Layby: how some of the best art collections in the world have been made.
I WANTED TO TELL YOU // Day 6, 31 March 2020
I woke up heavy and down, despite waking up to my lovely partner. Forced myself to get up and put on my workout gear. Went for a walk around the streets. I began quite tearful, my head full of feeling locked in by the lockdown: fck all this smallness.
I woke up heavy and down, despite waking up to my lovely partner. Forced myself to get up and put on my workout gear. Went for a walk around the streets. I began quite tearful, my head full of feeling locked in by the lockdown: fck all this smallness.
As my body moved though, climbing stairs and steeps paths, my head began to clear. I saw cute chickens clucking, gentle flowers swaying, adolescent kereru playing silly buggers, and a particularly gorgeous house putting its shoulders back and showing itself off very well in the sunshine. By the time I got home I felt good enough to smash out a workout which left me feeling sweaty and wonderful. The day continued well, with yum food for lunch and a lovely woman calling me to discuss some work we're going to do once this rahui is done. Last but most definitely not least, I may or may not have participated in some very delicious sunshiney kisses.
It was a bloody good day, and I had my arms wide open to receive all the beauty and warmth that came my way. I soaked it all in. I'll take all the happiness I can get right now, because no matter how you look at it, this corner's a tough one.
I wanted to tell you
love
that
happiness
is found
in the
smallest
of
corners.
++++
[I wanted to tell you, 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
HOME, DAY 5, 30th March 2020
All of a sudden, for all of us in New Zealand [and around the world] home means something so much more than it did.
All of a sudden, for all of us in New Zealand [and around the world] home means something so much more than it did.
Sanctuary. Safety. Refuge. Comfort. Love. Delight. All of those things for sure. But home is also now a place we are required to be in, and not leave, except for shopping, essential work, short walks. Regardless of the emotional landscape within our walls [excepting cases of the horrible violence I hope very few of us have to ever face], we are required to stay put. Screaming children, fighting adults, bickering teens. Whatever. We have lost something essential. A freedom we took for granted. That loss is so heavy that no wonder so many of us are struggling.
I'm in a loving and beautiful relationship, we're in a gorgeous warm dry home, I am financially okay [thanks NZ government], I've got no small children to look after [you parents with small children will need medals after this], my son is safe and secure with his father, my family are all okay, my dog is being looked after by a wonderful woman back in Whanganui. My mental health is okay, my body is fit and healthy. And, crucially, I’m still able to do my work. The thing that offers me such relief and release. I am so freaking fortunate. And my heart still hurts. I”m still struggling. I can only imagine how incredibly difficult it is for so many people.
I sat in the supermarket underground carpark for about an hour this afternoon. I'd gone with my partner to do our shopping. I'd wanted to be out in the world around people more than I'd wanted the food. We got to the queue only to be told it was one person per household/bubble. My partner is the cook so it made sense that he go in. I went and sat in the car and waited. I hadn't brought my phone. So I sat there and waited, and cried. I felt caged. Restricted. A big heavy weight on my chest. As the minutes passed, I stopped my sorry-for-myself tears and did deep breathing and really just slowed myself down. I thought of my mother and the pain she endured when she was dying, how she fought every bloody day to sit in her chair and watch the birds feeding, to wave at the neighbours as they walked by. To text her children and keep in the loop of their lives. I thought how her world got smaller and smaller and how she just kept fighting, and also kept accepting that this was how life was for her now, even with all the new indignities.. This four weeks I [we] am being asked to stay at home is nothing compared to that.
I realised half the difficulty I've been having is that I've been holding so tightly to how things were "before". Things aren't as they were and no amount of wishing will make it so. It's time to let go of "before". To accept that right now my life is very small. That for the next few coming weeks, it revolves around these walls I"m calling home. The beauty of accepting this situation I literally cannot change, instead of struggling against it, is that I can then begin to see all that is lovely right here in front of me. I can begin to change and respond to the new landscape we find ourselves in, and expand and deepen as a result. And isn’t that what I’ve wanted for thirty years? To walk across new internal landcapes, to expand and deepen so I can be as myself as I possibly can, and therefore be able to express something which is entirely my own as a result?
As I've said before: happiness is found in the smallest of corners.
