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Threads & memories · The Unmaking

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Kathy, tell me about this spot where we're parked, why you've chosen this.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'd certainly struggle to get any work done, I know.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'd just be looking at the sky and the water and the clouds and how it's changing all the time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I chose this spot because...
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: When we first moved to Wanaka, this is the area that we moved into.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so this little pathway, I suppose, is where we used to run.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of links, for me, the lake and the river.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I love the fact that it's kind of that entry point away from...
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Away from the town, such as the town is, and down to the river.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I also love the fact that I can look high.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I love...
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always look at the lake,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I know that's a bit weird because the lake is so much of this position.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I love the void and what's above us.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I often take pictures of clouds and so many pictures of clouds and the dramatic...
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The clouds are different down here, and I just love that about it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to look high.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: How long was the making of coming down here, that decision to move?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: You were a long-time Aucklander, not quite born and bred,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: but certainly locked and loaded from the sun.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was like 50, 50 years Auckland.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds old, makes me sound old, but yes.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's a fair block of your life, for sure,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: and to spend in one place and in a place that's as dynamic and has changed a lot
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: and is as vibrant as Auckland.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how long was the dance with Wanaka before you decided, okay, we're going,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: we're doing this?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very long dance.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I had a choice initially.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We bought the section,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: a bit of land in 2000, and we built a batch.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we spent, I guess, 23 years coming and going.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: My husband's from Dunedin, and he used to camp on what was Penrith Park Motor Camp.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he has history here.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: My family used to holiday in the North Island on Lake Taupo, actually.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So a lake, but quite different.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I had nothing really to do with Wanaka.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the coming and going was...
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It took a long time because I was a little reluctant to make the big move.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've got four kids
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: between us and all the family and friends are up in Auckland.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was pretty happy, studio and town and everything was good.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a big move for me.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like we were moving away from the kids.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you kind of get used to your kids leaving.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they...
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: They fly the nest and go off and do their own things where I felt like we were
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: the ones who were leaving so I just felt a bit wrong.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: To answer your question, we added
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: on to the batch and just finished that just
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: after lockdown and then decided to make the move, I suppose, and give it a go.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a little apartment in Auckland,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: so we've got a space that we can go up and down and see friends and family,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: which is important.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we go back often and...
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a big deal for me actually and I was quite reluctant.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a year and a half now? How long have you been here?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It will be two years next January.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And how are you feeling with it?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously you had those concerns, those fears.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Have you said, well, okay, yeah,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was right to have those and we need to be commuting
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: a little bit more frequently back up to Auckland?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it, do you see actually maybe we should have done this sooner?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or how are you feeling with this decision?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that this is home.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a...
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: An easier transition than I thought.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some incredible friends here.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a beautiful spot.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing not to love about the visualness,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: the aesthetics of Wanaka and the mountains.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it's important, if you can,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: to kind of I'll leave occasionally just to clear your head because I find
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: that there is so much air which can be oppressive.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of, I don't know, it's like a vortex.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what the right word is, but there's just a wait at times that I feel,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: which is interesting given that there is so much space.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But in the city, I suppose you don't have to experience, you can be busy.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And not really think about things.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the clear air gives you,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: or makes me more reflective, I suppose.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I love it here.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I love the environment, great friends, very social.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my work is,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: my painting and wire sculpture is great.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I guess progressing or I'm kind of leaning into it, which feels good.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: As a result of being here, there has been a noticeable change in the nature
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: of your work or how you're feeling about your work?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: The painting, my painting practice is very established so I feel people have said
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: the common question is do you feel inspired down here
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: and I actually because I'm
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: in a stable place
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: with my painting practice I don't actually want
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: to change I just want to lean into it I suppose
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: so I don't feel my abstraction
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: For me, more attached to the environment down here.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe in a colour palette, if anything.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: that is just benefiting
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: from
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Time, I suppose.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Time and a headspace to kind of lean into something that I'm really happy with.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: As far as the sculpture practice, you know, I've always...
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in Auckland, I used to use the beachfront as my kind
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: of shopping supermarket for rocks, so to speak.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And now I can just walk down and collect rocks.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got just rocks everywhere.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is, you know, it's kind of lovely to be able to go and find
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: the perfect rock or whatever that looks like.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Also that allows me to not worry about scale because I'm working
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: with whatever size I can actually physically manage.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas before I was, I guess more easiest,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know, my desktop size I suppose.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas now currently I'm working on something that's quite big.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as I can carry it, then I can work with it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Was that foraging and exploration, was that part of your childhood?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Were you sort of an exploratory kid?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Were you out there looking under steins, picking things up?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think I read that you were drawing from a very early age.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have called myself a forager, actually.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have rock collections or anything.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I used to draw from a very young age.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I remember...
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Selling little detailed works when I was quite young or probably 10 maybe
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: to the neighbourhood whether they were just being nice I don't know
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: but I remember
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: hanging realistic drawings
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: of roses that were quite detailed so I had
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: the capacity to spend
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: time on things
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: and not I didn't think of myself
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: as being particularly patient, but I am in a certain practice.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that has become more evident.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I didn't forage, but I guess I had the ability to be very focused
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: on the task at hand, and art has probably run through my whole life.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: My whole life has given me stability,
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: I suppose. What were you drawing back then?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Was it everything that you saw?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Were you already exploring with abstract things?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, the abstract thing came later.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was very realistic.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was very, not figurative, but still life.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So all my school work was hyper-realistic
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: and hugely time-consuming.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when I decided to...
