Because of my housing issues and looking for a new rental etc, I have been thinking a lot about the evolution of suburban New Zealand from design and architecture angles. I have also been thinking in terms of social anthropology. All this thinking and sifting through the ‘whys’ of suburbia is a kind of archaeology as well.

I live in a 1950s brick and roughcast house, in a suburb of the same era. It’s within easy walking distance to all the shops and parks. It needs a butterfly. The lounge like most houses here is very small by modern standards, my kitchen is tiny, the bedrooms are small.  It has a lovely big back yard though on an 1/8 of an acre plot. That’s why I stay.

New builds are often hideous and sprawling and might be spacious inside but have no yard. No space for a vegetable garden , no space for a decent clothesline. So what? Well I think the comparison is interesting. It’s fairly indicative of lifestyle changes and I think, changes in values.

I am a stay-at-home mum. There isn’t the ‘norm’ anymore. I have time to have a veggie garden. I have time to go get the washing off the line if it rains. My kids are home during the day (outside school/kindy hours) and so use the back yard all the time. I assume that when you have both parents working and kids in care a lot of the time, these aren’t priorities. Lounges ‘need’ to be bigger because we have more leisure time, bigger TVs etc.

When I look at it, my house is fine for us. We don’t need big. Of course a 1950s house fails on insulation and heating but my landlord is doing something about this apparently. Right now Id be lost without my yard and garden. It suits me. Obviously it would be nice to have more space and ‘a room of one’s own’ for writing instead of the kitchen table but when I look at needs/wants/and of course money, this is ok.

And as a true suburban archaeologist I have found this in one of the wardrobes. I think its the original paper :-)

Which also makes me smile. More innocent times.

I have one more entry to write about my Christchurch trip, but I made another trip over Labour weekend that got me thinking again about influence, homage, reference and rip-offs in art.

I travelled not so very far away to Middlemarch to see some trains and to take a trip on a vintage Vulcan Rail car on part of the Taieri Gorge Line. Here is the AB663 (train geeks will understand)

Photo P Dawson 2009

Anyway, this area is the edge of Central Otago and it often felt like I was seeing things through the eyes of artists or as versions of artworks I’ve seen.

Example one: (seeing Laurence Aberhart at Middlemarch)
Photo P. Dawson 2009

Example two: (seeing Grahame Sydney at Sutton)
Photo P. Dawson 2009

So to the art….after kimchi at the Arts Centre Market (I also travel for Korean food) I went direct to the hallowed halls of  The Christchurch Art Gallery.

The problem with going to  exhibitons nearing the end of their run is that you may have read all the reviews and been unduly influenced. I tried to put any prior knowledge aside as I toured the galleries though. After the fact it was very useful to read the gallery’s bulletins B.157 & B.158 though.

It was the closing weekend of the Ronnie van Hout show “Who goes there’. I am not a HUGE van Hout fan but I enjoy some of his work. I did like the focus of this show which I am not sure is just indicative of his latest output or selected that way. There seems to be a sharpened focus on ’self’, although it’s always been a prominent theme. Standout for me was ‘The Thing’ from the artist’s Antarctic experience which was more disturbing than it should have been. Also the video works in the foyer of the artist knocking on his own door (no answer) was affecting. Even with the humourous subjects there was a subtle menace to it all. To me, the sound from ‘Bedsit’ underlined this atmosphere. I am glad I didn’t miss the peep show either.

Next was Seraphine Pick. I was really interested in seeing this retrospective, after the tiny Pick show I saw at the Mahara Gallery in 2008. I hate to say it, but this exhibition didn’t enthrall me. It was ‘more of the same’ and seemed quite rambling. However, I was taken by her more recent works and the “Zombies round the Campfire’ painting (sorry can’t recall the name) made a lasting impression.

The last of the three major exhibitions on was et al’s Thats Obvious! That’s Right! That’s True! Entering this exhibition was my meaningful art moment of 2009. I was really looking forward to this as I had not seen an et al installation before and I was not disappointed. ‘People in the know’ have told me this work is great but not the greatest of et al. I was completely floored by it though. I guess my impression was of an Orwellian New Zealand of an 1984 nature.  I was confused, informed, disoriented, assaulted with audio/visual material, lectured…. Although many other visitors seemed to walk in to the gallery space and straight back out, I was mesmerised by it all and it felt to me like the ultimate answer to the rather spurious “but is it art?” question (YES!, YES!, YES!).

