Delectable New Zealand – cool new stuff from our selectors

There have been some lovely new New Zealand titles coming through in the last month, here are a few to get your taste buds and artistic juices flowing!

Kiwiana Cupcakes, Cake Pops and Whoopie Pies
If you are a keen cupcake decorator, this book will give you new ideas and know how to create extraordinary Kiwiana-styled cupcakes to celebrate our own culture.

Flowers at home
Plenty of ideas from Sandra Kaminski for opulent flower arrangements in your home.  Worth getting out just to look at the beautiful photography.

One pot cooking
Right in time for the cold season comes Richard Till’s book with 60 easy-to-make one-pot recipes. So, get cooking and invite friends to share a hearty meal!

His own steam
If you see the pictures in this lavishly produced book about the work of potter extraordinaire Barry Brickell you want to own one of his! The book coincides with an exhibition of Barry’s work at The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt until 11 August 2013.

 

Face books at Central Library Peterborough

If you like art, or books, or both – hop along to the Face Books exhibition at Central Library Peterborough. It’s brought to you by the Christchurch Art Gallery. The exhibition finishes on 7 June so this weekend is a fine time to catch it.

I had a look today and it was mint. Artists represented include Colin McCahon, Picasso, and Chagall. I was thrilled to see works by two of my faves – Aubrey Beardsley and Edward Burne-Jones. Swoonsome stuff.

Here’s some pics:

 

The Joy of Art – The Brilliance of Pat Hanly

“People are too new here and nature absorbs them.” Pat Hanly

This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Ron Brownson, Senior Curator of New Zealand and Pacific Art at Auckland Art Gallery, about the work of artist Pat Hanly.

The talk was given in celebration of the publication Hanly, edited by Gregory O’Brien, which is arguably one of the best art books published this decade. Ron Brownson believes this book is ‘better than a TV programme, it is better than a TV series. It is a mini capsule of excitement.’

Ron Brownson is a charismatic speaker. He quickly engaged his audience and treated us to a feast of Hanly’s paintings blown up on slides to the size of the gallery wall. He said, ‘If you’re going to have colour, you’re going to have a glut of colour’ and that was certainly what this art-starved Cantabrian needed. Vibrant blues, reds, greens and yellows filled the space, engaging the senses and lifting the spirit, as Brownson took us through the major series of Hanly’s art.

Auckland Art Gallery has just been bequeathed one of Hanly’s Showgirl Paintings and the curators are anxiously awaiting its arrival on New Zealand soil. It is a work ‘delicious in its sensuality’ containing the figure of a dancing girl which is Chimera-like in spirt. It will be a great addition to the Auckland Gallery collection.

No man is an island, not even a painter, and it was wonderful to see Pat Hanly’s wife, Gil, taking photos for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. She added some interesting background information to the talk, in one instance filling us in on the events that led up to the painting Fire at Mt Eden. Warring gangs in the neighbourhood set fire to a house close to the Hanly home and the family watched as the flames leapt into the night. Although Hanly’s works are abstracted, they are of this world.

Some people say they don’t understand Hanly and Brownson believes he knows why:

‘They don’t understand about joy and happiness. (Hanly’s) painting is full of joy. It enjoys living.

 

En Route to Venice – Bill Culbert: Ian Wedde AWRF 2013

Bill Culbert is a New Zealand artist possibly better known in Europe than in his native land, but that should change in 2013. In April he was awarded the first  honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury and on his return to England he set to finalising the plans for his representation of New Zealand at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Making light work is the first  substantial work on “the ideas, materials and conditions that have formed Culbert’s art for the past fifty years”. It’s the closest most of us will get to Venice and should help the reader to opine in an informed manner when the Biennale works are unveiled.

Anna Hodge, an editor at Auckland University Press, described it as an expansive monograph and a meticulously researched feat of scholarship and friendship.

