Day 20, 14 April 2020

April 14, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

I spent time in the garden today, cutting back large kawakawa, thinking about where to go from here. Thinking big thoughts, using the rhythm of the sawing to ground me, calm me, soothe me. Make me feel everything will be okay.

Thinking how, despite all the fabulous or awful extraordinary events in our lives, in the end, it's what we do in the ordinary everyday that counts.

It’s the small things that you love, that you return to over and over that makes a life. Saves your life.

[Everyday saviours 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

BESIDE YOU // Day 19, 13 April 2020

April 13, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

It is such a pleasure being so close, learning who it is that you are.

[Beside you, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

IT'S BEAUTIFUL HERE // Day 18, 12 April 2020

April 12, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

I made the first iteration of this artwork in 2018, during a difficult period. A time where I was feeling hemmed in by the small quietness of my life. I wrote the words as a reminder that there was beauty in my ordinary everyday, despite the corner I felt backed into. It was a case of write it down and make it so. The poem is also a loveletter to my home, the town I lived in, and to this country of ours.

3,2,1 CONTACT // Day 17, 11 April 2020

April 11, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

I had the most amazing conversation this afternoon with a young woman who I’d like to call a friend, and is also a relation in the modern sense of the word. She had such wise advice to give me over something I was finding deeply troubling.

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL TO HOLD ON TO // Day 16, 10 April 2020

April 10, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

When I was a child and upset, I’d rub the fabric of a blanket between my finger and thumb. It gave me such comfort. I’d do it if I was sad or scared, sick or in hospital for an operation. I particularly liked the ones with satin edging at the top - the smooth feeling contrasted with the rough of the blanket gave me particular pleasure. Gave me something beautiful to hold on to.

KINTSUGI // Day 15, 9 April 2020

April 09, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

Woke up this morning feeling like I was all in pieces on the floor, like I was grieving something I couldn't name.

Today's been an excercise in making like Humpty Dumpty and putting myself together again.

I dig kintsugi, the Japanese art where you take pottery that is fractured and broken and repair it, making it stronger and more beautiful than what it was before.

I'm kintsugi-ing the fck out of myself right now.

Kintsugi : This unique method celebrates each artifact’s unique history by emphasizing its fractures and breaks instead of hiding or disguising them. In fact, Kintsugi often makes the repaired piece even more beautiful than the original, revitalizing it with a new look and giving it a second life.

[Kintsugi 2020 is availalbe as a limited edition studioprint]

LET GO // DAY 14

April 08, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

Been trying so hard to hold on to who I was before. How I did things before. But, in so many ways, “before” no longer matters.

RETURN TO THE CENTRE // Day 13

April 07, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

Return to the centre.

At the centre is you.

[Return to the centre, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

BLUE PARENTHESES // Day 12

April 06, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

That’s what this lockdown is.

Parentheses.

There’s a life before, a life after, and right now we’re inside the brackets, existing in a slow limbo.

RE-IMAGINING // Day 11, 5 April 2020

April 05, 2020 in 2020, Parentheses

It’s been an excellent and fairly lazy Sunday. Reading. A long and beautiful walk. Excellent food. A couple of hours watching Succession on Netflix. Always in the background though, behind the day-to-day activity, my mind/heart/gut is working on the very necessary re-imagining of what my life, art, business is going to look like now in this suddenly-changed world of ours.