Artist Trevor Dickinson gets a bit cranky with people who "slag Canberra off". It's somewhat ironic that one of our city's best ambassadors is a man from Newcastle, out of England, but he's happy to admit he fell in love with the place when he first came here in 2012.
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Dickinson, most famous for his quirky drawings of iconic Canberra places, from our national institutions to our fire hydrants, has just released a pack of playing cards, featuring 54 (there's two jokers - and a joke waiting somewhere that perhaps the jokers should have been a couple of politicians from up on the hill) of his drawings usually seen on prints and greeting cards and more recently as mugs.
"When I do the drawings," he says, "when I sell them as prints, some don't sell very well because they're a little more obscure, but they were perfect for the cards.
"Like the little yellow fire hydrants that are unique to Canberra, it's a detail that people would notice but wouldn't necessarily want as a print.
"It all goes to drawing a picture of Canberra."
There's the old Starlight drive-in sign (the queen of clubs), the "Martian Embassy" (actually the Shine Dome is the two of spades), the O'Connor Uniting Church with its cross-shaped solar panels (three of diamonds) and a bus shelter on Wentworth Avenue in Kingston (the king of hearts).
There's not a lot of bus shelters featured on the cards but this was a deliberate move by Dickinson; he didn't want us to suffer from bus shelter overload. He's thinking about a specific pack of bus shelter cards for 2018 to coincide with his planned exhibition at Canberra Museum and Gallery in October featuring 50 of Canberra's "480ish" shelters.
If the bus shelters are your thing, however, he has recently released three more mug designs - from Deakin, Charnwood and Dickson.
He said searching for the bus shelters has taken him to places many visitors to Canberra would never venture - Charnwood, Giralang, Narrabundah - and it's there that his affection for the town grew.
"There's a utopian suburban feel about the edges of Canberra," he said.
He started drawing in Newcastle about seven years ago, focussing on things the locals might recognise but the tourists wouldn't and wondered whether he could transpose that idea to another city. He came to Canberra in 2012 to do a six-week residency at Megalo Print Studio.
"Canberra was perfect in a way because both Newcastle and Canberra are towns that people would look down on," he says.
"When I first moved to Newcastle people said why would you want to live there?
"People just slag Canberra off all the time too, people who don't know the place. That's what made me curious, I wanted to check it out.
"When you visit Canberra it's quite hard to get your head around the place, I wanted to crack that a little bit.
"I understand Canberra more now, I really like it, I've grown to appreciate it.
"It looks fantastic … I really like how all the eras are covered quite well, from the 50s to the 60s to the 70s, things are really well preserved. Coming from England I felt there was a bit of nostalgia when I first arrived in Canberra."
If you're feeling nostalgic too, Dickinson's available at the Undercurrent Design markets, part of the Design Canberra festival, at the National Portrait Gallery on Saturday and Sunday, for a chat.
"I think I know more stories about the Starlight Drive-In than most people in Canberra," he says.
And while you're there buy a pack of cards, perfect for the Christmas stocking.
If you miss him this weekend he will also be selling his range at the Handmade Canberra markets at Epic from December 8-10.
Or his products are available from many of the shops at the museums and galleries around town and online at trevordickinson.com.au
