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

THE DAY AFTER THE END // Day 34, 28 April 2020

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Here there is us. One day at a time. Together.

The day after the end, which is just the beginning.

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I made this from the Day 1 , Day 2 and Day 33 artworks because I felt the need to wrap this “parentheses” project up, to make an “end” to this series that means a lot to me, is such a personal illustration of a very important five weeks in my life/our lives.

Yes, we’ve left Level 4 but our lives have still changed, are changing. The world is not as it was, and “as it was” won’t return. We’re all uncertain. It’s still us, one day at at time, together, making our lives up as we go along.

[The day after the end, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

TOGETHER // Day 33, 27 April 2020

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11.59pm tonight marks the end of the Level 4 lockdown in NZ.

Man, we’ve been through some stuff in the last 33 days.

Fabulous dinners followed by Netflix. Zoom calls. Weird supermarket visits. Bad outfits, bad hair. Tears and meltdowns and laughter and love making. Birth and death, and significant birthdays celebrated in the smallness of our bubbles. We’ve been exasperated with those we’re closest to and longed for people we couldn’t touch. We’ve learnt a lot about the people we love most, and likely learnt even more about ourselves.

They say it takes a village to raise a child.  It’s also taken a community of people to get eachother through this lockdown. People we love dearly, and people we’ve never even met but who have said the right word at the right time to help make sense of the uncertainty.

Whatever we’ve been through, we’ve been through together, eh.

For me, together especially and most importantly means my partner and I, in his beautiful home, eating and talking and loving our way through this last 5 weeks. J, your loving steadfastness has made this time in parentheses so beautiful, despite my emotional rollercoastering. There is no one else in the world I would have wanted to do this with.

I also want to say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who have bought downloads and artwork from me during the lockdown. As an artist who makes her entire living from her work, . I cannot tell you how much it means to me that via your support, I’m able to keep living this artist’s life I love, and to keep making work! I literally couldn’t do this without you.

[Together 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint ]

NIGHTMARE // Day 32, 26 April 2020

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The dark side. The flipside. A nightmare I’ve had many times that still terrorises me.

Sitting up in bed, crying silently so as not to disturb my partner more than I already had. Turning the light on briefly to make sure it was J lying there, not the person in my dream. Watching the light play dimly on the wall, willing myself not to go to sleep again. Taking deep breaths to calm down and try to believe the shadows stalking me had stopped when the nightmare did.

It’s hard to describe the fear I felt last night. Actually I don’t want to describe it. It’s a case of if you know you know, and if you don’t know how it is to feel that kind of terror then I don’t ever want you to.

I eventually slept. Woke feeling hopeless and humiliated. It seems that no matter how fcking positive and together and solid I become, I’ll still keep getting dragged back into the trauma of my past.

I’ve felt heavy all day today. Slightly fearful, quite tearful. Decidedly un-together. That’s just how it is. It always takes me a day and a good night’s sleep to recover.

I’d like not to have these nightmares but I do. It’s how life is for me. It may change in the future. Hell, I might not ever have one again. Who knows. But in the meantime, I just gotta accept these nights and shadowed days as part of who I am.

Like I said yesterday, there’s grace to be found in every bit of fear, if you have the strength to look for it. The grace in these heavy hours is that it makes me completely determined to work. I turn to working almost desperately, as a release valve for nearly overwhelming feeling, and/or to make something beautiful in counterpoint to the darkness. I thank god for my ability to express how it is that I feel.

{Nightmare, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

I REMEMBER YOU // Day 31, 25 April 2020

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It’s Anzac Day here in New Zealand, a day when we as a country stand together to remember the fallen soldiers who fought to give us our freedom, and to honour those who came home. While I 100% respect and agree with the sentiment of the day and am of course thankful to those who gave their lives, on this day I also want to remember someone who went to battle in a very different way: my Mum.

She never fought in any world war but jesus she sure fought a war on the homefront. The fire she came under, the hits she took. She was as brave as any soldier. She went to war time and time again for what she believed in: her family.