Ian Wedde is the author and he is just the man for the job of explaining Culbert’s art; Wedde is the Poet Laureate, a fiction writer, essayist, curator and critic who worked closely with Bill Culbert on the book.

Incorrigible eavesdropper that I am I was riveted to hear from behind me that “Ian’s really loosened up, I find his poetry a lot more accessible” and the response “the skill is the rendering down, not the bulking up”. Indeed.

Wedde pointed out that this was a talk about getting to Venice. If you’re not going, you can see the Creative New Zealand Road Show (if it comes to Christchurch). The trajectory of Culbert’s practice has taken him from learning about light at Hutt Valley High to creating works with salvaged materials; from  perforations on the wall with light shining through them, to floor mounted works, to installations of light.

In his long career, Culbert has asked the same questions although he has answered them in different ways; questions about patterning, about where is the surface, about what is depth and not depth and what is movement.

At the session question time Wedde got the question he was expecting – “can you give us a hint of what will be shown at Biennale?” He answered that  it will be a walk through space including some of the space used when et al represented New Zealand. Audible gasps from the audience. There will be objects and at the end there will be a structure. So far so good. Wedde speculates that this will be a 3-D hut structure made of flourescent tubes that can be stood in and the viewer will be able to look up and see the sky. Which he hopes will be blue.

So now you know.

• Visit the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival website.
• Follow our Festival coverage on the blog.

 

A conversation with Rosemary McLeod

This is an unreliable memory of my conversation with Rosemary McLeod, writer, crafter and author of With bold needle and thread. Unreliable because due to background noise I had abandoned the recorder, which left me to take notes as we talked, which also failed as I became so engrossed and involved with what we were talking about that I forgot to take the notes!

The first question I asked was about the design of the book.  If you have seen it you will agree that it is beautiful. Rosemary had a large part to play in what was included from her vast collection of magazines and other collectables. Jane Ussher came to her house and photographed the collection in natural light so that all the colours were true to the original. The care and dedication are evident, it is a book to browse and enjoy.

Rosemary is a collector of art, pottery, tablecloths, tea cosies, books, magazines, fabric … the list goes on. However once art became too expensive to collect, Rosemary realised that she enjoyed collecting the things that no one else valued. This led to the collecting of women’s craft, or applied art, and this in turn led her to realise that she wanted to make the sort of  things she was collecting, and to also use the patterns from the women’s magazines as a basis for her craft.

We talked about the process of making craft, how wonderful it is for dealing with stress. Rosemary had with tongue in cheek suggested that the book could have been called “Better than  Prozac”!

Rosemary described enjoying the process of working out how to make something and then deciding on the colours and materials to use, often relying on that wonderful crafters ‘Stash’.  Can there be anything more satisfying than finding a use for that tiny piece of 195′s cotton that you bought for 50 cents at the school fair in 1980?

I had been curious for a while about why there was the need to decorate the everyday items that were made. Rosemary described a scheme first started in Scotland in the 1930s called the  Needlework Development scheme. This project was to encourage a high standard of embroidery. It was disbanded during the war but started up again in 1945 to encourage women to start making and sewing again, possibly because they had been too busy working outside of the home in the war, and it was time to get back to the domestic again. Craft has always however been about meeting up with other women, company and creativity.

I also wondered if many of those women in the earlier years would these days be at art school, which led her to tell me that in the early 1900s embroidery was part of the Christchurch School of Art, and that if I managed to find a copy of The Studio year book of decorative arts that I would be amazed with what it included. If anyone knows anything further about this I would be very interested.  Here is a link to some art, including embroidery that was donated to the Macmillan Brown Library at the University of Canterbury.

We talked about colour and how we both like the old fabrics and colour schemes of the time. I especially love her embroidered flower tea cosy with the pastels and gentle colour combinations. We bemoaned the colours of bought felt in New Zealand, garish primary colours, but I am now off to view Ericas.com who Rosemary assures me stock half-tones that are far more pleasing on the eye.

