Under the cover of stars, 2021

Under the cover of stars, 2021

I made the first iteration of this artwork in 2013, for a show I had at Te Manawa [Musuem for Art and Science]. It was in black and white. I had a framed copy up in the studio this year, and photographed that, leaving the reflection of the studio windows in it, changing the shadows to deep red. I like the extra layers. It feels appropriate to add more depth to the image, corresponding to the years that have passed between then and now. The red in this image represents desire, hot and excellent. The blue is the colour of my partner’s eyes.

This whole artwork’s about desire. I’ve worked hard for my desire. For it to be mine and not someone elses.

It’s about the excitement and delight I find in truly being able to let go in the privacy of a dark and quiet room. To be able to open up in a both a physical and emotional sense, it’s such a beautiful thing. This time, darkness is my friend.

Stay, 2021

I made this as a kinda wish for things to be as beautiful as they are right now, for always. They say if you write it down, it’ll happen… I’m going with that theory :-) .

Stay is a photograph I took of a detail of a much larger artwork made on canvas, for a commission. I initially made the photograph as a record of texture and colour, and because the word just resonated with me on that particular day. Later, I came back to the photograph, and decided it worked beautifully as a work in it’s own right. I like the awkward composition, the roughness in texture, the off-balance imperfection.

Doing all the ings with you, 2021

Doing all the ings with you, 2021

I was alone for over a decade. I had lovers and a boyfriend or two, but no one to share my life with, to be beside. One of the most enchanting things about now being with J.O is the domestics we do together. This artwork’s for you, J.O. I love doing all the INGS with you.

The stream-of-consciousness words I handwrote in pencil over the top of the photographic print are as follows:

Fcking. Loving. Kissing. Trying. Buying. Reading. Laughing. Sleeping. Eating. Emailing. Cooking. Texting. Barfing. Talking. Walking. Showering. Shopping. TV-ing. Washing. Gardening. Dressing. Undressing. Crying. Cuddling. Joking. Grieving. Delighting. Did I say fcking?⁠ ⁠

Guess I saved the best ‘til last, eh.

24/7 365 [OG] 2021

24/7 365 [OG], 2021

24/7 365. That’s how I love him. Simple as that. As ordinary as that.

Your partner, your mother, your child, your vocation, your homeland. Whoever or whatever it is that you love, it’s all day every day forever. It’s the nature of loving: It makes marks on your heart, and deep.

Love is often thought of as transitory. An I-loved-her-and-now-I-don’t kinda thing. But I don’t subscribe to that. I had a marriage once. I was with him for 13 years. I loved him deeply, with all my young heart. We’re not together anymore and haven’t been for over a decade. Jesus christ there’s some troubled water under that bridge! But that love, that history, I carry with me. The marks [beautiful and not] that relationship made on me are right down deep in my body, for always. 24/7 365.

And BTW, I don’t mean at all to suggest loving is easy. The 24/7 365 I’m talking about ain’t some sugarcoated fantasy. Quite the contrary. Love is often difficult. Returning again and again to that love when the going gets tough the hardest thing of all. That’s where the rough raw edges of the artwork come in - to symbolise the rough raw edges of loving. The big bold numbers are how I love - big and bold and boots and all.

I painted this on dress linen. Layer after layer of blackboard-green paint until it the fabric became a canvas. Then painted the numbers simple as a child would. Drew around with them pencil and darker green, to make the numbers pop like I tried to when I was at school.

At intermediate I had a marvellous teacher, Mrs Nicholson. I adored her. She was the first person in my life outside of my family to make me feel seen. Make me feel like I was worth something in the world. I clearly remember trying to draw 3D letters in her class, trying to impress her. I remember her throwing the chalk across the room to hit the head of someone not listening. She was a good aim. This artwork is for you, Mrs Nicholson. Thank you for seeing me. Making this artwork made me feel like I was in your classroom again. I always did love the green of your blackboard.

It hurts same as it ever did, 2021

It hurts same as it ever did, 2021

This artwork is an important part of the ‘these ordinary days’ collection: it’s the dark counterpoint to the joy and light in the rest of the show. Grief and significant trauma is part of my history. No matter how far we move forward in this life, we carry our history with us. It’s how things roll, eh.

Most days I’m good. My life is mostly bloody excellent actually . But some days I fall to pieces with the pain of remembering, and I almost can’t bear to be back there in those old dark places. I painted this artwork on one of those days.

Wrote the words on an old velvet jacket I stapled roughly to my studio wall. I was in tears when I did it, felt like I was drowning in sadness. Felt like I was back to square one, back through all the years and in the thick of the pain. It helped, to go through the process of making the work, to express how I felt, to admit how I felt. Admit that it still hurts, same as it ever did.

SELF-PORTRAIT 13 JANUARY 2021

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Self portrait in my writing room, 12 January 2021

Here I am. This is me.

It’s been a long road to get here. Thirty years and counting.

Every single day I peel back the layers, trying to tell the truth of myself, in word and image.

Success to me is defined as knowing who it is that I am, really and truly, in continuing to hone my ability to express that self in my work, and in every day making the choices that create a life for myself that allows me to be who I am.

Knowing who it is that you are and living a life that illustrates that seems a simple goal, eh. But it takes a lifetime to achieve.

“Who it is that you are” is combination between that right-down-deep centre, and the choices you make that shape you as you live your years. We are defined by our choices. What we choose to let go of, just as much as what we choose to keep.

Right now on 13 January 2021, I’m choosing this photograph to represent my self.

