The Gardener

Funny how you look back on work and think 'OH MY GOODNESS!'.  This painting is one of those.  The handling of the face seems clumsy now...But I still relate to the symbolism it contains.  I painted it about 12 years ago.  It is of me holding flowers in the garden just after my Dad died of cancer.  The painting itself is very large.  About 1 metre by 2 metres. It was more of a contemplation about life and how life 'morph's' and changes in subtle ways over our life time.  The sunflowers were reminiscent of my time with my first husband.  I have strong memories of riding through central Turkey on mopeds amongst vast fields of sunflowers.  I remember feeling a sense of freedom and promise that I could achieve whatever I wanted with my life.  The Necklace was given to me by my second husband.  I loved the way it felt on my skin....wire and cold stones.  I liked how it encircled me and sat near my throat...symbolising how he was giving me 'voice' to be who I wanted to be.  The foxgloves are a beautiful flower but contain deadly poisons ....so all is not pretty below the surface in the garden.

Dad struggled all his life with trusting in his creativity and I think in the end his lack of faith in himself consumed him.  The foxgloves symbolize to me that double edged sword of creativity...it can be a very positive trait or a negative trait.

pigtails woodcut

I have been sorting out things around the studio and came across this woodcut.  It reminded me of a series of 20 woodcuts that I did, that didn't really do it for me...but after a while I painted over parts of them and really liked the effect of the shiny ink showing through the acrylic paint.  In some places I painted thickly and in others I just did a wash over the image.  The chunky paint and the subtle textures haven't shown up in the photo.  I ended up framing six of these prints in a row, in one frame, and have been very pleased with how it looks.  The prints are a range of colours and some look happy and others moody.  They remind me of the range of moods and 'dramas' that I encounter in the playground when I am on duty at lunchtime.

Emelia and the Hula Hoop

This is still one of the favourite paintings I have done.  The photo is pre-digital and as a result this is not a fantastic reproduction.  In real life the colours are very intense.  It is of Emelia (Millie) and her little flappy plaits doing the 'Hula' hoop which was very popular in the late 1990's.  The grass bit at the bottom is not part of the painting.... rather just where I had to take the photo for light at the time with the old SLR..outside and against the white wall.  I have always been really pleased this painting has not sold.  I love the detail and the technical bits that are lost in the reproduction.  I like to lie in bed and  run my eyes over it. It satisfies me.  

The southern Alps....

Just found this photo from last year. I was flying back from Queenstown and the pilot was doing all sorts of detours to show us stuff... glaciers..... mountain passes ... and peaks....  (we were ahead of time).  I was struck by the enormity of the southern alps and the rugged beauty of the South Island.  Often we don't notice the beauty in our own back yard.

Selena- the shoprite girl

Lately I have been consolidating old images of completed works and getting them into digital format.  It has been taking me down memory lane or is it a highway!?

Selena worked at the local supermarket in the small town we lived in at the time. She didn't know it but each day I would look at her carefully as I brought the bread, milk etc.  I was on maternity leave so would walk up to the shop with the pram each day to get Ella off to sleep. Then rush home to put the details I had observed into the painting.  Selena did not have jewelery on. I added the necklace and earrings that Clyde had brought me and also an egyptian moon ring that I had brought with my first husband when I was in India. Adding the packets detail was easy to fit in around a new born baby and her sleep patterns.  I have fond memories of this painting....... which has been long ago sold.  When the painting was completed I went to Selena and told her what I had been doing and gave her a photo of the painting.  The painting is in gouache and ink on 300 gsm watercolour paper.



The log flume commission.

Recently a couple in Tauranga contacted me via email and asked me to do a commission based on this photo.  The photo was taken in the 1970's (I think) on a family holiday to America. The photo was of their children on the log flume at Knott's berry farm.  The finished painting is the top image.  Having had a bit of distance from the painting, I have decided I am now okay with it.  It was very hard to do.  I think this was because of not having an emotional connection with the figures I was painting... so it was hard to capture their mannerisms. I really wanted it to be successful for the couple as well.  They sent me a note saying it was just what they wanted.....I felt relieved.  The painting certainly raised the 'ugly head' of philosophical debate about commissions again for me.  Usually I don't like them during the process and am reluctant to take them on...but they really do make me think and work through ideas carefully in the planning stages.  There is an element of creative discipline about them which is rewarding. 