Rosemary has had exhibitions of her own craft work as well as curating a number of other shows depicting applied arts in New Zealand.  Alongside all this she writes her weekly columns. Her parting comments to me were that she would like a couple of weeks off just to sit down and plan her next craft project. I hope she gets time soon as hopefully there might be another beautiful book to come out of it.

 

Tattoo you: Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2013

New Zealand tattoo: in the home of the tattoist’s art by Chris Hoult and Steve Forbes is a beautiful book: “a snapshot of the tattoo scene in 2011 and 2012″. Photojournalist Chris and writer Steve have made something rather special. Their session managed to convey the richness of the tattooing culture even though as they said “We’re photojournalists, we’re not noted for our oratory”. They showed a series of striking images as part of their presentation.

The book’s genesis was in an observation of Europe’s keen interest in ta moko. A sample chapter was created for the Frankfurt Book Fair, and it proceeded from there. Just after the book was given the go-ahead, the biennial tattoo convention in Auckland took place – so they had the potential for new material for their book.  After the convention, they decided focusing on a dozen artists wasn’t enough.

Steve Forbes then explained more about the history of ta moko and tattooing in New Zealand. Tattoo chisels have been found in our oldest archaeological dig sites. Mokomokai (preserved tattooed heads) once became a macabre commerce. Some chiefs who signed The Treaty of Waitangi drew their distinctive moko patterns as their signature. But as time moved on and ta moko declined, the last bastion was the kuia who wore the chin moko.

He delved more into the history including the Samoan influence, and the controversy around non-Maori like Robbie Williams sporting traditional designs.

So how many Kiwis are tattooed? Apparently we are the most tattooed people on earth – in 5 Kiwis are inked. 22% of women, 17% of men. Interestingly, only five of us in the crowd ‘fessed up to being inked – and neither of the two writers are.

The more recent tattooists and their business was explored with lots of great examples. Many of the current crop of tattooists are art school graduates and young, keen and smart business people.

Chris had some top tips if you are thinking of getting inked:

1. Choose your design carefully.
2. Don’t get tattooed under the influence of drink, drugs, or strong emotions.
3. Get inked after New Year’s. Lots of people book in November, but then spend their holiday pay so often tattooists have free time early in the new year.
4. “Beware because they are artists and they are looking for fresh, blank canvas – you”
5. Cheap tattoos aren’t good, good tattoos aren’t cheap.

 

Remarkable Women AWRF 2013

Jolisa Gracewood had an unenviable task wrangling, in the nicest possible way, three strong, singular women who ended up running over her in the nicest possible way.  Or actually two of them did.

Aorewa McLeod is one of those simultaneously inspiring and daunting people who has a long and distinguished career and then on retiring starts another, equally successful enterprise. In McLeod’s case a Masters in Creative Writing led to a well-reviewed ‘autobiographical fiction’ or ‘fictional autobiography’, Who was that woman anyway? The book ended up at the top of the biography best-seller lists, then moved to fiction.

All the reviewers who met Meme Churton when her extraordinary memoir Meme: the three worlds of an Italian-Chinese New Zealander came out noted her chic, so, irredeemably trivial as I am, I was very keen to see her. And she did not disappoint. Churton has Chinese and Italian ancestry; she ran some of Auckland’s earliest dealer galleries and cafes; she knew everybody and had an extensive art collection, but she did not have a happy marriage. Meme claimed to have brought the first espresso machine to Auckland; Jacqueline claimed to have ruined one of the first in Wellington.

Jacqueline Fahey has written two volumes of memoirs that are not only insightful descriptions of of an artist’s thought and practice, but are also vivid snapshots of what life was like at a time when clever women were expected to help their husbands in their careers, look after the children and never ever show any signs of doing anything for themselves. Fahey’s voice came through the books so strongly I expected her to dominate proceedings totally.

And she pretty much did. Meme gave her a good run for her money, but Aorewa could barely get a word in, despite valiant attempts at talking about sex and destiny.  She did a bit better with fashion, but on the subject of hating her mother Fahey topped her again – “It’s the most natural thing in the world”.

