WHAT IS DEEP WITHIN US IS WRITTEN ALL OVER US

Portrait of L, 2018

I’ve been sitting with the photographs I made of L for a few weeks now. I’ve come to really like this one. The photograph combines her gentle kindness with her fierce strength, and those are the very characteristics I see in her. And I just wanna keep looking into her eyes: I can see her history there.

We all carry our history with us, eh.

In our bodies,

in our faces,

in the stories we tell ourselves.

What is deep within us is written all over us.

That’s why how we present on the outside is in no way skin-deep.

BOUQUET

Scribbles on my bedroom wall, 2018

I completed a very difficult task today. Difficult for me, anyway. I’ve been stressing over this for weeks. And I mean weeks.

Yesterday I hit a low point and I lay in the bath paralysed with fear and felt like running away and giving up. Giving up the idea I had. Giving up on bloody everything. With help from a dear friend and my business coach, I saw my fear for what it was. Just fear. Old fear. Old stories. Flight, fight, freeze. A classic pattern I’ve rerun nearly my whole life.

BUT I was able to get over my fear and I bloody well did it. I DID IT. I freaking did it! This thing I did is a milestone for me. Regardless of the outcome. Jesus wept getting over my fear is success already.

In the rush of excitement after completion, I grabbed a bit of charcoal, literally ran into my bedroom and drew on the walls like a child. God, the welcome release. We all it need it, eh. Release.

Plus. Bonus. I’m not gonna get told off for scribbling because I’m my own woman, and I can do what I want.

Jesus I feel good.

I feel good.

I watched Broadchurch last night. One of the characters talked about not letting the people who have hurt you win. Not letting fear win. Not letting darkness win. Today was one of those days where I felt like I freaking triumphed against all that damn bs. I won.

Yeah for sure I’ve won the battle and not necessarily the war but hey all you can ever do is try from one moment to the next. Keep putting one foot in front of the other with clear intention and you get somewhere you wanna be.

Thanks JR.

Thanks, T.

I couldn’t have done this alone.

None of us can, eh.

It’s always love and connection that saves us in the end.

Sleep well, I am still here.

"sleep well I am still here x", in situ in the exhibition, A private view, 2018.

Mother's Day is approaching.  Fast.  Advertisements left right and centre telling me I should buy my mother a present to show her how much I care.   Thing is, I can't.  Because she's not here. 

I don't believe much in Mother's Day but every year I took a deep breath and wished  my Mum well, because the acknowledgement mattered to her.  This year, I can't text her in the morning, or sigh as I drive over to Palmy yet again, gritting my teeth about buying into this transparently commercial invention.   She's dead and all the flowers and cheesy Mother's Day cards  in the world won't bring her back. 

It feels painful, to see all these bloody adverts.  Continuous small pricks in my sensitive skin.

I'm genuinely happy for everyone who's got their mum around and can celebrate with her.  Bathe in the love!  Which is why I'm posting this today, and not on Saturday.  I don't wanna get in the way of all that good cheer.

But I know there are also plenty of us without our mums.  Or without whoever it is that we've lost.  

It's eight months and I still cry sometimes. I still miss her so very much.  I don't cry every night though, and that's a win.  Quite often now there are hours in my day of feeling happy, and for that I'm grateful.  In the early days I didn't think happiness was possible.  In fact I remember someone I went on a date with asking me if I was happy, and I started crying right there and then in the restaurant, because happiness seemed such an abstract and distant idea.  I didn't get a second date. Lol.  But time and distance does wonders and I'm not so numb now.  I laugh with my mates, and go to the movies and am getting on with my work and I like that. 

But this fcking Mother's Day advertising  is making the grief feel real fresh, like how it was when I made this artwork, sleep well I am still here x , for an exhibition I had earlier this year, A private view.  

Installation view of the bedroom of A private view, with sleep well I'm still here, x on the wall above the bed.

I make artwork for all sorts of reasons.  This  one was made to give me comfort. 

Because I desperately needed her, needed to feel her with me. 