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: When I had the opportunity to go back into art after leaving my career,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the headspace for that super hyper-realistic work.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, right, let's just learn to be an abstraction painter or something.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really know what that entailed, but I wanted a shift.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a conscious decision.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And your childhood was disrupted or defined, I guess,
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: by the death of your mother at the age of, was it 12?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: 12, yeah.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm guessing there's almost like a before and after phase
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: of your childhood around that, And also with your siblings, with your family.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also have quite big age gaps between myself and my older siblings.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: How was that childhood and around the death of your mother?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: The impact on you and your family?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So memory is probably one of those things
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: that as a protection mechanism I have
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: a very poor memory, which is,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: and I don't know if that's just what happens when there is trauma.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember mum being unwell,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: and then I remember that in Auckland when we just moved to Auckland.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then at that point it was just myself and my brother with mum and dad home
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: because my sisters are 10 and 11 years older than me.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they had already left and were at uni.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just Russell and I.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this was five years between us.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember the day, not a great day,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: because mum had been sick with bowel cancer and was just, you know,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: was just one of those things when they,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: it was misdiagnosed and then it was too late.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she passed away quite quickly and then...
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was just dad and Russell and I.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So dad decided I should learn to cook at 12.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why I don't like cooking now because I was just thrust into this function.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so he said, you will do home ec at school.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that. And then at the end of that year, he said, no, it's not working.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do tech drawing.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I picked up tech drawing for what was the fourth form.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that was more my bent than the cooking.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: So did Russell take over cooking then?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember how he muddled along.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably pretty ugly.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: But you get by his function.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, particularly close with Russell.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was a great brother.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the memory is not great.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And following up on that then,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: that sort of your secondary school years then would have come after that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: That would have been a challenging time, I'm assuming,
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: for you and probably for your dad as well to get through that.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a difficult, I mean, pre-social media, it's got a lot worse.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot harder, but still teenage years aren't easy for anyone.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's true. And I think I...
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I painted.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: I loved art and I probably leaned...
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I shouldn't keep saying that, leaned in.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I had the art as my escape and I was good at it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I could do that and still excel and...
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Build self-esteem, I think, through that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Dad did his best, but he was of an older generation.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We never talked about mum passing away, so it was just like, right, okay, that's happened.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Crack on. Crack on.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, no grief counselling,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: no, yeah, just do your best kind of thing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess there was that development of using,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: or not using, that's not right, of...
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bonding closer with Russell who kind of took me under his wing even
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: though he was five years older.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of time socially with him and his mates.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I probably grew up pretty quickly but I didn't go off the rails so to speak.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had art I suppose and school and I was running and I did well at school.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But at the cost of not ever dealing with perhaps the loss of mum.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: And have you seen that coming through in your work later on?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: And is that still there?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Or is this something that you have dealt with later in life?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't deal with it until I had to deal with it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I stayed at school until the seventh form,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: didn't have the opportunity to To go to uni didn't come up,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: perhaps might have liked to have done that at some point,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: but I just carried
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: on and had my career and then at the age of 40,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: when I turned 40,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I started to become quite unwell and had always...
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just things just started, you know, lots of headaches, fatigue,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: and I just was looking externally rather than internally,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: and it all seemed so completely obvious what happened.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: This was a grief response of not only mum,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: but then I lost my dad at 20.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: He died at 20.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's a bit of stuff there, and I didn't ever deal with it.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, at 40, it was like, actually, you need to do something about this.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: What was that process like then?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Was that talking to people?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Was that alternative healing techniques?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: How did you process it?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I had always done kind of things like acupuncture and things like that.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I remember having a treatment one day.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Freeing Your Dragons.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the lady who was amazing, she said,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: if you've got any kind of grief or stuff hidden in there,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: this could be a bit of a trigger.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I just was a caught case following that treatment.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was just a mess, crying uncontrollably.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like the lid had been lifted off the top of my brain and all this stuff.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: After multiple acupuncture sessions where this had never happened, this was a different...
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Correct, 100%.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that forced me...
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: To deal with the issue at hand, which was grief.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting. And I learned a lot about myself at that point.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can look back and I can go, you know,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dad didn't do a particularly great job, but that was just the era.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: He remarried really quickly, so that perhaps didn't,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: at the time, was, you know, I was 14.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, difficult time, regardless of the situation.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think, looking back, because it's, as you say, a different time,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: if you had done things differently, is there regret there, or is it all,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: this was the path I had to walk to end up where I am now,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: or is there a lot of regret associated around not having that support in place,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: not being able to process that grief properly at the time?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, no, I don't feel regret.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel any kind of anger or it is what it is and he,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: dad did his best and he was probably hurting so much as well.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Of course I didn't even, you know, as a 14,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: 12 year old you don't give any real thought
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: to your parents being incredibly,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know, hurting humans as well.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: No regrets.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's made me the person that I am really and I am a good listener.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just think there's
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: a group of people around that have perhaps had lots of people
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: who have got stuff and it just makes us who we are and I don't have any I mean,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: it's obviously super sad to have lost both parents.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you've got kids yourself and you go, those relationships are missing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband's parents also passed away.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: The kids,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: the two boys that I've got with Chris, they didn't know my parents.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So those relationships are quite sad.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because when they're active, they're fantastic.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the boys miss out on those.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we all like to have our parents' support.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: As we get older, we see the value in parents and those relationships.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: The importance of the grand parental role is massive, I think,
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: and one that's really perhaps a little underappreciated or undervalued in, I think,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Western European civilization
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: or society around that sort of what's important
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: and what's not and sort of evolution or devolution away
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: from intergenerational living.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're missing a lot.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree. I think we're poor at it.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're very poor at it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that at this time I've got lots of many friends
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: who are coping
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: with their parents being older and how
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: that is a very difficult time to navigate
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: that with parents.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the only flip side that I've got of losing both parents is
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: that there isn't that to watch your parents decline.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But equally, I can't remember mum, so I don't, you know, it's just like...
