Milestones.

Background: I wrote this 2 weeks ago but did not post it.


My mom started her chemotherapy yesterday. 6 cycles : 1 down, 5 to go.

Breaking big tasks into small, achievable milestones is the only way I can approach them without throwing in the towel on the first stumble. Sometimes I break things down by time,( get it done by friday)  sometimes by milestone ( once the first thing is achieved, you tick it off and only then move on. I also reward myself( yes, you may have a new toy). Then back to the drawing board, both figuratively and literally.

I have a wall of Milestone paintings. The ones where I got it right , my heart swelled, and I was totally fulfilled at that moment. I keep them all on one wall and they chronicle my self belief and mark my path to date.

So, for every chemo session my mother endures, I paint with an open heart, a focussed mind and a determination to mark the progress with a good thing, a thing of wonder and joy. It keeps the bad thoughts at bay and offers up a promise that for every bad thing, I try add a good thing.

But it's hard to stay focus with that dark thing lurking around the edges.

But , to add a little brevity into the situation, this also played in my head.

Still running up that bloody hill

I am working but I feel like I am working blindfolded. Painting by instinct. It is difficult to explain but I know that I need to continue this way for a while before I get a bit of clarity. I have these snippets of "getting it right" and then the whole thing slips away. It's like trying to focus on something thats barely visible out the corner of the eye.

 So painting, right now, is hard work. Nothing is coming easily. Actually, I lie when I say that as I HAVE been able to paint a few things that are commissions and such, and they have been straight forward. It's the stuff I WANT to paint that is difficult to winkle out of myself. I have been deconstructing as much as I have been constructing, but that feels like the path that I am supposed to be on.

I'm not sure I should be writing about all this. I think the labour of wrenching the paintings out of myself is supposed to be hidden, referenced only when looking at the fully formed result. Here  I am , wailing and describing it all to you in detail. o dear. But I have never been one to have quiet thoughts. I have always declared whatever was going on I'm my noggin as it happens. Immediate reporting. That leaves little time for second guessing or ever being called taciturn.I like to think I am decisive .I also accept that I can be wrong. A handy skill, that. So, with a literary shrug, I write that this is what today's thoughts are . Tomorrow might be a totally different tangent.

Laundry day SOLD

On a good note, Laundry Day sold at the Franklin Art Festival this past weekend. !

Running up that hill

I seem to be chasing my tail a bit at the moment. The chance, over the past 2 days, to spend some time in the studio, headphones on and painting, has been just wonderful. I downloaded Kate Bush( as you do) and listened to her 'Running up that hill" until I zoned out completely.

Don't get me wrong, the two days prior to them were spent swanning around New Zealand's capitol( political and cultural, it would seem) Wellington, enjoying all that such places entail these days: Galleries, exhibitions, museums, groovy shops, interesting architecture, great views, good coffee, better food, lots of people in black , smokers,students, street art and witty signs everywhere.I felt like I had straw in my hair and mud on my boots, a banjo somewhere in my bag.

I went to the Te Papa Museum and set the alarms off( it appears my scrutiny was closer than the alarms felt necessary). Actually, I did this a few times until a wonderful host called Dennis came over and spent the next hour allowing me to drag him all over the 5th floor as I demanded clarification on one point or other on the works displayed. He was a gem. Thank you Dennis. Ps, you had an awesome moustache .

Anyways, Wellington was wonderful and I wished I lived there because it reminded me so much of Cape Town. I practically inhaled as much culture as I could by talking to any and all front of house staff in the galleries and museums. They were all just lovely to me.

So, herewith some photos and then some photos of this weekends work, probably not in that order.

Avid Gallery

Mojo latte in Wakefield..thanks, Josh!

Birthday Boy at MonsoonPoon

Yeah, right.

John Badcock, Self portrait at NZ Portrait Museum.

Add caption

Toast , anyone?

Rita Angus..portrait of her husband. Ps, Frida phoned and wants her eyebrows back.

NZ style circa 1950's....and now.

eerily lit sea mammal skeletons.