Always good to know you are on the right track?

Nice feed back on my classroom! Click here to read the article.

Recently Bruce Hammonds, an education consultant, visited my classroom. He wrote this article on his website.  I was very flattered.  Thank-you Bruce!  High praise from a person whose opinions I highly value.

Busy times!

Wow!  There has been a lack of blogging lately.  It has been pretty intense the last 6 months. It was great being back teaching little tackers (7 and 8 year olds) and teaching the whole curriculum instead of just art.  The lack of blogs reflect a lack of my own creative work as I threw myself into teaching and into sorting the farmlet out.  Vege gardens are in... pony brought.... kiln brought.... studio nearly finished....

This year I am working two days a week teaching and spending the rest of the time  developing the farm and studio.  At times I think I am in heaven and at others times I wonder what the hell I am doing.  Farmlet life has huge highs and lows-(for example, the first walnuts dropped today... way too early due to the wind and we think the dog mauled the neighbours chickens)...

At the end of last year I did a unit with my class called 'inside out'.  It was great fun.... we took apart dead things (respectfully) and undertook all sorts of interesting studies.  I loved the detailed drawings the students did of skeletons prior to the study (to record their prior  Knowledge).

Frocks on bikes

I just designed this poster for "Frocks on bikes".  We meet once a month over summer and dress up real pretty in dresses and ride through town in elegant 'european style' with baskets of produce and flowers.  Last ride, we had high tea under the wistera in Pukekura Park.  So nice.....love it.....so much fun, for no real reason in particular but to raise the profile of cycling and enjoying being womanly! Join us!

Frocks on Bikes!

This is Jen and Davina.  We three are organizing a local 'Frocks on Bikes' group.  It is a wonderful feeling riding a bike all dressed up and pretty!  Some of the rides in Wellington have over a hundred people.  We have a facebook page for the local group here.....'Taranaki Frocks on bikes'.  I have just designed a poster advertising the event.

Blanket boys

A couple more dolls made from recycled blankets. Parihaka is down the road so I used the white feathers of peace for one doll. The other has a Tiki face.  Probably these dolls are meaningless unless you are from New Zealand?!  I love turning stuff into other stuff....(but I'll let you into a secret....sometimes I do wonder at the point of it all.....)



Rabbit

We are plagued with rabbits!  So cute....well I think so.  They drive Clyde insane!  The dog (Jess) has started catching them and bringing them home to devour on the front lawn.  I still have the image from yesterday in my head of the dog at the back door with a rabbits bottom and legs hanging out her mouth...one leg on each side and the fluffy tail in the middle.  With one or two chomps it was gone!  Jess has also started catching birds.  Her and the cat seem to be going through some weird role reversal thing. Walking down Surrey Hill Road yesterday Clyde and I saw eight rabbits in a small stretch of road.....running around bold as brass....even stopping to check us out!  Also saw the quail family.  They are slightly suicidal and run across the road each morning in front of the car as I go to work.

The rabbit above makes a change from making dogs anyway. 

Mutant soft toys

More mutant soft toys.  The only one I like in this picture is the chicken at the front.  Chickadee worked...not too much bling and added on bits.  I am trying to follow the 'less is best idea' at the moment......the back two are 'over the top'.  I wonder if clay faces could work?

'Sneaky' Drypoint print

I found this little drypoint print when I was unpacking another box the other day.  The press is up and going again now after the move.  I am excited!

Another Dog !

This little chappy is on the rack waiting for the first firing of the new kiln.  It is a big kiln so it could be there a while!  I am particularly enjoying making critters with their mouths open at the moment so that I can see their tongues.  My husband asked me the other day did I think I would ever make something other than animals?  So I tried a bowl.  I didn't like it.  When this little man is fired and glazed I will pop his picture on here.