What they all did agree on was telling the truth about one’s life can only ever be one version of the truth.  One woman’s truth is another woman’s lie, all memories are true but within families they can be hopelessly at odds.

Word of the session? Barbarous.

Follow our Auckland Writers and Readers Festival blog posts.

 

Why your five-year-old could not have done that

Ever stood in front of a work of modern art – all spots and dribbles, or with child-like figures and random words scrawled across it? Or been mystified by an installation of a toilet (which won an art prize and got sent all the way to Paris)? If so, you may have had three thoughts in rapid succession:

• I could do that
• Hell no, my five year old could do it
• Crikey, I hope they didn’t spend any of my taxes on this

If this sounds like you, you need to read Susie Hodge’s book: Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That, in which she takes us for a look at one hundred works of modern art and talks us through  them to show exactly why our five year olds could most certainly not have produced a dribbly Jackson Pollock or even the simplest looking Mark Rothko. According to Hodge, it’s got to do with intention, technical skill, layering of ideas, sheer inspiration, pushing new boundaries and historical context. Sure, maybe little Johnny can copy it now – but that’s only because he’s seen it done already.

It’s a fascinating little book for anyone who is interested in art, especially art education. I read it hand in hand with with My Art Book, which is a Dorling Kindersley publication for children. In My Art Book, art masterpieces are deconstructed to encourage children to copy the techniques of famous artists like Kandinsky and Van Gogh. It is a colourful book, fun and full of ideas. But I found it disturbing where children were really just copying masterpieces, like the little girl on page 37 – earnestly hunched over her ballerina, smudging it for all she’s worth to get it to look exactly like a Degas.

Irrespective of which of these two approaches you prefer, if you come along to the New Brighton Bookish Artists Art Exhibition in May (featuring art works by library staff), we won’t mind at all if you look at our work and think: “I could do better than that”, and what is more, we’d be only too delighted if you set out to copy us!

Here’s a taster from last year’s exhibition:

 

Migrant Quilt Group exhibition

Migrant Quilt Group exhibition at South Library until 14 April 2013.

 

Fly me up to where you are

A major visual arts project involving thousands of Canterbury schoolchildren will take place during this year’s Christchurch Arts Festival.

In the first announcement of the 2013 programme, the Festival reports contemporary New Zealand artist Tiffany Singh and her project, Fly Me Up To Where You Are, will be bringing colour back to Christchurch.The Festival is utilising The Art Foundation’s new crowd funding website, Boosted, to raise funds to bring the project to the city and hopes to raise $7000 over the next month.

Fly Me Up To Where You Are will see Singh visit Canterbury schools in August and September this year for children to develop the flags, which form the centre of the exhibition. Each child will create two flags expressing their hopes and dreams for themselves and for the city of Christchurch.

The flags will be stitched into strings similar to Tibetan prayer flags and will form a mass installation of colour and hope in the central city.

Fly Me Up To Where You Are is currently part of Auckland Arts Festival and has been described by Auckland audiences as “a truly breathtaking sight” as children’s hopes and dreams blow in the wind above the city’s central Aotea Square.

The project will be free for all participants and Singh believes it will be especially meaningful for Christchurch after everything the city has been through these past two years.

The Festival hopes to have more than 2000 children involved in creating their own flags.

Christchurch Arts Festival director Philip Tremewan says he hopes the people of Christchurch will gain huge satisfaction from the exhibition and “reading about the students’ hopes and dreams for the future”.

It is expected that more than 70,000 people will see the installation during the Festival in August and September this year.

Through Boosted, the Festival aims to raise $7000 between now and Sunday 21 April in order to get the project to Christchurch, and are appealing to the public to donate what they can afford to help them reach their goal.

To donate to the Christchurch Arts Festival ‘Fly Me Up To Where You Are’ project, visit www.boosted.org.nz

From the Christchurch Arts Festival media release