Saturday

Saturday

Sunday

Progress

I thought I would post the final image of what I ended up with. I often paint two paintings on one board, one beneath the other, upside down, whatever I feel suits the space. The upside down or out of focus image sits in my peripheral vision and allows me to work on it subconsciously. As I work simultaneously on both, I solve problems and plot my next move.

So, this is not a reflection, but two different images of the same street, one upside down from the other, all neighbours.



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Pushing paint

I am pushing paint after a few days of driving around my old haunts, photographing the unchanged. Yesterday I drew and thought about it. Today I painted.

Very much a work in progress, but the feels are right.






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Adventures in Africa

I am in a borrowed studio, improvising when I find I have forgotten something, revelling in the new subject matter. The light is amazing!


I am wearing out my phone battery with the number of photos I am taking and I have to buy a new sketchbook already. I am too scared to open the iCloud in case I swamp my family's devices( we all share a cloud. I thought it was a good idea until I realise I hog all the memory space.sorry sorry).

Anyways, today I went to Stellenbosch and took a gazillion( actual number) of photos and sketched in my favourite al fresco cafe in the whole wide world, The Katjiepiering ( roughly translates to The Gardenia) at the Stellenbosch Botanical Gardens. That place is a treasure and has a place in my heart. I totally eavesdropped a courting couple . I sat in a sunbeam. I drank tea . All by myself. Too fabulous.

Now I am back in the studio, easy to paint this afternoon.or maybe I will nap in a sunbeam!!!!



My borrowed surface.


My drying work


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My warmup piece !

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Location:Somerset West,South Africa

ideas for new work and some travel.

Next year is my 30th high school reunion and this milestone has got me thinking. Actually, what I initially thought was " not a f%$& am I THAT old!" and hyperventilated into my glass of wine, but thats an aside. I thought about the significance of this event  some more and my overriding emotion was one of great excitement to see these women again (some I have not seen since that final day) and almost paralysing nostalgia.

I have been working the idea around my brain for a while, much like a sliver of popcorn kernel  wedged in a gum, unable to remove it without some investigation and a tool......and the tool I am using is my phone and specifically, the way I have been taking photos recently.

For those of you who need some backstory, I grew up in South Africa. I went to school in a town called Stellenbosch , at a school called Rhenish, for the whole 10 years from standard 1 till 10. I knew those girls well! Then, in my early 30's, I emigrated to New Zealand. Opposite side of the planet, same hemisphere.  I am at home here and at home there. i always feel like I am coming home, either way I travel, and that is sometimes great and at the same time, totally divisive. Sometimes I feel I belong both places, sometimes I yearn for one over the other and sometimes, I belong nowhere.

This feeling of belonging in two places which look and behave quite differently is hard to explain and so I have decided to do so with paint. Somehow, I am going to stitch these two homes together and make something totally amazing for myself, a place I create and is therefore mine forever. I am incorporating this into my next exhibition and, hopefully, will take work back to South Africa next May to show my old schoolfriends what I experience and how I have reconciled the experience of immigration with nostalgic longing for what is past.

To that mind, I am returning to home(Ha! see?!?) to reference very specific images that I want to use in this process. I am going to visit the places( oh yes! I have a list!) that are most evocative for me and do some sketching, photography and lots of writing. Then I am going to come home ( again! See? It's difficult and awesome at the same time) and , because I have already started the process here, start the process of stitching these two worlds together on canvas.

So, I have cooked the family MANY meals, the freezer is full, the list of daily tasks is pasted everywhere( feed pets, defrost dinner, get post, brush teeth..not in that order, but you get the gist), air tickets, insurance etc booked and I am almost on my way. My only problem is my gear. Whilst I have travelled locally with all my crap, international travel is different and I am taking 3 planes there and that means SIX different baggage handlers will have the opportunity to take their frustrations out on my bag ....and that's just the journey there! I have ordered some stuff there so I don't have to carry too much but I am going to have to make some plans and be inventive. I am working on drafting film whilst I am there and using Liquin to speed the drying up time. Rolled up with wax paper between them, the sketches should make it home (! again!) and I will always have some photos to reference too.

So, back in 3 weeks time, swamped in nostalgia and hopefully brimming with good material.

Landlines

110cm x 60 cm