[Home 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
NAVIGATION // Day 4, 29 March 2020
Trying to orient myself to this stay-at-home new-normal. Spent the day feeling dark and down, trying to find my way up. It wasn't easy. Full of stuttering stumbling difficult navigation.
The rain fell heavily all day. I felt trapped. Caged. Even the ridiculously excellent scrambled eggs with smoked salmon made by my partner, accompanied by an excellent kiss, didn't lift my mood.
Finally the rain stopped and we got out for a walk. Christ it was good. But there was of course the polite moving away and tight smile from every person we encountered: social distancing is horrid.
But I did see the most beautiful sight. Two kereru in flight. They are my very favourite birds. I've been seeing them all week here in Wadestown, but they've been sitting /shuffling in trees. Today they flew low down and right toward us and I got to hear the gorgeous sound of their heavy wings beating. It completely and utterly made my day.
I'm thinking that if every day I can find it in myself
to find one beautiful thing/experience/moment, then that will keep my damn wobbly arrow pointing upward, and away from the dark fearful place it seems so easy right now to get lost in.
One beautiful thing: I hereby set my compass.
[ Navigation, 2020 is available as a limited edtion studioprint.]
RED CROSS // Day 3, 28 March 2020
A red cross for all of us who need a bit of care right now.
For the nurses and doctors and all those in essential services, including two of my sisters and my brother.
A red cross for the small grief I feel everytime I pass someone on our daily walk outside, and we move to separate from them, hold the requisite distance. Small griefs that add up to feeling quite tearful by the time I get home.
A red cross for all of us who need a bit of care right now.
For the nurses and doctors and all those in essential services, including two of my sisters and my brother.
A red cross for the small grief I feel everytime I pass someone on our daily walk outside, and we move to separate from them, hold the requisite distance. Small griefs that add up to feeling quite tearful by the time I get home.
+++
Day 1 was surreal, day 2 was "i got this, no sweat - actually maybe this is kinda fun". Day 3 the reality has sunk in of the enormity of what we as a country are doing for the next four weeks. I applaud it, I support it but jesus wept this is so outside of any of our experience, this is so fcking hard, on so many levels, for us all - all of our hearts are hurting in exactly the same way.
But hey, today is today and in half an hour I'm gonna be eating a beautiful dinner my partner cooked, and then I'm gonna turn off my tech and lose myself in Westworld. Then I'll sleep and dream and today will become tommorrow and will bring what tommorrow brings. And so it goes.
One day at a time, eh.
++++
[Red cross 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
ONE DAY AT A TIME // Day 02, 27 March 2020
This is the perspective I'm taking on this. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other.
I'm a recovering alcoholic [11 years sober, YES!] and in AA they teach you the value of what many would call these days "being present". If you think to yourself "I'm never going to have a drink again for the rest of my life", it makes you want to run at a sprint to the bottle store. If you instead think, I'm not having a drink today, it makes it all so much more manageable/possible. Especially at the beginning.
So that's me now. Not freaking myself out with the wide-angle view of this lockdown [or rahui, as my friend Lisa called it, which is a much gentler and less restrictive word]. Instead going, okay, today, I'm staying at home, today I'm just seeing the people in my bubble..today I'm standing in line at the supermarket, today I saw a kereru at closequarters feeding, today I had a videocall after-work party with friends. Today. Today. Today.
And then tommorow comes and turns into today too and soon enough, all the todays become the length of time we've had to stay at home, and we will have gotten through.
[One day at a time, 2020 is available to purchase as a studioprint]
HERE THERE IS US // Day 01, 26 March 2020
Drew this. Because here we are. Together. Us.
Drew this.
Because here we are.
Together.
Us.
Us in our homes.
Us in our self-prescribed bubbles.
Us in our country.
We are here doing this.
Together.
Us
is a powerful word
at the best
of times.
Now
it means
so
much
more.
[Here there is us is available as a limited edition studioprint]
The hope of my body
I’ve had these words on the wall above where I work, for thirty years. I typed them out on the typewriter I wrote my first poetry on.