My mother was a very small woman but when she was riled up, she became 6 foot 4. For me, she fought bureaucracy, she stood up to surgeons, orthodontists and speech therapists when she disagreed with their points of view. She taught me to be strong and to believe in myself, she stood by me, protected me in so many ways. She wasn’t perfect. She was a human being not some sort of god. But what my mother did do was give me all the loving she had. When I was a small girl she promised me she would be with me all the days of my life, and she’s kept her promise. Although she’s gone from this world, she’s still with me. Guiding me and helping me steer my life straight and true.

I love you Mum, and I remember you.

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

CROSSROADS // Day 30, 24 April 2020

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I’ve found in my life so far that there is grace to be found in any kind of grief, trauma or illness - if you can find it in yourself to look for it.

The enforced slowness of the last four weeks has given me the grace of breathing space, time to really think about the where/what/who/how of my life. The places in which I want to change it up, the areas I just want to shore it up.

Despite - or maybe because of - all the constriction and uncertainty within the parentheses of this lockdown, there’s an opportunity for marvelous re-invention. And damn, I got enough Lady Gaga in me to always be up for that.

The desire for that internal reshaping quite naturally leads to a crossroads because in choosing a new path forward, you necessarily have to discount other possible roads.

So here I am, sitting in the centre of my internal landscape, wondering which way to go, There are decisions to be made in both my working and personal life, in relation to the way I operate within myself and in the way I operate in the wider world. The pressure I’ve been putting on myself to make the right decisions, the fierce thinking I”ve been doing in order to force my own hand……this way that way right way wrong way which way... until my head feels like it’s exploding.

Thing is, the best decisions I’ve ever made have been arrived at by putting aside my fiercely over-thinking brain and finding the courage to listen to my heart.

She always steers me true.

[Crossroads 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

THE IMPORTANCE OF THINGS WE CANNOT SEE // Day 29, 23 April 2020

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The delicate threads

of love and longing

that bind us ,

that our hearts move toward

and beat for.

The importance of things

we cannot see.

[The importance of things we cannot see, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

QUIETLY, AND IN THE MORNING // Day 28, 22 April 2020

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This morning, while my partner and I were lying together watching the light brighten through the skylights above our bed, he said such beautiful things to me. I was silent as he said his words, paying fierce attention with my head heart body. They’re words I don’t want to forget. This is a feeling I don’t want to forget. So I made this drawing.

I’ve said a lot during this lockdown about the difficulty/struggle/tears but not much about how gentle and beautiful it is here with him. Partly because I wanted to keep it close to my chest for a while, partly because I often need to clear away all the difficult feelings before I can acknowledge the wonderful ones. And also very much because I often feel the difficult and the wonderful simultaneously, and it seems more important somehow to say what’s difficult because there’s so much pretending on social, so many “living your best life” grids that don’t reflect the actual.

The pink in the drawing is the flush on your cheeks when you wake. The words you said aren’t just remembered by these marks I made, they’re writ right down deep inside me. You light me up, you make me feel safe. Your voice, quiet in my ear and so very English, is one of the joys of my life.⁠

[Quietly and in the morning, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

X // Day 27, 21 April 2020

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After many attempts at making a drawing of something beautiful today, after really wanting to say something lovely and gentle and happy and sweet, it just didn't happen. I drew and drew and drew and nope, nothing worked. I kept going and going until the light went but what I ended up with was this X.

Deep red and rough as guts.

Maybe I was trying too hard to do something nice. Trying too hard to be positive and fcking fabulous and grateful for all the things I'm meant to be grateful for right now when actually maybe if I'm honest that's not how I'm feeling.

Maybe this is me putting a big red X over all the B.S.

[PS: Excuse the muddy incorrectly sized picture. Photoshop kept crashing tonight so this is direct from my phone. Apparently my scratch disks are full. YES I googled and no that did NOT help. I still couldn't work out what to do. And YES you're right, how did you guess, I AM off to eat chocolate and watch Netflix. FML.]

[ X 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]

UNION // Day 26, 20 April 2020

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At 4pm today, like most of us in the country, I imagine, I listened to our incredible Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern & the Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, deliver the news about the state of play regards Level 4/Level 3 of this lockdown. I felt incredibly proud to be a New Zealander. And I thought:

Here we are.

United by love.

United by blood.

United by the things we believe in.

Union.

[Union, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint.]