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've got kind of images of her,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: but I don't remember her particularly well, which is sad.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the relationship I had with my father was pretty good,
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: but perhaps different to the relationships that exist today
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: where we're more hands-on
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: and more involved with our kids.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's that those relationships that you had looking back,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: that was the relationship that was possible at the time and with the way
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: that we were at in terms of processing things or self-awareness or talking
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: about our emotions or mental health, all that sort of stuff.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Where we've come such a long way, societally, we still have a long way to go,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: but in terms of our understanding around that sort of stuff and things like
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: the brain and emotions and what something like
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: an acupuncture sex session can unlock, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, incredible.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's just like some thousands and thousands of year old technology of what
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: to trigger and release.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Did Russell have a role to play in your decision to go into advertising, your career choice?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, Dad actually helped me with that.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when I left school, I went,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was just looking for anything connected to the art world, to be honest,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: which just, that wasn't probably really going to work, but that approach.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: But back in that day, Dad worked was investment management.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was a project manager for AMP.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a scheme running with the government, I think, where employers,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: where the government would pay 80%
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: of a grad or young person's salary.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Dad had connections with a little agency,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: or I don't know what the relationship was actually,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: but he managed to get me into a...
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Small agency in central Auckland, which was the start of my advertising career.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: In the art department?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, as a junior.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so this was the 80s, was it? When was this?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to ask me about years. Yeah, what decade?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll keep into a decade.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: 80s, I suppose.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I would have been 20...
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: 20, maybe?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: 19, something.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not going to give my date of birth, but back in the day. But a fun time.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the heyday of New Zealand advertising in some ways, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was, I mean, I had no idea what advertising was, but I was a good learner and...
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I moved quite quickly from that first agency to another,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: kind of was more of a graphic design studio, but I learnt,
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: this was back in the day of making bromides
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: and everything was done by hand.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was done by hand, which is probably where I've learnt those skills.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: The hand, the beauty of the hand,
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: which is like a, It's like writing.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: In our DNA, it's who we are.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I like that kind of handwriting.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm digressing, but yeah,
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I learnt a lot through those first couple of jobs
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: and then went into a bigger agency and then kind of,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I had like 12 years in advertising,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: which I loved and it was a fun time in advertising.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: And sort of the concept of deadlines and briefs,
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: are they something that then have a role
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: to play in your work that you do currently?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: So there's obviously no client brief, but is there almost a brief to yourself?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Is it sort of an unwritten one?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Are there deadlines involved where they're self-imposed or from a gallery?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: How do you work with those points now?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I quite like a deadline.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind a deadline
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: and I do put deadlines in place for myself
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: but they're probably bigger deadlines so I know next year I've got a painting show
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: in the start of the year and I've got
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: a Te Ami show towards the end of the year
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: and I've put those in place for A, because of the climate down here,
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: because I've learnt that I can't paint in the winter because it's too cold.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I've gone, okay, well I can paint through the warmer months
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: and the paint behaves differently.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can put the header on and perhaps work
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: through the winter on my weaving component.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm fine with deadlines.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: We worked hard in advertising, but everybody's working hard.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: You just do all-nighters,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: or you just get the job done.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose that was why, in a way, I left advertising when I was pregnant.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And didn't go back really
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: because my husband was having an advertising as well
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: and having two parents not knowing when they're going to be home.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't really want that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I left advertising when I was pregnant and then that was that.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: And was the creative component
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: of the work that you're doing for agencies,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: was that filling your cup creatively or were there side hustles and practices going
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: on in your spare time where you're actually doing your real art in your spare time?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Or was this, no, this is all completely fulfilling and keeps me busy?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't doing any other creative, I didn't have any other creative outlet.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was only working, I was working hard and it kind of,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it fills your cup and it depletes your cup at the same time.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing left.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just when you get home at eight or whatever at night, you know, big days.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: But so I was happy with that and I loved my role and just, yeah,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: it's just a fun industry to be in.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's in one ways that's probably because, you know, Dad,
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: thinking back to when I left school, Dad perhaps,
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Would have been of the generation that perhaps pure art wasn't any kind of...
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't a job.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a real job.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So perhaps we should go into something that was a bit more lucrative
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: and that absolutely served its purpose for that.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I always thought
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: that I might return to painting or return to something.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what that was.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never really...
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: I painted as such, just was, you know, the school system is,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: you are ticking boxes as well back then.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I did bursary art and...
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But because of not leapfrogging into tertiary,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: then I didn't really know where that was.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know. I just didn't know.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know anything about the art world or pure art world or painting.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And even my role in, I remember the jobs that I had in advertising and trying
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: to perhaps move to other roles within that industry at that time, people were like,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: but you haven't been to uni, you haven't, you know, you've got no degree.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not kind of good enough because I'd taken a different path.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that is probably true of me.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've run up the side.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've kind of gone the other, a path less travelled, I suppose.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And back then that seemed to matter more,
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: whereas I'm not sure now if it matters more.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Is it sort of validation, external validation, or almost like a certification that,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: hey, I have certification here,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've done the thing that's given me the ticket that shows that I can do this,
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: that that's changed?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that that's become less important?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think people, even in broad,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know, Certainly now in industry,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: people are looking for individuals with almost a clash of codes.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it matters little in my mind, really what you've done at university.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is just me.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: My opinion that university teaches you To show up, to excel.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, there are some, you know, mid-school,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: there are some categories
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: where that doesn't matter
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: as well.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to mid-school, then, you know, your path is perhaps more charted, but...