The hope of the body, on my workroom wall, 2020
I’ve had these words on the wall above where I work, for thirty years. I typed them out on the typewriter I wrote my first poetry on. The photograph you see here is of a copy of a copy of a copy of the original piece of paper, long since too tattered to be particularly readable. The words come from a James K Baxter poem, as part of his Pig Island Letters sequence. There are two truths for my life contained within these two stanzas, but, in the way of poetry, the meaning remains mysterious and the only way to respond is with poetry of my own.
The first:
“for what we did not have: that hunger caught
Each of us, and left us burnt,
Split open, grit-dry, sifting the ash of thought.”
I responded with this:
For all those things, 2011
For me, it’s the idea that it’s all those things that hurt us also shape us, drive us forward, make us determined to really live.
The second:
“The hope of the body was coherent love.”
Those words rang so true for me but I never could quite work out what they meant - my eyes flicked to the sentence nearly every day, it still remained like a beautiful dream half-remembered on waking, the meaning of which you can’t catch - the dream drifting away from you the more you try to hold onto it.
Recently though, I fell in love wth a man I’ve been waiting my whole life to find, and all of a sudden James K’s words came clear. The hope of my body was love I could understand . That’s what coherent love is. Love your body can understand, that you can feel with your whole heart.
In response, I wrote these words, made this painting.
The hope of my body
has always been this:
You and I
lying in the light
of a gentle room
learning the language
of our kisses.
You feel like home.
And now, maybe, finally, I can take James K’s words off the wall. Find new territory to explore.
Always to the stars, 2019
I’ve reached for the stars my whole life.
When I was young and felt invincible, the stars represented my dreams. I wanted to be the just like the best and brightest of them, believing that with hard work and little luck, my skill and talent would make me shine and shimmer like they did. The stars were inspirational, aspirational. Especially on those not-a-breath-of-wind-cloud-in-the-sky late summer’s evenings. The kind where you walk for an hour along the shoreline, head up to the twinkling, head down to the glorious reflection in the wet sand, and the whole sky feels like it’s there for the taking.
Always to the stars, 2019
I’ve reached for the stars my whole life.
When I was young and felt invincible, the stars represented my dreams. I wanted to be the just like the best and brightest of them, believing that with hard work and little luck, my skill and talent would make me shine and shimmer like they did. The stars were inspirational, aspirational. Especially on those not-a-breath-of-wind-cloud-in-the-sky late summer’s evenings. The kind where you walk for an hour along the shoreline, head up to the twinkling, head down to their glorious reflection in the wet sand, and the whole sky feels like it’s there for the taking.
I like that self of mine, arrogant as she was. Reaching for a such a high and distant goal is a wonderful thing. You ain’t gonna get nowhere staring at the concrete. But god, when I started out I was so full of it. Full of myself. Full of my dreams and future glory and very little else. I didn’t realise then how tough the journey would be, how impossible it would feel so very often.
Life sure did get in the way of all that stargazing. Setbacks and disappointments and failure and grief and trauma and marriage and babies and kids and being worn out from the grind. Life’s gotten so dark sometimes.
When the days were the blackest of black, I felt very small, my life a tiny box I was almost suffocating in. The stars were so important to me. I would be in my bedroom after I’d gotten my son to sleep, feeling grey and numb, and I’d take a peek out the curtains, across the garden and out to sea, and I’d look for just one star above the dark horizon. I was too afraid then of all the shadows [that were mostly within me] to go outside to look. I was too broken to wish for a whole sky of stars. On those bleak evenings, it was enough to see one small flick of light through the cloudcover, to remind myself there was light in the world, and that there would again be light in me. Stars are hope, and right then, I felt like hope was all I had.
I’ve come so far from that woman. She’s like someone I used to know. Thank christ. I’m out of the shadows and damn I’ve stepped into some fierce light.
I’m no longer young, I’m no longer so full of myself - all the wank and puff has been worn off by the stormy weather. Which makes me very happy indeed. I’m in what I hope to be the middle of my life. I know who I am, my feet are firmly on the ground. But you know what, my chin’s still up, looking at those stars. Difference is,I’m not reaching for a whole sky of them. I’d like just one. That one star twinkling gently in exactly my shape, with my name written all over it.
A girl’s gotta dream.
++++
[This artwork is available as this open edition print, so if you love it you can have it for your very own.]
