I try to do something art-related or crafty every day … I call it moving my hands and downloading my head. New Year’s Day is no exception.
We slept in, then I went through to Hawera and picked Tony up. He sat in the car while I did a couple of quick errands, then we had McDonalds at the park. He was tired as he’d stayed up to watch a movie last night, so I took him back to the rest home sooner than usual.
I’ve spent the afternoon at my art desk, emerging occasionally to talk with Sandra or check on the ASB Tennis with Alan. I’m working in a Dina Wakley 6×6” kraft journal. When I finish this one I think I’ll swap back to Dylusions for a bit – I feel like changing it up a bit.
Once again I haven’t blogged regularly, and that’s ok. I share my art other ways now, and blog when I feel it’s useful, whereas 10 years ago it was the only viable channel for sharing. 2023 has seen a lot of changes.
I no longer post about Tony on FB because I don’t feel he can truly consent. I visit 5 or 6 times a week, ring every day, take him out to a cafe fortnightly; he’s loved and cared for. He’s also well stocked for flavoured water, sugar free lollies, Vape and fruit! He prefers being in Trinity and finds the care suits him better … plus the resthome cat, Marlie, loves him.
Penny and I had a collaborative art exhibition, Shattered Landscapes, at Left Bank Art Gallery. The art we make together is so different to our solo work, and it’s a joy. I think all artists could benefit from working collaboratively and learning to let go. We haven’t started a 3rd collab yet, but strongly suspect we will.
I returned to my usual role as Libraries & Cultural Services Manager, after a period as Acting Group Manager. We’ve got exciting things coming up, including the opening of Te Ramanui. On the flip side, I feel things are going to get harder as climate change, politics, economics etc contribute to increasing incidents of aggression toward front line staff.
By best friend of *more decades than we admit to* lives with us. Sandra introduced me to Munzees this year, and we’ve been out and about playing the online game. Her long- suffering dog Bruno comes with us; he hates the car, but hates being left even more.
Alan and I have been to quite a few places this year, most recently a couple of nights in Ohakune where the weather was dreadful but the landscape was stunning. Prior to that we spent a few nights in Christchurch as he had hand surgery. We wandered the Riverside Markets, met up with his daughter and her fiancé, and ate amazing food. Who knows where we’ll get to next year…
I’m looking forward to 2024 and all it will bring my wee household. I hope the coming year is kind to you, bringing love and laughter.
This is always a difficult time of year for me. The couple of weeks prior the anniversary of Mum’s death I’m unsettled and restless. I have weird dreams / nightmares complete with dead people, sick babies, blood and hospitals. I think my brain goes back over all the stuff I’ve dealt with through the years with caring for my Aunt J, Mum, cousin Alison, and Tony and repackages it. Not exactly relaxing… this year it’s made worse by going to Burwood Hospital with Alan on the anniversary of Mum dying.
The best thing to do is move my hands and play in my art journals. I haven’t done enough of that lately, for various reasons. I’ve made lots of backgrounds, and finished a few pages. I feel a bit better for it, but know I need to do some layouts where I pour my heart and head out onto the page.
Pen Kirk and I have our second joint exhibition on at Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth at the moment. Here ‘s what I wrote for the opening, but ended up talking off the cuff.
Shattered lanscapes – this is a project that has taken some time to complete, its needed room to breathe.
In the time we’ve been working on it Pen’s son left formal education and got a job, and Pen changed jobs too. I’ve moved my husband to a different resthome and recently my partner moved in with me. Big life changes.
I believe creating art helps us to change, and supports us as life changes. Art also teaches us, but sometimes the lesson isn’t obvious until we’re well into the process.
I’m going to go off on a tangent for a moment. I promise I’m not offering relationship advice, although do with it what you will. I hope the connection will become clear as I talk.
A while ago I was introduced to NYT best selling author Mel Robbin’s Let Them theory, although actually it didn’t start with her. That’s the librarian in me, I don’t like people taking ideas and not crediting the original author!
The Let Them theory in a nutshell … your colleagues are going out to lunch and don’t invite you. Let them. Your partner constantly forgets to tell you their plans. Let them. Your mother in law excluded you from the Christmas Eve present swap. Let them. When you let them, without trying to change people, you see who they really are … then you can decide what you do with that.
Ok, great, half of us are now getting divorced! How does that relate to collaborative art? Before I explain, I owe Pen an apology. When we were setting up I put more value on my need to get organised than her need to feel excited about the process and what we’ve achieved. I forgot to Let Them … sorry Pen, I should have trusted your process.
Looking back, I can see that Pen and I applied the Let Them theory to our collaboration. Because we’ve been creating art together for 6 years we have a high trust model, where we don’t need to seek each other’s permission before acting.
Does your art partner want to cut up the work? Let them. They want to pour black ink on it? Let them! Does Pen want to scribble across your favourite area on something? Let them!
When you Let Them in the collaborative art space you get to see art that is truly from that persons art and soul … then you can, in turn, choose what you do with that … knowing that you are free to act in whatever way feels most authentically you.
That’s a hugely trusting position to take, but it’s also incredibly powerful and freeing. I’m sure it’s obvious from the work on these walls that what Pen and I create is quite different, and the works we create together are different again … the act of collaborating with high trust creates work that neither would make on their own.
Over the last week or two my small art journal, where I work out ideas, has been inundated with bright greens or greenish yellows. There’s a lot of hot pink, sometimes on the horizon line or cliff edge, or scattered in the landscape.
Sandra was looking at my art journal, went off for a few minutes, and came back to show me Sea Pink (Thrift) on to coast of Wales – and they flower in Ireland too. And there’s the answer…much of what I paint is based on memories of the landscape. Mum’s birth mother Angela was Irish; somewhere in my DNA the memory exists of the Sea Pinks flowering in the landscape.
That might sound far fetched, but think about this. People with Scottish ancestry often feel an affinity with the bagpipes even if they don’t know they have Scottish heritage. They’ll say it is like they know the music from the first time they hear it. Why? Because it’s wired into their ancestral memory, or however you want to describe it. Of course there are examples from all over the world, from all cultures.
Have I been to Ireland and seen the Sea Pinks in flower? No. Does my soul, my shared ancestral memories, know them? I think so. I’d love to know if Angela liked them.
Cath Sheard Art 