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly we want people that can think differently these days.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want everybody coming out of the same box.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, I guess, now why it matters less.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's all sorts of creatives, there's all sorts of backgrounds,
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: and it's kind of like your background feeds into who you are now,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: and that often maybe the more variation or the...
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: The more things that go into that box create the more interesting outcomes
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: and that means also losses
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: or trauma or just the fabric that makes us
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: who we are feeds into our outputs
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: and our conversations and our friendships
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: and our loyalties and all of those things makes for, to me,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Richer people.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm just rambling,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm trying to say that we don't want to all be the same.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy where I am now,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: but perhaps back then I would have wished I'd gone to art school and probably more
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: for the relationships.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: The intellectual speak behind my work, which I don't feel like I have.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more from the heart rather than being able to contextualise my work.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I've got enough now to get by and people...
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, for me, it's the connection.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody is looking at a painting,
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: then it's that emotional connection is what you're looking for,
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: rather than you can talk to somebody about what's behind it till you're blue
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: in the face, but unless they connect with it, then I don't think there's...
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think the emotion connects the viewer and the work.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Intellectualising things further, if it doesn't connect, it doesn't connect.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't connect, no.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people, you know, if you read,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: if you go to a gallery and somebody's written, you know,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: the statement and it's too heavy, then the mere mortal,
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: and I probably include myself with this, I just glaze over, you know,
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: because I can't. It's like, yeah, what's the work, you know,
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: so I just want to look at the work and see what I get from the work rather
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: than you telling me what...
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes it's helpful.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't, you know, because I also write statements.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've made a lot of amazing discoveries since moving back here,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: but one of my personal faves has definitely been 1964 magazine,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm stoked to welcome them on board as The Unmaking's first partner.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Laura and Nathan produce four beautiful issues a year celebrating
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: the special individuals and creativity to be found
• 35:17
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• 35:20
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• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: designers, artists and poets and showcases small local businesses making
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: and doing good things.
• 35:31
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• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: A 1964 subscription is hands down the perfect gift to yourself or a loved one,
• 35:41
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• 35:44
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• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: of our independent creatives each year,
• 35:50
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• 35:53
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• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of dubs, head to www.1964.co.nz forward slash dubs.
• 36:04
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• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: to receive two free issues inside New Zealand or check the link in the show notes.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: So when I had my first child, he was born premature.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I was at home a lot with him and having...
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Having been a busy person with work, I'd done a little bit of freelance,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: but I decided that I would like to perhaps have some art lessons.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I did some research, and I knew I had a friend
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: who was having some one-on-one lessons at home.
• 36:48
  Thank you.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I approached this...
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Painter, whose name is Matthew Brown, and we've been mates ever since.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he actually was tutoring,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: and he came to the house and gave me some lessons.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that, I remember we talked about...
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: I said I wanted to learn to paint abstraction.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember that very clearly and that's what happened.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: Can you summarise it for me in terms of how do you paint abstractly?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's probably a stupid thing to say I want to do that.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember we just did some exercises and basically
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: the exercises were me coming up
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: with some words or spaces
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: that I wanted
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: to embed into my work.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think they were the land, they were light, as in the quality of light.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was grief in there.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I only started with a few words.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then we just began exercises where you use, you know,
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: you might use ink or ink and then maybe some acrylic paint.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you work very small.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: You might, you know, take a A3 or A2 piece of paper and
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Tape it up so you've got maybe 12 squares and you just you kind of put yourself
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: into those words and you so use abstract marks to Two.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just using those marks
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: as a stepping stone into abstraction.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe if the word was mountains, we can all draw a mountain,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: but if you take that to a step further where it's like an Abstracted form,
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: then it might be a mark that's at the top.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of just push into thinking
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: about things in a less figurative,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: less symbolic, less actual,
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: so that you are trying
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: to put your feelings and emotions
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: into something rather than a literal response.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm trying to say.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's also, that's evolved over time, right?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Initially, I think your letters or the words were perhaps recognisable, now less so,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: or they're still there, but they're more in the background and less legible
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: than they were initially?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that, yeah, there was, so there's,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I had some lessons with Matthew and then very quickly put a goal in place.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's that word goal. So I decided I wanted to be with a gallery.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So after only a couple of years of just working at home,
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was very determined
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: to make something of this and being self-taught just...
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like a dog with a bone, I suppose.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just this is what I want to do.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do this and give it a nudge.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I went into a Cliff McPherson took me on back there.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was my first gallery.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so back then they were very just abstracted landscapes.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would call them with...
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were in oils.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were...
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're very easily recognisable as landscapes
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: for abstraction with qualities
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: of light through them.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess back then,
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: and this is probably important as my practice is involved
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: in that, the removal of paint itself.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was evident way back then, so I would put a medium down and I would remove some of it.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what that does is it leaves almost like a trace or a...
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a trace or a memory exists.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you put something down, you take away a component of that, you can't fully erase that.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you're left with pigment
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: in the fibres and you can build that up.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess it's that kind of, that memory's going down, memory's taken away,
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: memory's changing, you know, it's that whole...
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Remembering time and place, people,
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: fibres, you know,
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: but very much that the ghosting of there would be perhaps
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Big areas of like a vertical strip, which might have been paint that's been pulled off.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you get that kind of, A, it looks like light,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: or it could be like light through the land, or it could be a human, or a lost human,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: or a memory, or faded memories.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's lots of that kind of context that was there very early on in my work.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that reductive process is what I use now.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been...