At this point I was a bit of a stunned mullet and floated through the smaller exhibitions on the upper floors. Points to be noted here:

• The White on White show was a great idea and I thought a clever selection. Fun to see such diversity on a theme
• Cloud 9 was interesting and nice to see some emerging artists. I particularly wanted to see how Mike Cooke’s work held up in the gallery environment, having recently seen these two paintings in his studio. It worked very very well in my opinion.

I came back to the gallery the following day and managed to take in the tiny Gembox gallery then as well. Lovely plumage McCahon in there – and good to see a Lowry for the first time.

My second visit cemented my thoughts on the ‘Big Three’ Suite of exhibitions (van Hout, Pick, et al) . My main thought was how these artists all projected a (their?) view of the world and how diverse and distorted that was. I have talked before about photography being like looking directly through another pair of eyes, but I felt that through these shows I was seeing the mind games as well. Pick’s zombies, the multiple versions of van Hout and the et al sensory assault all seemed part of the same dream/nightmare place that most of us inhabit.

*Images from all these exhibitions can be found on the Christchurch Art Gallery website via the links included.

Finally I get around to blogging this! Its been, as they say, a week of it!

First I should thank my sponsors. Flying around the place to look at art is not something I do routinely. In fact I realised the last time I was away from home over night without my kids was 3 year ago and that was work related. I had been saving up Flybuys points so I could get to Christchurch to see their big three winter exhibitions and ended up with only enough for a one way flight. I had considered an overnight bus option for return but I was incredibly lucky to win my return airfare via the AirpointsFairy on Twitter. Then I decided that I would splash out on my overnight trip and stay at a hotel rather than someones couch. The plan was quiet, non-kid interrupted sleep, writing and reading time. An e-friend had recommended HotelSo and I got a great deal on a  room there.

I have to say this is a VERY cool little Hotel. It’s very central and was also a bit of colour in what I found to be a very grey Christchurch. The rooms are small (not quite a pod concept) but have more than everything you need. I was particularly interested in the design aspects – all created in house for this hotel. The bathroom modules are a great execution of the idea of form and function (I want one!). I was a bit worried that I might be too old and boring for this reportedly ‘funky’ hotel but not at all. The kind of place that had a young farmers event and a punk band staying at the same time – and you’d never know.  Hotel SO is excellent value – I’d stay again in an instant. Oh and a shout out to the lovely service manager Chris who was a great help!

The pretty colours of my hotel – note the contrast with the GREY

Christchurch itself was a bit of a shock. I haven’t spent much time there for maybe 10 years but I’d forgotten the conformity, the grey, the little walls and everything in the central city so contained. Even the public art blended in. Thank heavens for the tiny bit of colour on Neil Dawson’s Chalice sculpture in the square. Regan Gentry’s Flour Power also seemed to flat and conservative and yet again – GREY.  Nucleus by Phil Price which was near my hotel, was at least a bit brighter but what is it with all the pointy sculpture? I can only think it is in response to the taller buildings and lack of horizon? The current Kiosk was a disappointment

Anyway – very quickly I headed down to the ‘Cultural Precinct’ and Christchurch Art Gallery. I love this area of Christchurch (fond memories and all that). The Arts Centre is a favourite place and of course I had to check in with a former Clairmont residence near-by in Hereford street. I will talk about the shows in my next post but one exhibition made the entire trip worthwhile!

Have just spent the weekend in Christchurch looking at art and meeting some lovely people. Full (and I mean full) reports to come, but I have just realised I have an assignment due today. This being the last bit of written work I need to do to complete a diploma, it has to take priority for now.

I’ll leave you with this:

I like to think they are rats but probably not – I suppose they’ll go clean it off now :-(

I noticed I have been feeling very sorry for myself lately. As ever, other people’s take on my situation have kicked me up the backside:

Exhibit A – My friend Helen L’s latest blog post ‘just’ with the incredible poem Things on Thursdays by Selina Tusitala Marsh

Exhibit B – The poem I write in the Laundromat by Marcy Sheiner

Which sums it up really.