Blowing out the candles

This painting was based around my daughter Emelia's 5th birthday. She wore her hair in tiny wee plaits for a long time.  Her cake was actually a teletubby cake but I liked the idea of the chocolate one with 'smarties' (M and M's) on it better as a visual statement. This painting was made into a greeting card that was sold as a hospice fundraiser about 12 years ago. My Dad who was a local sign writer had just died. The hospice was amazing in the care they gave him.  They afforded him a dignity and sense of peace that I don't think he had in life. He was waiting until retirement to get into his art... but died shortly after retirement of cancer.  Emelia (Millie) is 17 now. This painting represented a major change in style for me....  I was trying to work out how far can you 'prune' down detail and still have a painting that tells a story and reflects some of the character of the subject. It was part of a solo exhibition I had at Kina.  Painting generally has moved on a lot since I painted this.  I now view it as a bit clumsy but I like the moment it captured in my family.

I Love Caravans!

These pictures are posted for fun! Found them recently when I was looking for ideas to help me 'do up' the little sprite elk 400 that I have got. At the hospice shop yesterday I got 20 brand spanking new Australian souvenir tea towels from the 1970's...going to make those little beauties into curtains for the 'van'!  Maybe I can park up at Womad this year and sleep in it with the kids!

Surrey Hill Road and 'Twist' studio

Last March for my Husband's birthday I 

got him a helicopter flight over the new farmlet we had just purchased. 

He took this photo from the helicopter of the house, orchard and the potential studio space.  The house is up the top and looks like a cross.  The studio is the long skinny building that is at the front of the photo.  It is scary having a studio space that will be as big as the house!  I hope I can produce work in there worthy of all the effort he is going to, to make it a cool space for me!..There are new demolition windows in the end near the house.  Some of the trees at the end by the house are gone (nothing too radical) and there is a door there now.  The walls are lined and I have new lighting....I am so excited!

The windows over look the citrus orchard and the chook run.

"Artist- in- Residence"

This painting was one I did a few years ago.  I was 'artist- in -residence'  at Woodleigh school for a term.  This is not the full painting just detail from a section.  All up in size, it was about a metre by a metre and a bit. It is in gouache and ink. Currently it hangs in the Principals office.  The school was developing its 'outdoor classroom' area in the bush adjacent to the school. Classes would often go over there to read.  I painted this painting during the 'artist -in -residence' time, based on the outdoor classroom. Pupils at the school posed as models.  I worked in the library and as classes visited the library during their regular library time they could watch me work.  I found it disconcerting being watched and as I like solitude when I paint, it was interesting to try to work with a large group watching and discussing the painting with the 'up frontness' that children have!

No dogs!

This sign could well be for me, as I am over our new dog at the moment!  I love her dearly BUT...  She is a one man destruction machine! She chews everything including my large plastic pink flamingoes that were in the garden.  I found her munching them on the front lawn the other morning.  Her poo has had pink plastic bits in it for the last few days....gross.  Just as well we live on a farmlet, because I must have looked a sight chasing the dog around the outside of the house in my scruffy pajamas, yelling "bad girl!" and waving the remains of a large pink plastic flamingo in the air!

However, I was asked to do a series of signs for Woodleigh Primary School.  I love doing signs.  My Dad was a signwriter before computers took over a lot of that work.  I used to love watching him work and admired his steady hand and skill with lettering.

This is the first in a series I am doing for the school. 

The art room

My kiln arrived today and I was clearing out 'stuff' and found this picture from last term when I was still art teaching.  Giving up art teaching was one of the hardest things I have done.  I miss it but know that it was the right thing to do. I am SO loving focussing on my own work again. 

The flower seller.