It shows, in plain terms, all that I’ve been through, all the choices I’ve made to this point. The evidence is in the lines and scars and shape of my face, in the expression in my eyes, the way I'm holding my mouth, the set of my shoulders, the cut of my hair and dress. In the circle I wear at my neck, which I found in a carpark and which I think is a child’s bangle. It’s beautiful and it represents my belief in putting myself firmly at the centre of my own life.

There is no doubt we hold our history within us, writ so deep we are forever marked by it. The important thing to remember is that we hold our future within us too. I for one am so looking forward to that future.

Our rabbit, 2020

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Our rabbit, 2020

OUR RABBIT, 2020⁠

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"Our rabbit" is part of the collection of HOME2020 because home for me is a place to find the courage to be open. Vulnerable. Child-like. Soft. This artwork is a celebration of vulnerability. ⁠

⁠

⁠I find passion easy - being fierce and strong I can do. Am good at. Desire is instinctual. But the willingness show my soft side, show it to another, show it to you, show the parts of myself most easily hurt, it doesn’t come easy, and therefore really is, for me, a mark of strength. ⁠

⁠

I made this artwork purposefully large in scale. Taking a private and quiet emotion, making it large for all to see. Standing up proud in my vulnerability. I've made marks surrounding his outline with pencil: gentle and raw lines to echo how it is that I feel. I've coloured in his nose with pink pencil, as a child might do.⁠

⁠⁠It feels extremely private, showing this artwork. I feel a bit naked about it. But in allowing it to be seen in a public fashion, I'm standing up for a part of myself I find difficult to own. Making artwork which represents that part, then having the courage to show it, is reinforcing the that that part exists at all, is telling myself that being gentle soft vulnerable child-like is okay. It’s taken me a more than a decade of deep internal work to get to this place - to a place where gentle bunnies exist in the place of dark shadow. ⁠ ⁠

⁠It's miraculous to me, the person I am now. A person who instead of being caught in the loops of the past, is free to live and love in the present. Free to revel in the marshmallow beauty of a plastic lamp made for children. ⁠

I've fought so hard to no longer have to fight. So you betcha I'm gonna show that to ya, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me feel.

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“our rabbit’ taped up in my studio

LOVE ME A BIT OF FLUORO TUBING

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Oh god, when Georgie sent this photograph through to me, it made me SO happy! Look closely, and you’ll see she’s inserted you feel like home into the space behind existing fluoro tubing. Such an excellent idea! I’d love a bit of tubing in my studio… watch this space, lol.

How sweet is the wee scooter, in relation to the words - as I say so many times, context is EVERYTHING. The old scooter in context with you feel like home suggests that both her childhood and that the child living in this home are what makes home for Georgie… hell, I don’t even know if a child lives in this house, but that’s what I’m vibing from the photograph…

That’s why I freaking love seeing my work in situ, and also creating exhibitions which place my work in an environment: because the place artwork is seen in completely alters the meaning. Imagine the same print, seen above a bed in an adult’s room - see how you go into a different place in your head as to the meaning?

Thanks, Georgie, for saying yes to me using this photograph, and for making such a beautiful shot!

I decided to accept as true my own thinking

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First day back to the studio after a week spent celebrating my 50th birthday. It was a beautiful magical excellent seven days. It seems entirely appropriate this morning that I post this quote by Georgia O’Keefe, which I keep on my studio wall.

I decided to accept as true my own thinking.

Now that I’ve spent five decades on this earth, it's more and more to myself I turn for what I think is beautiful, and for what I think is true.

I'm constantly inspired by the world and the people in it. The people I love are beside me always [in spirit when not in flesh]. I'm lucky enough to have mentors I look up to and learn from, both artistically and in business. But for decisions about action and direction, in my artwork and in life, the final word these days is always mine.

Hashtag took me long enough.

The invisible threads of love and longing.

We imagine we can control so much don’t we. We concentrate so hard on the seen world. The things we create, the caring of our chidlren, the dinners we cook, he cat coughing up furballs in the corner.

But all the things that really matter, that we love and long for and our heart moves towards, are invisible.

The ties that bind us, the longing for someone we love and no longer have with us, the child in pain and on another island.

Even with artwork like mine, such a concrete thing [even when viewed online, it’s still a thing] it’s how we feel when we look at it, the relationship [association] we feel between the artwork and our lives, that really matters, not the object. I remember standing in the Wellington City Art Gallery many years ago, looking at a Seraphine Pick artwork of a child falling slowly back onto a bed, that brought me to tears. Looking at a blue I’d never seen Colin McCahon use before and being overcome. It’s not the object itself that I loved, it was the feeling it made me have. Of course, the lovely and crucial thing about artwork is that all of that IS CONTAINED in the work itself - that’s why you want to have it in your life, because you can return again and again to the feeling, to the association. It’s a vehicle for feeling.

We so often concentrate so hard on the material in this world, at the expense of all we can’t see, that is what really matters. THis lockdown has given me breathing room. To think of what it really is I want from this life, and what really mattesr. To ahve the time to think my own thoughts about what is true, to think about what it is that I really want.

I’ve been working for a month away from my home/studio, not even in the same town. While I’m looking forward to getting back to my painting studio, and to being able to send out work and my beautiful workroom, it’s made me realise it isn’t as important as I’d thought it was. I’ve made serious inroads into working in new territory artisitically in the last month and waht a joy it is.

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I was on my daily walk around the hilly streets, thinking thinking thinking about which way I want to go. Head down, walking fast, I barely noticed the birdcalls and the teddybears in the windows. Then right there in front of me on the footpath was the most beautiful child’s drawing of two people holding hands with big smiles on their faces. It pulled me up short, made me wish I had my phone to photograph it. As I stood and looked, I thought how, once again, I’m being reminded that it’s connection that matters. It’s enjoying right here right now that’s importnat