Seen in this video in situ during the tenderness project.
![Tenderness [ballerina] 2019](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5654ebeae4b0a63eb2a6e983/1568272863341-05VFPPSSRRFXJVJSC3OI/tenderness-artwork-detail-web.jpg)
Tenderness [ballerina] 2019
I made this artwork for an exhibition of the same name: Tenderness.
What is tenderness?
Google gives a definition in two parts: 1. gentleness and kindness; kindliness. 2. sensitivity to pain; soreness.
I made this artwork for an exhibition of the same name: Tenderness.
What is tenderness?
Google gives a definition in two parts: 1. gentleness and kindness; kindliness. 2. sensitivity to pain; soreness.
Tenderness is always both a feeling and the verb.. In order to feel gentleness and kindness, you have to open yourself up. The risk and flipside to opening up is that you also become tender in the other sense - you’ve got more of an ability to feel pain.
And so, my ballerina dances on a tightrope. Open wide to delightful feeling, almost dancing towards it - at the same time aware she could fall and get hurt. But she’s got grace and determination, this woman. She’s not afraid to lean into loving, she ain’t afraid to fall. Because if she does, she’ll get right back up, and any bruises she’s got will have been so worth it, because the feeling of tenderness, of being wide open to feeling, is the best pleasure in the whole damn world.
I made this photograph by first writing the word tenderness on a piece of paper, then placing the glass rectangle paperweight which held the ballerina on top of the paper. I then shot through the glass. I then worked in Photoshop to create the texture , colour and areas of sharpness. The colour red for tenderness is very purposeful. It’s the colour of love and passion, and also of course, of our blood. Our blood is the thing which courses in us, makes us passionate for someone, makes us want to give and receive tenderness. It’s also the thing that feels like it’s spilt when we’re cut deep by the ending of love, which comes to us all in some form or other in a fully lived life.
In Phoebe’s room during the tenderness project, 2019.
Of course, context is everything. Seen here above Phoebe’s bed during the tenderness project, my ballerina turns into hope and dreams and sweetness. I especially love the wee knitted toy in the bottom of this shot, which is Phoebe’s childhood favourite.
Framed in a gentle white frame, with archival mounting and museum glass.
The artwork is produced as an exhibition print, A1 [59.4x84.1]cm in size, in a limited edition of 5, plus artist proof. It is shown here in a gentle white frame, with beautiful museum glass.
Detail
IN L AND B's UNFINISHED BEDROOM
L bought this artwork for her husband, B, for his 50th birthday. When I was at her home in Wellington the other day, she talked about how she'd wanted to show me the artwork in the finished room [they're in the middle of renovations] but kindly let me in to their bedroom anyway, and let me take photographs, too.
Lay me down with a gentle hand, 2017, in L and B's unfinished bedroom, July 2018
L bought this artwork for her husband, B, for his 50th birthday. When I was at her home in Wellington the other day, she talked about how she'd wanted to show me the artwork in the finished room [they're in the middle of renovations] but kindly let me in to their bedroom anyway, and let me take photographs, too.
Instead of being put off by the lack of "done-ness" in the room, my heart skipped a beat. It just seems so right that this artwork, talking about being laid down with a gentle hand, is situated above the bed in a room which is a work-in-progress in a marriage which is a work in progress, too. Because all marriages and relationships and lives are, aren't they? Works in progress.
The light falling across the bed, light made more beautiful by the contrasting shadow. The flowers on the nightshade of what I imagine is "her" side of the bed, because she often wears those flowers in her hair. The pendant made by hand by their lovely 18 year old art-student daughter.
This room tells their story.
Silently, it's walls and objects and, yes the artwork, speak of the life lived here, and the relationship played out. And not just the "good and perfect and public" parts either.
This is what the private rooms in our domestic spaces always do: They tell our story.
Which is exactly why I love having exhibitions in domestic spaces. Because that is what I want to do with my work. Stand up and say,
I am here,
this is who I am.
And I want to say it as fully and deeply as I can.
[ Thanks, L and B for letting me share this. ]
BTW, there are other prints left in the edition of 5 this artwork, so yeah you could have this artwork too, for your own private space. FYI.
Word/
feeling/
entry/
drawing.
Every day,
2025.