Way back when I was living in London I used to watch people and 'collect' them to put in paintings. Each day on the way to work I would gather my information about the person or scene..observing small details and then at night I would  pop those details into the painting.  This flower selller was outside  Marylebone Station.  I bought alot of fresh flowers in London.  I needed them to get over being homesick!  I loved the contrast of the flowers so carefully wrapped and colourful against the bricks...the greys and browns of London. This painting sold many years ago.  I wonder how it is holding up to the ravages of time. It was painted in ink and gouache on canvas.

Urban knitters

Recently there was an 'urban knitting' thing at the Govett Brewster art gallery.  A massive scarf was knitted, all in white wool, in a variety of textures.  It was made by who-ever was passing and wanted to add a row...or two...or three....  It was then auctioned off.  My ten year old, Ella, was very excited about adding her part to the scarf on a wet Sunday afternoon. We spent ages there while she added her row (80 stitches across).

The gallery also had an urban knitting/graffiti knitting afternoon, where people came and knitted around/over parking meters, fences, doorhandles, lamp-posts etc.  That part of town is a pleasure to travel through at the moment...the knitted flowers in the wire fences and the small odd parts of knitting you find in unexpected places are just a delight and make my day!

A weekend of play with clay- Part two

 Just to add to the weekend away at a course extending my hand building skills with Fiona Tunnicliffe. She rocked!!!  I love the quick and furious way she worked and the character of the creatures that she made.  It was fascinating watching how she built her creatures  and how nearly every rule I knew about adding slip and worrying about air bubbles and wedging throughly...got broken in the creation of these crazy creatures.  We experimented with adding texture and handbuilding using slabs and pinch pots in totally new ways.

A weekend of play with clay.

Last weekend I went to a pottery workshop on hand building with Fiona Tunnicliffe.  It was such an eye opener!  I loved experimenting with different ways of joining and attaching.  I also joined the local potters society and now have a key to the rooms.  It is so exciting and frustrating!....I have 15 weeks of major working to go in my teaching job.... That and the farm and studio development  doesn't leave much time for anything else like actually making art.. I am so looking forward to next year when my major focus is the studio and farm.  The critter below is a sort of lamb in a reptilian coat.  I don't like how it reminds me of chinese mass produced ceramic dogs.  BUT I do like the face, ears and neck part.  I will have to be careful with moving it to the Kiln room and next stages of the firing.  It is the most complex thing I have made.  The next problem is what to glaze it in so that it doesn't look like a chinese ceramic dog.  That is not a put down...I  am wanting to avoid the mass produced ceramic look.

Jess

This is Jess!  My daughter Emelia took this photo.  She has a new camera and is taking lots of photos.  I particularly like this one she took of Jess.... she looks all expectant and trusting.  I want to do a painting based on this photo.  Just black and white and in a washy style...with paint dribbling and loose.  May be more than the table in the lounge can handle right now!  May have to wait until the studio is in a more rational state.

Te whare kuri

Clyde's dad just made a new kennel for Jess. When it arrived on the back of the ute we all thought it looked like a whare.  So I painted it up with Kowhaiwhai patterns and called it "Te whare kuri".  In Maori "kuri" is dog and "whare" is house.  Within a week, she has trashed her whare... chewing at the roof and constantly dragging out the blanket.  The chickens have taken a shine to it and are constantly popping in and out.  There is a bit of a battle going on between the dog and the chickens at the moment.  Jess is very keen to spend her day rounding them up... they look like they are over her antics... but I sense this is one story that has not been played out fully yet.  I like making signs, they satisfy me.  I love well labelled things...  My dad was a 'sign writer' and I may have got that from him.  Sorry Jess. (But I hope you still like it!)

Breakfast with Millie

This gouache painting is of me at home having breakfast with Millie when she was 5.  This painting has sold long ago.  It is filled with little things that were important to me at the time. (Millie is 16 now).  The 'Elmo' toy on the table, Millie's favourite heart gumboots, the stain glass window Clyde made, the daffodils from our garden, Millie's drawings, a kauri table I brought with my first husband, a variety of ceramics from local potters 'eyecon', the morning black coffee....the spiral key ring Clyde brought me.  I have been thinking about returning to this style of painting.  It is almost a documentary...a historical record of a time and place....

