When Mum passed away recently a friend gave us some flowers which included poppies and seed heads – awesome! I have been fascinated with poppies since we visited Italy in 2010 and use them a lot in my artwork. Having the real thing on display in the kitchen inspired my to take a bunch of photos, do some drawings, and finally cut some stencils. Huge thanks to Michelle Ward for lessons learnt while doing the Crusades – without your lessons I doubt I would have managed it. I have now got stencils for two flowers, and two different heads plus the masks for all but the big poppy. I couldn’t work out the bridges to keep it in one piece but may have another shot at it yet.
I have had a quick play with them on newsprint and am happy, so tomorrow I’ll start playing in earnest. Earlier in the year I was given some lovely old, never used and in mint condition, prints of John Abbott’s The insects of Georgia produced by the Alexander Turnbull Library. I am going to be participating in Legato 2013 and have a vague plan in mind involving the prints, transfers of photos of Dad from the war, and the poppy stencils. We’ll see…
(the images are wrinkly because I am too impatient to wait for the ink to dry before scanning)
Our Italy trip has been on my mind a lot lately, for all kinds of obscure and tangential reasons. Things like the financial woes in Europe, the realization that Tony and I probably won’t be going overseas again, seeing some poppies growing locally, graffiti that reminds me of the trains in Italy…
I’ve been wanting to start a new series of paintings, using mainly black and white with a little red, and over the last few nights have dreamed these into existence. As I start painting Tony often asks, partly to wind me up, “what’s it going to be?”. He kept coming and looking at these three, a bit baffled. When I had finished he said “poppies”. Yup – but think of the viaduct, and the train tracks. Oh yeah, you have the graffiti underneath, and the old roman viaduct. Yes, Tony, I do!
On Friday night my best friend Sandra, her daughter Melissa (who is my god-daughter) and I attended the gala opening night of the Legato exhibition at the Wallace Gallery in Morrinsville. They’d sold 178 tickets to the opening, and everyone was dressed up and looking splendid. Rotary did an amazing job of passing round yummy little eats and nice cold wine or juice, while live music played in the background. Well done guys!
The opening began at 6.30 and at about 7.30 curator Kay de Lautour Scott took the stage to speak about how Legato came about, the momentum the project has gained, and a little about her life in Roccasecca. Kay showed a few photos of the exhibition in Cassino and played a video made by Nicola Blackmore showing the exhibition and talking to various people involved in the project including some of the artists. People were clearly very interested in what Kay had to say; there was none of the usual shuffling and muttering that goes on.
In the video Kay mentions my works and discusses the fact that, under the layers of paint and photos, I had written down all the things I’d been told about the men by their family members. Private things which I then partly painted over, respecting the fact these men had not shared their stories in life. I heard something beside me and realised Sandra was crying – hard. We hugged. For both of us this has been about honouring our dads, not just as men who went to war, but as men who went to war, survived, and came back to be amazing fathers who we love dearly and miss today.
It was a very different experience seeing my works being viewed here in New Zealand to seeing them viewed in Italy. I’m not sure I can explain the difference yet; my mind needs to work through it a bit more for the right words to come. What I do know is that, because the works are deeply personal, people take a keen interest in them. I had a number of people shake my hand and congratulate me. One lady, almost in tears, hugged me. Why? I think it’s about connection, and acknowledging the personal nature of the images.
It was a great experience to be there and see people’s reactions first hand. But for me, a thorough introvert, it was also incredibly tiring. All I wanted to do afterwards was sleep, to escape the people. I guess that is why I paint…
As many of you know, I sold approx 60 art shares for our trip to Italy for the Legato exhibition, and each share holder was to get a 6×6″ painting inspired by the trip. 59 down and 1 to go heading into the festive season. I left this one painting till last because I agreed to do something different for one couple. I probably shouldn’t have agreed, but I did, for reasons I think I have some small understanding of. Everyone else got a poppy painting, but this couple wanted something about Dubai; the Burj al Arab to be precise. I won’t go into why they wanted Dubai instead – that’s their story to tell, not mine.
Recently I received a commission for 3 more Poppy paintings, and over the Christmas break I have completed those and am happy with them. I hope the customer likes them just as much. With no excuses left, I started in the Burj painting and it was not as tricky as I’d expected (one of the main reasons I had put it off till last). So, aside from varnishing, that’s the final art share painting done, and all my obligations met. What a great feeling.
Back in May of this year Tony and I went to Italy where I exhibited at the LEGATO exhibition in Cassino, along with 40 or so other New Zealand artists. The exhibition featured paintings, mixed media, sculpture, textile works, glass and drawings; all around a theme of peace and remembrance. Organiser Kay de Latour has a blog where she is documenting the ongoing story of the exhibition.
I did quite a lot of fundraising in order for us to travel to Italy. One of the main things I did was offer $35 shares in my trip. In return each share holder got a share certificate, handmade postcard mailed back from Italy, a full colour newsletter after the trip and, by Christmas of this year, a 6×6″ painting around what we saw and learnt while away. In total I sold 57 shares, so took 60 or so handmade postcards in my suitcase and mailed them home from Cassino.
Once we got home and the dust had settled I wrote a newsletter and mailed off 57 copies. And then started on the process of creating 57 little works of art. I wanted them to have real meaning both for me and for the recipients, but at the same time I didn’t want to do something so complicated that my every waking moment was spent on them from now till Christmas Eve. I thought long and hard about what had most touched me, and how that could be represented. I came up with a work method that means each work is individual but part of a large series, so that I could create them in batches of 10 or so at a time. When each work goes out to its new owner it has a letter with it, and part of that letter says:
The enclosed mixed media work is based on more than 70 photos I took of poppies growing wild in the Lazio region, including around Monte Cassino Abbey. Many of the photos were blurred, taken from cars and trains as we sped through the landscape. For that reason the background is blurred; with a final large, in-focus poppy symbolising the way poppies became a focus for the artists. The large poppy is the same one used on the artwork I created for either my father or my best friend’s father, and so has special meaning to me. In addition, the poppies are important to me because they are such a strong symbol both in Italy and in New Zealand.
This weekend I put the finishing touches on work number 54; the final 3 works are going to be quite different and very individual for a number of reasons. This has been a huge journey for me. I am pleased to have fulfilled my obligations to all my shareholders with plenty of time to spare and continue to be amazed by how wonderfully generous people are. I also learnt a lot about how I create works by doing such a big number of works with one essential theme. Things I would not have discovered any other way I suspect. What a journey this has been…so, here are two of the final batch of ‘Italian Poppies’.
Cath Sheard Art 