And those words, sleep well I am still here, are exactly what she'd text me, if she could. 

Sleep well I am still here x, 2018.  

The fine patterns on the artwork came from a cross-stitch pattern and my great-grandmother and Nana did cross-stitch and I thought, I'll put them in the artwork too, and then I'll have three generations of women with me as I sleep.

The thing is, it really did give me comfort.  I'd walk into my bedroom during the month of the show and see the artwork, and feel her with me.  I'd lay down exhausted in my bed, tears rolling down my cheeks, and I'd feel like she was saying sleep well, I'm still here to me and it'd calm me down and make me feel like everything would be okay.  As she always said, sleep is a great healer.  Go to sleep and in the morning, things will feel better, she'd always say. And she was right.  

We all do what it takes during difficult times to get us through. 

The making of this artwork, and having it beside me these few months, has been a big part of what got me through these last months.  Strike that tense.  What gets me through.

Since the show I've moved rooms but I took the artwork with me.  It's not hung yet.  It sits beside my bed, leaned up against the brown paper and just underneath the random white stripe I painted.  I look at it as I go to bed and as I wake.  On the days [like today] where all I want to do is to curl up and stay in bed and not face anything or anyone, knowing she's with me helps me find the strength to get up and have a shower and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I feel so fortunate to have had her as a mother.  To her near me now.  To feel her strongly still. 

I talked to her in the bath for an hour and a half the other night.  I don't know whether she was listening... she was probably off in some damn fine cafe way up there, talking to someone she hardly knows, finding out all the details of their life, just like she always did.  Regardless, I told her all my worries, all my ideas for the future.  Asked her advice.  Went to bed, looked at the artwork, drifted to sleep imagining her stroking my hair like when I was a child.  It was lovely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sad every moment.  Life is good.  I have work I love.  I have friends and family and my son who I love strongly madly and deeply.  I have Seth, my old faithful mate.  I live in a lovely house, in a lovely town. My body is healthy, my brain is sharp and I'm still pretty good at telling funny stories and being a dick and making people laugh, when I'm in the mood.  

The fact I'm grieving doesn't make life less good. 

Grief is part of life.  Light and shadow all at once, mofos.  As Neil Finn said, four seasons in one day.

The other day, I made another version of the artwork.  A simpler plainer bolder one. 

Sleep well I am still here, studioprint. 2018

I made it because a woman came to the show and didn't have it in her budget to buy the limited-edition exhibition print asked if I'd make a studioprint version.   She was a lovely woman and so I said yes.  I wanted her to feel the person who was gone from her was still there with her.  I wanted her to have comfort, too.  

Mum.  You're always with me.  Always will be. 

I miss you like crazy but I'm glad you're not in pain. 

Your strength and courage and love are my scaffold. 

Thank you for staying by my side. 

Doodles

Doodle, 8 May 2018

Today has been a very long one. 

Orders to the lab. Answering emails. Making decisions. Making plans for exhibitions.  Making progress on work in progress. Paying bills.  Coffee with a friend. Working out.  Making dinner.  Cleaning the sink.  Not doing the dishes and feeling guilty but deciding writing’s more important than dishes.  That’s how my life rolls.  You know how it is. 

In the middle of this busy busy day, I made some time to do a doodle. 

Do you know how marvellous it felt to have that stick in my hand, and draw that wobbly gold line?  It was freedom. It was making a mark without intent.  For no reason except I wanted to, and if felt good to me.  

Whether or not the doodle becomes the basis for any artwork is irrelevant.  What matters is that I enjoyed it.  Scrap that.  I delighted in making those marks.  Delight is a very special thing to feel. 

Usually delight is left to children.  Us grownups have apparently got more important things to do than explore what delights them.  What a miserable way to live. 

I make time for delight. 

Even if it’s only five minutes.  

That five minutes can carry me through a day otherwise consisting of stress and worry and boredom and making other people happy. 

Let’s hear it for delight. 

And for doodles. 