Here is another one from London pushing out the 'London bus' idea from a previous post. I was not that happy with the composition but had great fun spotting the people on the way to work and then adding them into the painting when I got home! Painted in gouache on paper.  The reason for revisiting these paintings is that I have been asked to do a commission which I am doing in this older style/technique.  I have had to look back at some of my older works to remember how I worked then.  It has been an interesting exercise.

London Buses

I hope the quality of this image is okay.  It was taken along time ago when I did not have a digital camera.  I no longer have the painting.
A few years ago when I lived in London I did a series of paintings about London buses.  Originally they were in response to a painting I had seen at the Tate Gallery.  Each morning on the way to work I would watch someone I saw and examine them closely.  At night I would put them in the painting.  I was always in the paintings.  Usually I was carrying  the leather satchel that I had brought in Greece.  I was so in love with that bag! In the end the series numbered about 10 paintings.  Most were painted with gouache on paper.  Back in New Zealand I did a couple of Acrylic versions as well.  All have sold now. 

A better picture of the baby!

The baby caravan out on the lawn. A 10 foot beauty!  Can't wait to get onto the interior in spring and have some fun with the Retro outfit!

Decay and mould!

Must be onto a new theme here! (decay/winter/depressing mud)...  It is not a new or original idea....but I have had fun lately experimenting with small projects that can be done around the studio overhaul.  I have been collecting plates from the hospice and painting new images over the old.  'HELP' and 'decay' have been added over the spring tulips.  I hope the link with a previous post is obvious!  BRING ON SPRING!

Bottle top bag

A few years back I made a series of bags from old bottles tops that I found in a school I was teaching at.  The tops had been used for counting in maths.  I loved how the tops were worn by all those years of being used and treasured by the little hands of the young students.  They reminded me of my own childhood and a time when things were simpler and less complicated. The bag was selected to be part of an exhibition that toured New Zealand and Australia for several years and featured on a calender, that was sold in galleries during the tour, of work by artists who work with 'recycled/upcycled' materials.  I was very proud of this bag at the time as it was all lined and damn fiddly to make.

Will spring ever come?

Just for fun.  The courtyard on a sunny day. I am missing the garden at the last house and feel impatient for spring to arrive here.  It is a whole different climate up here on the side of the mountain compared to down by the sea at the other place.  Since we have moved we leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark.  HOWEVER I did notice the daffodils are starting to flower here, so that has to be a good sign!  I imagine spring will bring a whole new feel to the place as the plants spring into action and we discover what is here!  I am excited!

Falling into place...the new baby!

                                                                                                                                   Finally life has settled down enough to start blogging regularly again. The blog will be slighty changed in focus and will be a diary of sorts about the developments at the farm and studio.  We plan to develop the studio so we can open twice a year.  So many new starts happening.... new farm, new job, new studio AND the long awaited (far from new) caravan.  For years I have wanted a caravan to "retro up".  I have even been collecting bits and pieces from the hospice shop for the last ten years and packaging them up into boxes labelled caravan.  Recently we saw on 'Trade Me' the long awaited 'ONE'...a sprite 400/Elk.  It coincided with a Polish caravaning magazine contacting me to see if they could use the caravan painting  series on my blog for their magazine and on their website.  I had a look at the web site the other day and the work is there but it is all in Polish!  So I have no idea what it says.

I have started work on the caravan....but  it has rained here for about 8 weeks solid.  Mud city.  Here is a photo of the 'baby' just home from Tauranga.  Untouched as yet.

