Layby: how some of the best art collections in the world have been made.
EVERYDAY SAVIOURS // Day 20, 14 April 2020
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
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
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.
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.
These words seems so exactly right for right now, for all of us doing it tough smack in the middle of this lockdown, that I felt compelled to make a new version to offer out to anyone who wants it. I’m not a frontline worker in any shape or form, but I wanted to do something. This is it. A wee bit of art to help you remember that, if you look for it, beauty can be found right where you are, even in the smallest of places.
“it’s beautiful here
in this small room
in this small town
in this small country
at the edge
of the world.”
[It’s beautiful here, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
3,2,1 CONTACT // Day 17, 11 April 2020
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.
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. I talked, she listened & offered advice & perspective only a person of her generation could give. I feel so much better. Thank you, C!
Connection is everything. Making genuine contact. Even through the a phone call, genuine connection can be made, if your hearts are open and your words are true.
3,2,1 contact. It’s the reason that everything happens… [anyone else remember that show?]
[3,2,1 contact 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL TO HOLD ON TO // Day 16, 10 April 2020
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.
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.
Guess what we’ve got on our bed right now? Yep, you guessed right. I find such gentle certainty in its weight and texture, in its imperfect squares. Thank you, dear blanket.
[Something beautiful to hold on to, 2020 is availalbe as a limited edition studioprint]
KINTSUGI // Day 15, 9 April 2020
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
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.
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.
On 24th March, when I heard the announcement that we’d being going to Level 4 lockdown in NZ, I had a very clear sense of there being a most definite “before” and “after” - especially in relation to my work. Not that the work I did before wasn’t “good”, but just that it’s the work I would do from now on that would have much more relevance in this new world of ours.
Much of the struggle of the last two weeks since lockdown began has been an unconscious desire to hold on to what was, because at least I knew what “was” looked like. Thing is, “was” is gone.
It’s always scary to let go of something/someone/your self when you got no new thing/one/self to go to. I wanted to re-imagine/re-think/re-create myself in response to what is so obviously a deeply changed global landscape, but I was scared. So I held on for grim life [a turn of phrase perfectly suited to those days] to how I’d operated before, and couldn’t move forward. Instead I felt in limbo, inside the blue parentheses of 6 April [Day 12].
My friend Johnny said to me on the phone this morning, “all of the past is yours, and of your own making.” He was referring to the old patterns/the old stories we all tell ourselves.
It occurred to me this afternoon that he was completely right, and also that if the past was all of my own making, then ALL OF MY FUTURE IS TOO.
Just gotta let go the old stories to allow room for the new ones to be made.
Hashtag watch this space.
[Let go 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
RETURN TO THE CENTRE // Day 13
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
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.
Parentheses: the symbols [ ] that are put around a word, phrase or sentence in a piece of writing to show that what is inside them should be considered as separate from the main part.
Cambridge Dictionary
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.
I know of course the life that came before, it’s trying to re-imagine the shape of my life/work/self after that’s leaving me uncharacteristically sleepless.
[Parentheses 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
RE-IMAGINING // Day 11, 5 April 2020
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.
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.
For me, perhaps more than most, due to the very personal nature of my artwork and the fact I earn 100% of my income from it, that also means a close examination of who I am, of who I want to be going forward, of who I think it is possible to be.
Right now, like all of us on the planet, I have no firm ideas of what the shape of my work/life/self will be in the next few months. However, it’s my job, over the next few weeks, to find out.
I’m approaching the task of this re-imagining of work/life/self exactly like I’ve approached the creation of any exhibition I’ve made in the last thirty years:
Listen with my heart and gut to what I feel is the right direction to go in,
back that up with sound planning,
execute those plans to the very best of my ability,
show the result to the world,
see where the chips land.
Succeed or fail.
Take a breath.
Start the process all over again.
One foot in front of the other.
One step at a time.
I’m not implying for a second this process is easy. Despite the fact I’ve done this for thirty years, it’s still scary as fck. Just because I’ve walked this tightrope for three decades doesn’t make it any less frightening to putting my self on the line, to push myself to my limit in order to explore new territory. Especially now that there’s way more at stake than usual. It’s not only my heart and artistic ego that’s on the line this time. It’s also my economic future.
But you know what, I am most def up for this re-imagining challenge. Like so many artists, I’m good when my back’s against the wall, and the pressure is on to create something out of nothing.
x
[Re-imagining 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
Word/
feeling/
entry/
drawing.
Every day,
2025.