Doodles rule.

Comfortable in my skin

In my favourite t-shirt, May 2018.

I was telling someone at training yesterday how I like to look in the mirror as I train.  Two reasons. One is because I like to see if I’m doing the movements right.  Second reason is because I think I look real good.  Not joking.  I enjoy seeing my solid healthy body move.  My face contort and sweat.  I have been working for about five years to get as fit as I am now.  It’s never been about achieving a certain weight or body shape. I couldn’t give two flying fks what the scales say.  It’s always been about how marvellous training makes me feel - both enjoying the process of hitting and moving and lifting and sweating, and the clarity of my headspace afterwards.  

These days I feel strong and solid and, thanks to my continued and consistent effort at the marvellous environment that is Iron Alley, my body also looks in the best shape it’s been since I was about twenty.  

How can I not feel fortunate to have a body which is healthy and can move?  

How can I not look at my face, with it’s feelings and years written all over it, and feel pleased? 

Yeah mate, I’ve got scars on my face and on my body and kinda flat nose and, these days, wrinkles.  So what?  Yeah I’ve got a wobbly tummy.  So what?  I like myself this way.  

I genuinely like the way I look and most importantly, I like the way I feel.  

Strong. 
Clear.  

I am comfortable, finally, in my own skin.  

Jesus christ it feels good.  

[Thanks so much Iron Alley for making such  beautiful atmosphere, and for making this woman who couldn’t do one sit-up unassisted and had never done any sport or real movement with her body believe that she could.  I can’t quite explain how much this journey has meant to me./]

The lovely boys, from a long time ago

The lovely boys, on my lounge wall.

I made this photograph in 1991.  It hung in my mother’s house for a coupla decades.  I’ve just hung it in my lounge. 

I love this photograph. 

I called it The Lovely Boys because they were my flatmate’s sons best friends, and they were wild, and lovely.

This photograph, it reminds me where I started from. 

I was 21 and heavily influenced by Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. 

My favourite thing about it - apart from the dirty beauty of the boys - is the spit on the lip of the boy on the right. As a portrait photographer for over two decades, I  was always looking for someone’s beauty, but as well I was looking for that extra thing within an image that couldn’t be constructed.  Like the spit on the lip of the boy. 

I’ve begun to miss people’s faces and what I saw there. 

Maybe it’s because for the first time in about thirty years, I’m living on my own.  Maybe it’s the deep connection I generally formed with my portrait subjects that I miss. 

It is such an honour, when someone trusts you enough to open up in front of you.  Let’s you see inside.

The lovely boys, closeup of print. 2018

See ya later

It's beautiful here at the edge, 2018 [original] with my workroom in the background.

And so, the original “it’s beautiful here at the edge” has sold. It’s off to Nelson on Monday.

It’s new owner, B, has children and so I worked with my framer to come up with a solution to make it kid-proof and now it has a double frame and kick-ass museum glass. God it looks good.

I told B that if she hadn’t already bought it, I may have kept it for myself… you can see every imperfect mark through the high quality glass and I love it.

Anyways, I’ve spent this arvo saying goodbye to it before I packaged it… I did weird things like take photos of it with me and in various positions. Yep, I am quite fcking odd…

Me and my artwork...

Then I packaged it... including hand-sewing corners onto it to protect the frame… Got all Rapunzel and pricked my finger and while I was sewing thought just how very lucky I am to be living this artist’s life. I actually get to spend time hand-sewing a corner in my favourite red-thread :-).

Check out the blood...

The last photo in this sequence is the end result of the the packaging… and it hasn’t even got the box on it yet! Safe to say this artwork is wrapped fairly well…

I’m going to miss having this artwork around but I’m also so pleased it’s found such good home. Thanks B, for deciding it was right for your family. And you might want to allow yourself a fair bit of time for the unwrapping. LOL.

A damn fine morning

http://www.fleurwickes.co.nz/studio-prints-2011-2017/its-beautiful-here-at-the-edge-2017

Been feeling sick as a dog for two days. Bad headache, shivery then hot.  You know how a bad cold goes. 

