Today’s artist is Jessica Sporn. I have followed her work for years, have some of her wonderful stencils, and admire both her art and process. So, I was very excited to see her working with flag imagery as I’d worked on flags when I did my art qualification at The Learning Connexion, and love the work of Jasper Johns (among others).
As with all cjs18 classes I won’t talk about the process but in this instance I do want to tell a little of the story behind this piece. The story scratched into the gesso underneath is about a recurring dream I have involving my best friend Sandra and I searching for someone in hospital grounds. I can draw the buildings, see the land, follow the roads, and have a map of where people are at the final building we need to get to – so a lot of detail. I had the dream again last night and phoned Sandra to discuss it.
She thought for a bit and said in the last couple of years she’d gone out to Tokanui Psychiatric Hospital, where a relative had once spent some time.
I used Google images to search Tokanui and the third photo was *it* – the place in my dream. I tried some other abandoned hospitals etc but no, none of them were right. Tokanui it is. Why I dream about Sandra and I being there, I don’t know yet.
The rest of the imagery is about learning a waiata (Maori song/chant) for Monday when we have a powhiri to welcome our new CE at work, my constant struggle to learn more Te Reo, and the flag is the Tino Rangitiratanga flag (actually black, white & red). This all ties in together, but not in ways I can articulate in words – hence it’s in my artwork.
Cath Sheard Art 
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