For a few weeks I’ve been wanting to write about a chapbook I received from Seraph Press – Watching for Smoke by my dear friend Helen Heath. I wasn’t sure about writing this because I have a strong bias here. Helen basically kept me together last year, especially when I was preparing for the big move South!

However this is a stunning little book. Helen’s poetry cuts to the bone and I can frequently see myself  reflected back to me in these poems. It’s undeniably domestic work, mothers and family are central themes but never trite. It’s true and telling and honest. I am certain any woman can find herself in there somewhere.

The book itself is a small work of art. The books have a wrap-around cover, which fastens with a knitting needle or crochet hook (mostly needles) and have a cut-out through which the title shows. The cover is grey card, and it’s all bound together with red hemp thread. Publisher Helen Rickerby has put in a huge amount of work on this. It’s a beautiful result.

Cover image from Helen Rickerby’s website

The chapbook will be launched by Dinah Hawken on Sunday 18th October at 3.30 pm in St Peter’s Hall, Beach Road, Paekakariki. There will be bubbly, there will be scones, there will most likely be tea and coffee, there will be music. I wish I could be there. A momentous occasion for the Helens. Long distance hugs!!

And I’ve been wanting to post this for an age from Fairy in Rimbaud’s Illuminations. (for my 3 Helens – the 3rd being writer, Helen Lehndorf).

“For Helen’s childhood thickets and shadows trembled, the breasts of the poor, and heavenly legends.
        And her eyes and her dance superior even to the precious gleams, the cold influences, and the pleasure of the unique scenery and hour.”

Well battling on through the school holidays has taken a bit of energy. I have been confronted with all sorts of dilemmas, including how to get caramel off a guinea pig (basically you can’t) but some interesting things have come my way.

Firstly I have managed to organise a trip to Christchurch for the closing weekend of the Ronnie van Hout exhibition at the Christchurch Art Gallery and I’ll be able to see their other shows too. This is very exciting and I have to thank FlyBuys, The Airpoints Fairy and Hotel So for making it possible – as well as my partner for taking care of the kids of course. I can’t wait to get there!

Also we are looking at moving to a bigger house - much much bigger and with LAND. While its still all at the “I am dreaming” stage, the way the house and land is positioned strongly reminds me of this – even the mown bit:

Christina’s World(1948) Andrew Wyeth. Collection of MOMA

I have also been thinking about quiet artists. An Aunt of mine who died very recently was an artists but would never call herself that. She had an amazing sense of style and colour, and an incredible eye. She was passionate and had a multitude of enthusiasms which carried you along with her. In the 1970s she became a skilled weaver, often dyeing and spinning wools herself. I remember helping to collect specific lichens and leaves for her dyes. Not very many years ago she quietly told me that the Dowse* had once bought some of her textile work. She moved on from weaving and turned to photography and took stunning pictures. I think she was part of a camera club and exhibited a few pictures there but for the most part, her art simply stayed at home on her walls. I guess she was a ‘hobby artist’ but her output belied that. An author told me a while back, that there are many excellent writers who would never dare publish and I wonder about these quiet artists as well. Not the art society watercolourists, but people just producing quite wonderful art for themselves.

* I really should check if they still have it.

I have been very lucky of late and part of my ‘haul’ was a copy of Martin Edmond’s new book Zone of the Marvellous that I won from Auckland University Press (and I checked - it was Raetihi).  And since its NZ Book Month, I thought I’d write a bit about it here.*

This book was helped along with a Copyright Licensing Writers’ Award won by the author in 2007  and is a an amazing treasure box of fact, fiction, myth, history, fable and imagination in search of the antipodes. In eight discrete essays, the author writes that what he seeks “to do is describe how this other place was first rumoured, then imagined, then looked for, discovered, plundered, colonised and finally domesticated”.

Following the rather ’straight’, yet lyrical telling of the historical story in The Supply Party (Edmond’s last book), Zone of the Marvellous goes back to the densely packed stories and tangents found in Luca Antara. For me Supply Party had strong undertones of loss and absence. Zone, although also telling tales of journeys, is much richer. Perhaps simply a contrast of the Australian outback to the tropics of the Pacific and the Asian spice routes.