Dragged myself out of bed this morning and into my workroom.  I was rewarded by seeing the most beautiful light hitting this artwork. 

Not only that, two lovely women came to pick up the print they’d bought of this artwork.  They’d bought one for their neighbour, too.  J and S brought their neighbour to my place and she had no idea why she was here until I showed her this artwork hanging on the wall and said, this is the gift they’ve bought you.  L was overwhelmed and I got tears in my eyes. 

It was so lovely to witness the friendship between the three women. 

There is NOTHING like the friendship between women.  The strength and comfort and understanding and love and safety within it makes the world feel like such damn fine place. 

Amazingly enough, buoyed by the lovely interaction this morning, I hardly feel sick at all now… although I may be crawling back to bed this afternoon, lol.  

A new perspective

Something beautiful I found it here, [blackboard], 2015  // lightbox.  

I’ve been doing a helluva lot of thinking lately - thinking about the shape I want to be in now, the shape of my work and life and love. 

You know those times where the possibilities seem endless and you think you could just up and change everything. 

I’ve been frustrated and lonely and wobbly and not feeling strongly my self, and looking everywhere but inside for the solution.  Thinking a new man or a new home or a new studio or a new town might be the solution. 

The last few days  it’s dawned on me that I like my life pretty much as it is here in this beautiful small wee gentle place.  My life is quiet and deeply felt and slowly unfolding at a pace which feels good to me.  I’m grieving and living and loving and laughing.  Sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the light. 

I’m determined to find what’s beautiful in the righthererightnow rather than imagining that perfect life over the rainbow and giving up everything I have built to reach for something that’s not even real.  There is no perfect life.  No greener grass.  You can leave and travel and go somewhere new and have the best new romance, but the thing is you always take your self with you, and all the difficult parts you don’t like eventually show themselves.  Once again. 

Your self is the thing you gotta get square with. 

Forget Everest. Turning and looking inside yourself, prepared to face what you see there, that’s biggest challenge of all.  And where the most wildly freeing change can occur. 

And so, here I am this morning, rearranging my front room, continuing on at my snail’s pace, pushing my work and self forward each and every day.  I didn’t leave town, I didn’t get a big studio or a new home.  Instead I brought an old lightbox I did a few years ago out of storage.  Setup a new table I can draw on, watch the river and the world go by from.  It’s beautiful isn’t it.  And it didn’t cost a cent. 

I’m in exactly the same place but I feel like I’ve moved a thousand miles from the stuckness  I’ve been in for weeks. 

Fuck . Perspective is everything.

http://www.fleurwickes.co.nz/studio-prints-2011-2017/something-beautiful-i-found-it-here-blackboard-2015

IT’S A KIND OF LOVE SONG, 2018 [for you, N]

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It's a kind of love song, 2018 [for you, N]  // detail

I completed this painting this morning. 

Well, it’s more of a drawing in paint than a “painting” in the conventional sense of the word. 

Seen in entirety, and in the light of the world rather than a screen, it is delicate and quiet, just like my feelings about this beautiful moment in time are.  It’s taken me two years to make a bit of work that fit the feelings I have for this, that suits the memory. 

The words go like this: 

When we stand

together

your hips

meeting mine

my fingertips gently

in the groove your spine makes

your hands flat

at the small of my back

when we stand up like that

together in the sunshine

it draws everything that’s important

between our two bodies close

it’s a kind of love song.

I’ve used the words “it’s a kind of love song” before.  In an artwork for my mother, as the title of the show I did for her.  In that artwork, the words had so much sadness wrapped up in them, because jesus christ when someone is dying you feel your love for them like a song but equally keenly feel the loss so dark and heavy.

This time, in this artwork, the words are light and gentle because standing in that sunshine with him that particular day was just one of those moments I don’t think I’ll ever forget it was so beautiful.  Thanks, N, for those years we had.  I don’t miss you anymore but damn the memories are good.