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: A constant.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened is, as my work,
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: I moved galleries quite quickly
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: and then my work ended up being
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful oil paintings
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: of abstracted landscapes.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I almost felt like I had painted myself into a corner
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I perhaps wasn't mature enough to know that that was okay, you know,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: to be in that space.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: Commercially, pretty good, I'm guessing, right?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look at Murkysuch, you know, just beautiful.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, tonal exercise, you know,
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful paintings that were just filled with light and because they were oil
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: and they were thin glazes, they had a beautiful quality of life.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I didn't have enough skin in the game perhaps or to know what I had back
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: then and I felt I needed something else.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: Broader or deeper then?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, another component in a NAF kind of way.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess at that point I was doing a bit of, you know,
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: there was a quote that I latched
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: onto which was actually written
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: by Tenzing Norgay's, so Tenzing Norgay being the Sherpa that went up the hill
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: with Sir Ed.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: This was a book written
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: by his father and there was a A quote in that that was
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: about going into the mountains, when people go into the mountains,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the exact quote,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: but the nutshell of it was when people go into the mountains
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: and the,
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: uh, the...
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: kind of opened up to spiritual thought because the kind
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: of clutter of the city
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: and our everyday lives, that gets stripped away.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're on a hill or when we have less around us,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: then we're kind of opened up to a whole different thought.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved that kind of idea of being...
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: High on a mountain with clouds, with voids, with nothing really.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that kind of, well it's not nothing because it's a true or something
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: but it's from within.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess it's that ability to stop
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: and not be bothered by everyday rubbish.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: We get, you know, the mind is Empty and at that point it has opened up
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: to other bigger thoughts.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: So is that increasing self-confidence coming through in your work
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: then that enables you to evolve your work like that?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: And perhaps becoming increasingly abstract.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: So understanding that sort of the move away that perhaps the leads or the tips
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: that you're providing for a viewer are becoming less
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: or that are perhaps less self-evident maybe.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I think what happened was I kind of took myself,
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: there was a point where I took myself out of The gallery,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: the industry for a bit because I was like okay I just need time to work this
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: through what I'm trying to say with this extra component and I guess
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: that extra component
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: It came down to a word,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: and it was a repetitive word
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: that I added
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: into my practice at the time.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're working in an abstraction territory,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: the beauty of abstraction is that the more you do it,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: The more abstracted it becomes, but it's still integral.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be what started off as a word becomes,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: a letter becomes, a cursive gesture.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that gesture is really inherent in my work now, but in different realms.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be present and...
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: A huge gesture that I do
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: on the floor on a painting that takes my whole body
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: and leg length to stand astride
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: the canvases and use my whole body, hugely physical,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: or it can be a gesture that is done with a stick or with a tiny brush or with
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: It just has so many, it's like it's a language for me and it's a language
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: that allows me to kind of write my painting.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the vehicle and it's my language
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: which means something to me.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it can't be read.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's a vehicle, I suppose.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's present
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: within my works in many different forms, I suppose.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: I guess in some ways it's not so much self-confidence, it's a fluency.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's increasing fluency in your own language, right?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of your own language of communication.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: And as you...
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: Repeat those movements and they become more intuitive and organic
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: and less considered or thought through perhaps because of the process then it's just
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: because you've become then fluent with that gesture, with that process.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes and I think the gesture
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: The gesture has evolved but there was
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: a point a few years back where I felt
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: the gesture was too calligraphic and there was a phase of my work
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: which probably looking back I don't love it but it's the way
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: through Or a there was more letters and it was probably quite graphic.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't love it, but anyway.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: But it would have been necessary, I'm guessing, for you to, and with hindsight,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: you probably did not love it at the time.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_02: You were probably relatively happy with it, but not quite there yet.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: Something was missing.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like any of these things, you have to keep going.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to, the only way, you just keep painting and keep evolving.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember a couple of years back,
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: I decided that I wanted to Perhaps abstract the abstraction further.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided to do larger work.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I probably...
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Probably up to that point I've been doing works that are a bit more
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: of a manageable size and working, you know, work on the wall.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas these works I was working
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: on raw canvas attached to big ply boards
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: and working flat on the ground.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was able to use my whole body and...
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Shift brush sizes,
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: just make some changes in the actual physical process that force change.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted it to be more, yeah, more...
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: More written.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an Asimic language.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're familiar with that word.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: I had to look it up.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I am now.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's a great...
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's writing without meaning, is that right?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's broad sense.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose...
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cy Twombly, I don't know if you know his work, but his work is just, yeah,
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: there's a very written, what at times is a written component to it,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: but it's so repetitive and it's so...
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Fluid and beautiful that it's just,
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: it's written but it's not to be read in a literal term so it's just the beauty
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: of the hand and that over and over beautiful
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: fluid movement that becomes
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: an extension of yourself.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: When did Japan start to come
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: into your sphere of influence in your work?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Japan...
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think when I was in my early 50s.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we, yeah, we do love Japan.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just recently got back, I think we've been about seven times, and people will go,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: why do you keep going to Japan?
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you go somewhere new?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: We just, I know there's something about the place.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we only know the surface of Japan.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very complex society, and a very, I would say, a sad society.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe that's something that resonates with me,
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: but we,
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: when you, it's,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to, I guess it's like the influences that you're surrounded
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: by like down here or the land or when you go away and you visit something like
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: a place like Japan where it's just such a clash.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've got
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: the Harajuku girls on one side and you've got There's just such an extreme in Japan.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to explain, but you've got people that are still living,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: like they've always lived, still the villages that are just,
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: they're just stopped in time.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Little people, you know, making rice,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: which is a problem for their society,
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know, going forward at the moment because the young people don't want to do
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: that. They don't want to stay in these villages because the villages are static
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: and You can go and buy your rice from the 7-Eleven. It's a bit easier.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: The rice that's come from China, it's a whole problem.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as far as...