Reviews I have read only touched lightly on the final chapter After Erewhon yet I had to restrain myself from not jumping to that one first. Here Edmond considers “artists, of those who continue the dialogue between the real and ideal in their work” with a particular focus on Sidney Nolan and Colin McCahon. This exploration of the antipodes in a rather different form from the other chapters is quite a contrast, unless you consider these artists as adventurers and risk takers as much as Marco Polo, Dampier, or Cook.

I hadn’t considered McCahon and Nolan as ‘near contemporaries’ before and it is very interesting to consider them in terms of the “Holy Yes and the Holy No as equal and opposite paths to enlightenment“. This chapter has given me much food for thought and Edmond’s analysis of McCahon’s work is quite a different take from much that I have read before.

My only quibble over the whole book is that it might have been nice to have included some illustrations, particularly of the ancients maps discussed. However it is sparked my interest to go and seek these out myself.

I liked this book for many reasons; the continuing themes of journeys and exploration in much of Edmond’s work, the new ideas and stories it led me to. However, it was the beautiful writing that kept me reading it almost straight through in one sitting. It is history not in an academic style but as a yarn or epic, told by the fire with all the embellishment and intrigue that suggests.

* Apologies, all my ‘reviews’ end up sounding like something you’d write for high school English

I have thought long and hard before writing a post about this exhibition (Kind of Blue: new acquisitions and loans). You see I don’t ‘get’ art sometimes, or don’t get the nuances anyway and this exhibition has me stumped even though I have visited three times.

The DPAG spiel on this exhibition says “Over recent years the Dunedin Public Art Gallery has been strategically collecting, through acquisition as well as loans, a number of significant artworks by a range of contemporary artists from New Zealand and overseas. Kind of Blue provides an opportunity for a select group of these stunning photographs, sculptures and paintings by a range of emerging and established artists to be exhibited together for the first time. “

This small selection (only 19 works) appears to be made up from the gallery’s collection and the Barr loan collection. I was very keenly looking forward to it after my contemporary art revelation of 2008 at Reboot at the City Gallery, Wellington. It was a mixed bag and I was a bit confused by the labelling/layout in the catalogue (no labelling in the actual gallery). Like I said though, I don’t ‘get’ things sometimes. I very much like Ben Cauchi’s photos and it was interesting to see  Yvonne Todd’s Founding CEO, 2008 which I thought might have been from the Wall of Man series but is dated earlier. A touch of lightness (but yet…not) was found in Campbell Patterson’s Lifting my mother for as long as I can series. The highlight for me was seeing in person the Peter Robinson polystyrene works. I have seen lots of photos online but to see them in person was amazing. Measure of disorder with its delicate chain links was wonderful, but oddly rearranged the second time I visited – although for the better.

At the floor talk I attended for reboot, Jim Barr talked a bit about Martin Creed’s work 88 so I was excited to see that too. Visit one – couldn’t find it and dumb old me couldn’t work out the blurry photo where I expected the Creed work to be (it turns out the photo was part of  Roman Signer’s Fireman’s glove with photograph). On my second visit, I damn near stepped on  Work 88: A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball as it sat on the floor, albeit with a large DO NOT REMOVE sign beside it. Today, the ball of paper was there, with no sign. I am very suspicious though, as it looked nothing like the ball of paper from last week. Yeah ok I am nit-picking, but I found it disturbing.

 Work No. 88: A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball
1995 – 2008, Paper, Approx. 5 cm diam
Unlimited edition
(Image from Martin Creed website)

For me , the catalogue hits the nail on the head with “it is difficult to discern what they [the artists] represent or are contemplating as a group“. I liked individual works, but as a group “they are only remarkable for their aloofness“.

The catalogue also says “there is a distinct coolness to the works” and I am thinking perhaps they were going for a gloomy atmosphere as they say the works address “aspects of absence, melancholy, loss“.  The show is dedicated to artist Julian Daspher who died in July 2009, so I guess that is fitting.

My plan is to go to the floortalk with Jim Barr and Mary Barr on 11th October (3pm) in hope of further clarification.

A Kind of Blue at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery runs from 29 August to 6 December 2009.