The Bunny's Secret

I have started work again on a series from last year.  The work above has been sold and is now in Europe. This series was a reaction to the death of an elderly neighbour (Marion Squire) who always sat in her front room reading as I walked past.  We never met formally... and I don't think I ever saw her outside in three years.... but I always noticed her there and was interested in the stories she must have had about her life.  She was in her nineties.  I often pondered  her life, as I knew her family owned the land our suburb was on many years ago... it had been the family farm.  The street behind us was named after her family name-'Squire Place'.  She had been the midwife of a local maternity home for over 20 years and was well known amongst older people out Inglewood way.  She passed away last year.  She had no children of her own and had not married.  Her home was sold and many rubbish 'skips' were filled with the contents of her home.... her diaries, craft work (she made lace), photos, travel bits and pieces... just everything went into the skip.  The people in the small cul-de-sac where we lived were horrified but powerless to do anything to even rescue some things for the local museum.  The local museum even has a page in their archives about her -search 'pukeariki+marion squire'  (It is called "A midwife's story).  Anyway, I did undercover of darkness, rescue a children's book with delightful 1950's illustrations.  it reminded me of the old 'Janet and John' children's books from the 1940's and 1950's.  I have used the pictures and text to make a series of banners as a tribute to her.  They are about innocence/youth/naivety but also about betrayal by the people we love/undertones of relationships....I wish I had been braver and gone and met her.

Big changes!

What a ride the last few months have been!  Sold the house... sold the farm.....  brought a new farm....moved the studio ....and resigned from my job as an art teacher!  Going to a teaching job for two terms...teaching little tackers again! (8 and 9 year olds).  First time I will have been in a non permanent job since I started teaching in 1986.  I am looking forward to teaching topic, handwriting, maths, writing etc.....
Art teaching can be a bit like eating 'McDonalds' at every meal.  Nice at first...but the novelty starts to wear off and you crave variety.

Anyway...the new studio is about to be lined with plywood and white washed.  We  are going to polish the concrete floor- and I know it will look cool.  BUT at the moment it looks like this.  AND yes....I AM having issues with it.  Today I moved my table into the house until the studio is done.  It has rained most of the last 7 weeks here.  The house is cosy...so I can work up here and be in denial about the rats and grime in the studio/shed.

Taranaki

This painting was done about ten years ago.  I rediscovered it when we were packing.  It is one I have always kept as representing a particular style in my painting at the time.  Many aspects of it frustrate and annoy me now. However two things captured my interest about it.  One is the Hydrangea flowers which I remember being tricky at the time to do.  The place we are moving was an export flower business.  There are a lot of Hydrangeas there.... did I know something back then?  The other is the shift in my art over the last ten years from representing a scene for the wall (decor art) to making work that has a more conceptual base to it.  Ten years ago I would have looked at this and thought... Hmmm... pretty picture.  Now I look at it and it makes me ponder how I feel about Taranaki.  Is it all  sunny and rosy here?  Has living here changed?  I think it has.  Not the innocent friendly place it was.  I am not sure I agree anymore with the commonly said phrase "great place to bring up kids".  Or is it just that generally there is a more sinister undercurrent now in society as a whole?...or is it just that I am now older and more cynical?

Evil squirrel.

Lately I have been 'reworking' and adding to prints that I have done. I really like sewing on top of the print.  In some of the prints I have just added sewing and in others I have added fabric or plastic or other prints.  I like how the sharp claws of the squirrel 'echo' the jagged sewing lines.  Squirrels....crazy little critters.  This one is real nasty.

The Angel project

Over the last few christmas 'build-ups', the kids and I have made christmas Angels out of old wooden pegs, wallpaper, buttons, ribbon, cushion filling and feathers.  The challenge has been to make them without buying new stuff.  We attached a 'virtue' (google 'virtues project for more information) and a statement about the things we liked about the person we were giving the Angel to.  These were attached to their waist band (see above).

Last Christmas we made extra Angels and decided to go on a drive around town randomly leaving Angels in places where they would be found by strangers.  Some times we stayed to see who found them....but mostly we didn't.  It was fun and we really enjoyed speculating about who may have found them.  Once we ran back and picked up an angel we had just left on a seat outside a supermarket, as we decided she was too vulnerable where we had left her...we were worried who would find her...it was kind of a dodgy, scary area.  She is still here at home.  My youngest daughter has her in her room and gets edgy if we mention leaving the last angel anywhere.