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty of Japan, the craft,
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: the way they look after their trees, the bamboo,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: little fences, the rope work,
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: the paperwork, the old Japan,
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: the beauty of that was something that really hit me.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I loved that.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did a...
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did a show that was, I think it was called, it had a Japanese title,
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the title, but it was very much embedded in Japan.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it wasn't, when I say it was, I mean, you can't,
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: it wasn't something completely new, but it was just had connection to Japan.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't, I want my practice to be...
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want, yeah,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was important for me to have
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: a painting practice that is unique to me.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not all over the show.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just, my work is, has its own signature.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think my work is now recognisable as being my work.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_02: Both painting and sculpture?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the sculpture's a newer thing, so that's as of probably 2018.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that was a new thing.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's also connected with grief, right, around Russell's death.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Was that the initial trigger to start with the wire weaving,
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: or had you already started to do some work with that medium?
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, never, no.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I was just painting away merrily and things are going okay.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just backtrack a little bit just,
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: but I think sometimes when you're just doing one thing, you know, one thing well,
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: and perhaps if you're used to, you know, when you work in a career like advertising,
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: the harder you work, Equates to success.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're more in control of your own destiny.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in the art world, that's not necessarily the case.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: The more hours you do doesn't mean...
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Anything, really.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is industry validation through awards and that feeling of, oh,
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm perhaps worthy of recognition that you don't always get, you know,
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: because that's just not how it works.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I was perhaps getting a little bit, not frustrated, but
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even a little bit of victim mentality, which is yuck,
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: for wanting to be more successful than perhaps I was.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: And probably I was, that has come out badly, but because I, you know,
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have a gallery, so I'm already, there's so many artists and not enough galleries,
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: so if you've got a gallery representation, then you're already doing okay.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm quite goal-driven and I kind of wanted more and...
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was just getting a little bit
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: too, yeah,
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: I probably needed something else to spread my mind, you know,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: just getting too focused on what success looked like as a painter.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that looks like, but...
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so what happened?
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: So Russell, my brother, passed away in 2018.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a bit of a, yeah, that was a bit of a shit show, to be honest.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we were really close.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so on his second year anniversary,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: we're actually down in Wanaka,
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: and we decided that we would do a walk up Mount Roy on his second year anniversary.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I took And this is all completely new.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is nothing that I've ever done before.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: I picked up a couple of rocks from the local beach and we took those up to the top
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: of Mount Roy and I left those two at the top and I switched them out
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: and brought two little stones down and I decided that I wanted
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: to honour the day.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than just putting them on the shelf as little insignificant rocks,
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: I decided I kind of, I don't really know where this came from,
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: but maybe in hindsight it came from Japan because the practice that I ended up
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Being Japan,
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: this came out
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: that they used to make,
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: anyway,
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_00: I started
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: To do
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: a poor man's version of this kind of wire netting, I suppose,
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: that I could weave around these rocks,
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: which was fairly agricultural,
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: to say the least.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it was successful to a point.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: With any kind of weaving background or knotting or anything?
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit of macrame.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mum was quite crafty.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd done a little bit of makarame, but nothing like copper wire.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I learnt a lot about a 0.6 copper wire and its weaknesses and what you can do
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: to it and how often you can bend it before it breaks, which is not very often.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, I wove around these two little rocks and then I kind of hung them,
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_00: plaited some hemp string and hung them on the wall for us all, which was...
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nice. I don't think our culture does enough for that.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what it did is
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: that it brought together the day,
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: the meaning and the object and the craft.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it makes something pretty potent.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that backstory is...
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty special, and it's something Russell's probably looking down,
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: going, what the hell, but, because he was pretty practical, my brother,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: and not creative,
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: but I think it's pretty cool to have something from him,
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: directly from him,
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: that has become a huge part of me and my practice.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: And was it during the process of making that object that you realized, oh,
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: this is going to become a thing for me now?
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: Or did you have to sit with it, having completed it for a while,
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: before you realized that this is going to be a new thing or a new direction?
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it took a while.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was pretty unsaleable, whatever it was at the time.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I did have...
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd made some connections in Auckland with...
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd done some little workshops with Kintsugi.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a couple of...
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: Japanese galleries up there and I became friends with a couple
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: of the Japanese ladies, friends, they are now.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was kind of
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: went into it backwards,
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: but through my interest
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: in Japanese craft and aesthetic,
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: I discovered that what I'd done was a very crude form
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: of this Japanese craft called Kanami.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: But being Japan, it's a state secret.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's just nothing on it.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like most things you can find out.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: Most things, there's a YouTube tutorial.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are a few images, but there is no how to do Konami.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_02: Is it oral tradition in terms of how that's passed on or just Japanese?
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just Japanese.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think family.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's very few people that even do it now.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of...
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our family's in Kyoto, but there's very little of it.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I was self-teaching, as is the case with me, I self-teach.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so I just got better and I started to,
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: I made some little vases that could hang on the wall and
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think they were my first saleable things that I approached
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: a little gallery with,
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: which is now where I show my works, these galleries.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: Weaving works, which my practice is called teami, which means hand netting in Japanese.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I've used a Japanese, which is kind of a bit messed up.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it messed up? I don't know.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: I went with a Japanese brand,
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: name for this part of my business.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll call it a business, my practice,
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: because I wanted to I knew it could be commercial because I was dealing
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: with a little gallery.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_00: I called it Te Ami to be separate from my painting.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is there much of a risk associated with that as an artist, as a painter?
