Michael Stacey | Australian | Tirol, Austria
Six days a week, throughout the ski season, Australian Michael Stacey knuckles down to a hard day’s work at mega ski resort Serfaus Fiss Ladis’ busiest hire shop. It’s now 12 winters and counting that Mikey has been returning to the shop, these days he’s part of the furniture. Seasonal employment has a rhythm, Mikey’s winters are mountain bound; lunch breaks and days off are a blur of powder runs, Tiroler Gröstl and Bauern Tequila. He spends his summers in the UK, on Devon’s north coast, helping-out at a friend’s café. Predictably, it’s only a short dash to some of the North Atlantic’s finest surf. Mikey’s priorities are certainly lean in one direction, in his own words:
“I shape my life around my hobbies and passions. For me there is still nothing better to detach myself from work and woes of life than snowboarding or surfing. I love that feeling of exhilaration and being totally absorbed in the moment. Over the year I like to keep a good balance between work and play, tipping the scales toward play. I take fun very seriously!”
In spring and autumn, the “quieter times”, his priorities change, as Mikey puts it “it’s family catch up, travel and unwind time”. Surf trips to Northern Spain and Portugal, and further-afield destinations like Indonesia, fill the lull nicely. The next pin in Mikey’s map is a return to Norway, a country that has already provided some great memories. “I’d really love to explore Norway more, it has the most spectacular, breath-taking scenery I’ve ever experienced. One memory that stands-out from my northern Europe road trip that really made an impression on me was setting up camp in our van in a little beach car park in the north around summer solstice. My girlfriend and I watched a stunning sunset merge into an even more striking sunrise for hours and hours in the very early hours of the morning, with the sun only just touching the horizon, never dipping below the ocean.”
Travel is an important part of Mikey’s life but weighs on his conscience a little, he says “I travel a lot, but I also have strong beliefs in environmental conservation, therefore I’m always contradicting myself. The dream, one day in the future, is having a small home, surrounded by nature, with a studio and big garden, where a bike ride to the beach and friends is enough travelling.”
And when the surf is flat and the powder is gone, Mikey finds time for his other passion… art. Not totally sure how to categorise his work, he jokily describes it as “scientific Illustrator meets Albert Hoffman”. On reflection he simplifies that to “Sometimes real, sometimes surreal”. Art is something that brings balance to his life, he explains “My drawings and paintings are a great way to relax, when I’m right into a piece it can feel somewhat meditative – like drifting into a dream.” Encouraged by a teacher at the age of 11 to pursue art, and in more recent years by friends, he continues to evolve and explore new mediums and techniques. To date, Mikey has sold small print runs through galleries and online stores, and regularly accepts private commissions. As more and more people discover his work, he’s eager to spend less time grinding bases and more time creating, he says “The past few years I’ve been developing my artwork with plans of building visual art into a part-time profession.”
Discover Mikey’s artwork at www.michaelstacey.art
