Cath Sheard Art

Author: Catherine Barker-Sheard

  • Patea Freezing Works – Switched Off

    This is another work which I completed at the weekend, called “Switched Off”. It stared with a photograph of a power switch on a factory wall, with the coloured wires going up he wall towards the ceiling. I don’t know what room it was in within the works. All the other works I have done so far have focused on the exterior of the works, but I have some incredible photos of the interior, including gears, switches and chains. Later, as the demolition continues, there will other things come on site, such as air quality monitoring kits and ground testing equipment. All fascinating stuff in its own way.

    Switched Off

    Speaking of fascinating. I am reading a book called ‘100 most important science ideas’. I love science; things like Fibonacci’s Numbers, the Golden Rectangle and Schrodinger’s cat. Sadly, although fascinated, my brain is not very good at science. I have a dear friend who is incredibly logical. If you gave us both 30 bits of related information, all on separate bits of paper we would handle it quite differently. She would arrange them all, mentally sort and sift and calculate – then come up with the correct answer. I would look at them all, handle them and scribble on them, perhaps fold some – then go quiet on you. Two hours later my brain makes a leap of intuition and I yell out the correct answer, frightening small children and animals in the process. (no wonder my husband sometimes panics when I do crosswords) So, I am destined to enjoy, but constantly fail at, science – ah well…
    Anyway, back to art, which is much more suited to my slightly unusual brain. As with the other Freezing Works paintings, this one is 16×16″ in acrylic on canvas and will be for sale through my website.  I may not get it uploaded tonight as I seem to be having problems with our wireless connection.

  • Interesting exhibition by Diane Widler Wenzel

    Back in August ’09 Diane Widler Wenzel at Umbrella Painting Journal wrote about a new project she had undertaken. She posted a question, I replied, then she made a vase as her interpretation of my answer. You can read my reply, and see the vase, here.

    Anyway, a few months on Diane has made a series of these small vases, and some accompanying paintings, and they are heading out on exhibit titled “What is the most awesome thing ever?”. I am so excited that a vase I have a connection with, by an artist I follow, is going out where people can see it and enjoy Diane’s talent. How cool is that? Here is Diane’s post about the exhibition.

  • Patea Freezing Works – Bare Bones IX


    Bare Bones IX

    In  my last post I talked about how I selected the colours for this series – a combination of the local light, the colours of our land and probably most importantly the colours that describe how I feel about the Freezing Works.

    I don’t normally work in such a high key palette but in working through Confident Colour, Nita Leland’s book, I realised that on many ways I prefer high key even though I tend to paint quite dark. I made a conscious decision to lighten up. It has been a tiring week and work, then this morning I got up and did  3 loads of washing and ironed 5 ambulance shirts, made our lunches, loaded the dishwasher etc then headed for my art room.

    Remember I said that the colours I am using are partly an expression of how I feel in my memory about the freezing works? Turns out they are also a reflection of who I am feeling at the time, which is no great surprise I guess. How do I know this. Because I painted for a couple of hours then roamed off to get a cold drink. When I came back to my art room – oh my goodness!

    This afternoon’s effort is dark and gloomy, despite using the same few tubes of colour as before. It is my use of them that has changed. Grey sky, gloomy buildings, dark shadowed land. Dreadful…so tomorrow it gets gessoed over and I start again.

    I did the only sensible thing I could do when I realised what I had done. I went into Mum’s room, where she was doing a crossword as always, and got into her bed for a nap in the sun (giving her strict instructions to wake me after 30 minutes). It’s amazing what a quick nap can do for your day. It’s funny, at the weekend I often have a wee nap on or in her bed while she reads or does the crosswords. Some of us never get over needing our Mum no matter how old we are…

    In the meantime, here is one I finished a couple of days ago now. It’s 16×16″ in acrylic on canvas and called Bare Bones IX. It’s for sale on my website here.

  • The works – thinking about colour

    After my last post Margaret made these comments “Coming from a place where the grayness of the days often sets the colour schemes I use in my own work, I find the vibrancy of colour in yours quite a contrast. I’d love to hear a little more about how you go about choosing your colour schemes. E.g., are the colours vibrant because of the emotionality you feel about the topic/place.? I love the boldness of the purple/ green combination.”  Thanks Margaret, it’s lovely to hear from you and know that you took time out to really look.

    I guess the first thing I’d say re the colours is they’re a reflection of where I live. A lot of New Zealand tourism marketing is based on slogans such as “100% pure” and certainly where I live that’s true. The air is very clean and clear and as a result colours are clear as well. Grass is green, the sly is blue, the cows are black and white or vivid iron oxide red.

    I think the colours are also a reflection of my feelings about the Freezing Works themselves, and where I live generally. Patea is a poor, rural, low socio-economic town that knows hard times personally. In some ways it is not always an easy community to live in. The derelict works are ugly, just as the closure was ugly. But I love both of them; the town and the ruins. Being raised here was good for me, coming back here almost 20 years ago now was also good for me. Living here gives me the chance to work full time, be an artist, publish a newspaper, care for Mum and still be happy – try that in the city!

    I am using what is, for me anyway, a limited colours selection – mainly to help tie the individual works together a bit more. Sitting on my desk I have Naples yellow, permanent green light, brilliant orange, transparent yellow, titanium white, phthalo blue (green), manganese blue, quinacridone magenta, permanent violet dark, quinacridone violet, ultramarine violet, and phthalo green (yellow). I chose this colour set, ok two sets really, after doing some of the colour exercises from Nita Leland’s Confident Colour book.

    It’s been interesting to try to explain a bit about the colours; I may end up coming back to this later on. In the meantime …the photos (taken at night wiht  aflash, so dodgy colour) this time show some of the detail from a painting I am working on at the moment. Hopefully you can see that there is a reasonable amount of texture going on. I like my marks to show, to leave traces of what I  have done and how I got there.

  • Patea Freezing Works paintings – Ruined II

    Here is the second in the series of works based on the derelict Patea Freezing Works. The works closed in 1982 and that closure had a huge impact on the town. I know from personal experience; my dad owned a grocery store and the closure changed Mum and Dad’s lives forever. They owned the building, as well as they actual business, and had always seen the property as their retirement plan – but of course after the closure the building was pretty much worthless. Many people walked away form their homes, others sold them for a few hundred dollars, while a few daring souls packed their bags and moved their houses with them.

    Time has moved on and the works have sat unused for 20 plus years. Time itself, and the work of vandals and copper thieves, has impacted on the structures and they had become quite unsafe. Then in February 2008 someone set fire to the works, but more on that in another post. The freezing works buildings are being demolished even as I type. The whole demolition process will take 6 months, and I’m taking photos throughout that time.

    Speaking of photos, my thanks to local photographer Phu Tran, whose work can be seen here. He has graciously agreed to let me use his freezing works images as reference material for some paintings. I am deeply grateful for his generosity, and in awe of his ability with a camera.

    This work, as with the previous one, is 16×16″ in acrylics on gallery wrap canvas. It is based on my memory of how the land and the buildings have combined over time as the buildings have eroded – they have become one, with the buildings sinking back into the earth, and the grasses and trees growing up through the ruins. Ruined II