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_02: And also particularly because I understand there is friction between the words
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_02: of sculpture and painting, right?
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: That this is not an entirely peace and love between those two parts of the artwork.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're right. And I, well, and again with craft,
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: because that word craft in New Zealand is like crochet,
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: and it's got a bad rep.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: But craft in Japan is next level.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Craft is like something we aspire to have in our homes that are
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: Objects of beauty, and I wanted that end of craft.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst they're not beautiful ceramics,
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: or yeah, they're in a different realm, I suppose.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of straddling a different place
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: where they're not, they're
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're an organic object, but I think that backstory where people go...
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think my first exhibition was called Lost, Not Lost.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like finding an object, i.e.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: rock or something, which is discarded, which is foraged, which is lost.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then you add a craft to that, and then that becomes an object of beauty with meaning.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that story really resonates with people.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even though the objects are my objects,
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: they still can occupy
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: a place in people's minds where it's something
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: to be celebrated and something of beauty.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just an ordinary rock that's come off the beach that doesn't mean anything,
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: becomes something of beauty.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that...
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Practice is just going from strength, I don't know,
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: strength to strength is probably not the right word,
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: but it's just they're becoming way more complex.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm adding wood, I'm adding kintsugi, which is the...
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with Japanese ceramic, which has been broken,
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: then it's been fixed, and it'll have that kind of, it's been put back together,
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_00: but it's got gold lineage to it,
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_00: and the object becomes more beautiful and precious because it's been fixed.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's more human because we are broken, we are fixed, we are more...
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful because we are not this perfect thing that is a perception but perhaps not reality.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: So all those complex, all those complex,
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: that complex weaving is going into my weaving and around these works.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_02: And the actual, the art world, was there, oh my God, what's Cathy doing?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: Has she gone crazy?
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or was this like, hey, you know, full of encouragement, yes, that's great,
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_02: go in a new direction, and we see this as being complimentary to your other work,
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: or were there concerned voices?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't actually stop to ask that. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've always in my,
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with my painting practice is I've got representation
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_00: with OREX Art in Auckland and I've been
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: with Rex for a long time.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what the, many years, 15 maybe.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he is amazing and hugely supportive
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of me, but I think I probably didn't talk to Rex about what I was maybe just
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: in passing that I was doing this craft and because at the time it was just craft
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: and craft in New Zealand.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is, you know, eight years ago was non-threatening.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you don't find it in a gallery, right?
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Craft, you don't find craft. Well, you didn't.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't find it in a gallery.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: You might find it at the AMP show or a fair or a school fair kind of thing would be craft.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: Correct. And I think craft through public record, which is where...
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: Through Yuka, a public record,
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: she is changing that dialogue, very much so,
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: with her Japanese aesthetic,
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: and she is changing that narrative.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yooka was happy to sell these little pieces that I was kind of making.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the first show sold out
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: and was received really well.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know. It just filled a gap.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was cathartic.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was healthy for me because it allowed me
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: to grieve for Russell but also
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: to make it okay and talk about grief.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not loading up the works but as a backstory it was human and
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was okay.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: We don't talk about that stuff enough.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think whilst I don't like to labor it because it's heavy
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_00: and it can get too heavy and it's not relevant to each object that I make.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the backstory and the way in for me,
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_00: which I think it's important to these works.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_02: How did you deal with any sort of perceived risk and the courage required to go
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_02: in a new direction with sculpture
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_02: and your weaving?
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably a personal decision.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_00: When I first did those two rocks for Russ, they were just for me.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hugely personal.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think anything.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Of them taking a commercial path.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just something that I did for myself.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose through the connections that I had with Japan and through knowing Yuka
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_00: and she, you know,
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_00: being happy to kind of put them in her retail space.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I guess it just kind of I mean, it's not like they took off, but it's just,
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: they were unique, they were different, and because they were craft,
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: they were non-threatening to my painting practice,
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: and just something that I was doing off to the side.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: As far as our financial model, the hourly rate is hugely poor.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are immensely time consuming
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_00: and are getting worse
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_00: because as I get more interested
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: in Making an object,
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I add practices,
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_00: so I'm adding the kintsugi, I'm burning wood,
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making plinths, I'm, you know,
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: my current...
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: My project is with creative spaces,
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm working on plinths
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_00: that are 900 high by 250 square,
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: which I can't physically lift,
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_00: which is a limitation that I hadn't factored.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm putting all these, my creative brain is working ahead
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: of my capabilities almost, and then I'll find ways to
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sort it later, you know, like buy a little trolley, get the husband involved,
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know, like, so I'm finding ways around this,
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_00: these physical limitations because I just want to do this stuff and it's exciting
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm like...
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: How far can this take?
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where can I go with this?
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, I can make small, small little woven, you know,
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_00: rocks that can go on a beautiful
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: burnt polish show sugiban plinth
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: that Is a work
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_00: of art in itself and I might, you know,
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I might have some cracks and I might fill those with a compound
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_00: and then sand those down and polish those.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So everything has become more beautiful
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_00: and more labour intensive but I love
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: that kind of, the detail,
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: the attention to detail and to Just spend time
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: on a little detail that is just so beautiful and exquisite and has just got
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: so much poured into it.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that could be something that's little or could be something that's a bit big, i.e.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: these big things that I'm doing at the moment, which are extending my practice.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that I just want to keep,
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: it's like with my painting, I'm working bigger,
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just keep expanding.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be static.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just think I'm in a great place with my painting practice
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: and also the sculpture
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: that is currently separate.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_00: And both galleries are happy with...
