a brew & read on.
  
Sophie - Milk or black
Bertie - Black 

 
Sophie - Then why ¾ flat white Bertie?
Bertie - When I met Emma (co-owner of Single O) to interview me to whether I could do the art bag, I was feeling a bit milky that day and I ordered a ¾ flat white, but I never drink ¾ flat whites and then I didn’t want to be rude and correct the mistake when it came to be printed on the bag so I thought it should stay, because it was of a moment in time. 

 
Sophie - Regular or large?
Bertie - Small. Always small. I don’t like large drinks. I have small hands. Everything for me needs to be a small size otherwise I will drop it on the floor.

 
Sophie – one or two coffees?
Bertie – three.

 
Sophie – Avo toast or bacon and egg roll.
Bertie – I like a bacon and egg roll with avocado on it.

 
Sophie – do you find the avocado goes warm?
Bertie – no it just slides out. It’s difficult but it works.

 
Sophie – Do you like warm avocado?
Bertie – I kind of like warm avocado. Something about it reminds me of camp. School camp. Or like those toasted salad sandwiches you get from the service station. Anyway, it just reminds me of Australia. Hot avocado reminds me of Australia.

 
Sophie – A solo table or communal seating.
Bertie. Solo. Always a solo table.

 
Sophie – do you prefer to sit inside or outside?
Bertie – If its sunny I’ll sit in the sun, or if its windy I’ll sit inside.

 
Sophie – Music, soft or loud?
Bertie – Loud. Loud good music.

 
Sophie – Are you the music, Bertie Blackman?
Bertie – Am I the music? Yes. The music is me. 

 
Sophie – You are the music?
Bertie - I mean, what do you expect with this question?

 
Sophie – So on music, what is its role in a café environment?
Bertie – Ummm.. its role is to support the coffee fumes, isn’t it?

 
Sophie – What are the coffee fumes?
Bertie – The scent of coffee. It enhances it.

 
Sophie – If bread and butter in Tasmania were a band or a singer, who would they be?
Bertie – Amyl and the sniffers.

 
Sophie – And Single O, who would they be?
Bertie – Sting. He’s an activist and he has a smooth voice. 

 
Sophie – You’ve drawn a bat. What is the battiest thing you’ve ever done?
Bertie – That’s a really hard question. I’ve done some weird things. For about 6 months of my life, I walked around with whiskers drawn on my face with a sharpie texta, including performing on stage. And there is evidence of this on the internet to prove that. In 2010. I wanted to be a cat I think, or no no wolf. I wanted to be a wolf. ‘Where the wild things are’ by Spike Jonze came out and I bought myself an adult sized Max outfit. I wore this onstage performing with Gotye a few times at a few entertainment centres in front of a casual few thousand people. There was usually a big sigh of disappointment when the audience discovered I wasn’t Kimbra – so I thought I’d destabilise the situation with a wolf costume. It worked!

 
Sophie – Speaking of night creatures, is the tassie tiger in hiding and if so, where?
Bertie - Yes. He’s at my house. Making me dinner.

 
Sophie – what is your favourite thing the bat tiger can do?
Bertie – I mean he’s such a multitasker, it’s really hard to pick. He’s a maker of new worlds. He’s bringing Tasmania to the mainland.

 
Sophie – and why is it a bat and a tassie tiger?
Bertie – Because he is a super creature. Melding the Sydney fruit bat and the tassie tiger, I mean why not?

 
Sophie – what do the ladder mean?
Bertie – It’s how you get from drip to drip.

 
Sophie – Drip transportation?
Bertie – Obviously, that’s how the eyes get there. Drips and Ladders. 

 
Sophie – How are you in the Single O world?
Bertie – My brother Felix is the Architect for Bread and Butter, and I met Rob and Liv through Felix, down at the harvest markets in Launceston – when they were just producing butter. And their butter was amazing, I mean who doesn’t want chunks of salt in their butter. And then the next year I went back to Tassie, and they had opened their café and they were producing pastries made with said butter and serving Single O coffee. I mean Launceston was a desolate hell hole before that space existed.

 
Sophie – And the park across the road? That’s got some interesting characters in there.
Bertie – That’s where the tassie bat hangs out, hissing at people, high on Single O coffee.

 
Sophie – what is your favourite pastry from bread and butter?
Bertie – The cinnamon thing. The breakfast bun. The MORNING bun. Hands down, it is amazing.

 
Sophie – If you had a superpower, what would it be?
Bertie – To be able to make water. 

 
Sophie – Water?
Bertie – Yes, because eventually water scarcity is going to be the greatest problem we face, and I will be the overlord of the planet. And also, I’m an aquarian.

 
Sophie – who should we get to do the next art bag project?
Bertie – kids should do it. I think you should start a 125gm bag project called ‘little art’.