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a great relationship, as I said, with Rex, so the dialogue is important.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm constantly checking, are we good?
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Are we fine?
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we are fine at the moment.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it is unusual.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_00: At one point I had two shows on Ponsby Road in Auckland at the same time, a kilometre apart.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hugely unusual.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, like, not normal, but I'm like, kind of cool.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_02: Are you comfortable working at the edge of your capability and competence?
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a happy place for you to be?
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is it something that you can deal with but you'd like to keep it to a minimum
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_02: and then get back to being a little bit more buttoned down and polished?
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or how do you find those phases of work where you're going in a direction that's very new?
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that push.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love going into...
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't know my limitations yet.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, what... You know, what...
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I did a...
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was a...
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exhibition that Yooka put on down
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: at the silo down in Auckland.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, you know, you've got one of the silos.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point I was making, you know,
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_00: palm-sized woven rocks on small plinths.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a big silo.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And of course you can't, you can't.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just do what you do and do it bigger and expect it to work.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of, once I figured that out,
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_00: that I couldn't just do something bigger and wire in it and still have structure
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_00: because if you just enlarge something in 0.6 wire it has no That'll just collapse.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a bit of, what are you going to do?
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: But concept of something, you know,
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_00: plinths, hanging wires, mirrors, rocks.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, a pivotal piece for me and I was super proud of that.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, I don't know my limitations with it,
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: just like I don't with the painting,
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm just super happy And my kind
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: of both practices and how they kind
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: of complement each other, they both
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: They both have memory embedded into them.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: They both have this kind of repetitive component.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my painting is repetitive.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's gesture, it's different sizes, different scales,
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_00: different brushes, sticks,
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know, organic objects, organic objects within the sculptural realm.
• 1:18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wood, polishing, weaving, weaving,
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know, memory into the netting, I suppose.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's all embedded and, yeah,
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_00: it's kind of exciting and I love where I'm
• 1:18:58
  SPEAKER_00: at and I'm happy, I guess,
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_00: that the road less travelled that I've taken through life has kind of
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_00: They've given me the opportunities
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_00: and it's the way that I was brought up to do well
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: and I apply that to whatever I do.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like to sit around,
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_00: just like to see how far I can go with something.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to get a form of success, whatever that is.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_00: But at the moment, you know, the hourly, you know,
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I guess the time it takes me to do
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: the sculpture is fine for me because it's almost,
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_00: it's a labour of love, but it's an exciting time.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is doing it. It's unique.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's my own.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: People are responding to it.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So in the same way that they're responding to the paintings, where they get like a,
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_00: they stand in front of it and, you know,
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: through the voids that are in my work,
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: which are kind of tethered to some form of grounding, there's like a connection.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess it goes back to that Tenzin quote where there's that space
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_00: and there's time to kind of walk in,
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_00: walk around the paintings and put your own meaning into them.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_00: They are landscapes, but they're not as we know it.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're not somewhere you've been.
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to see them in reality,
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_00: but you can go in your mind somewhere that's...
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Unknowing and a bit like a Murakami, you know,
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I read Murakami and there is a quote that resonates,
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_00: but it's just his ability to take you somewhere.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know where you're going, but it's a beautiful,
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: complex space that is
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, exciting just somewhere to sit, somewhere to be.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess so that's that lovely space that's in the paintings.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel that the rocks,
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_00: that kind of tethering has come across into that.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the rocks are, you know,
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_00: the wire framework, I suppose, is tethered to the rocks.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's attached so that that meaning is, Sitting within the fibres.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_02: And is that starting to influence your painting as well now?
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of the work and the nature and the processes and what you're thinking
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_02: while you're working?
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not consciously.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there is that kind of tethering that I speak of.
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there are like a vertical...
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_00: A vertical drop of paint, I suppose, and a drip, if you like.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I use a lot of water.
• 1:22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So still removing, so the water takes the paint off.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of kind of tethering from high to low,
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: the connective tissue.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I suppose that that wire
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_00: in its physical form is like a string, like a drop,
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_00: even though it's...
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it's wire, so it's harder,
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_00: but it's also so malleable and so vulnerable because it breaks
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_00: if you don't treat it well.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's only got a couple of twists in it.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've learned through failure
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: to be more
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's the word?
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Consider it to kind of, that's not the right word,
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: but to be, treat it with respect.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I treat the wire with respect because otherwise it'll just bite me.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, definitely getting that right relationship with it.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_00: With the wire and how it moves and folds.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the actual coiling of the rock is in a way quite similar to some
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: of the cursive hand gestures that I paint.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I suppose they're similar.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think about the weaving so much when I'm
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's kind of, I'm all in with the head,
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all kind of involved physically and emotionally when I'm painting.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually quite,
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_00: the painting is super physical and I have to,
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_00: lots of layers, so I have to stop, give it a couple of days to dry, come back,
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: other layers. So it's all very
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Additive yet.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's adding, but then it's taking away, adding, taking away, adding.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you get this.
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: What I was talking about earlier was with the residues that are left,
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_00: which are the memories and who we are,
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: what's gone on to kind of...
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a... You know, if you go, you...
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you take a photo of something or you have a photo or a memory in your mind
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_00: and over time it gets distorted
• 1:25:30
  SPEAKER_00: and it's less of a memory
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_00: because you don't have it all.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's breaking down but you get left with a few bits.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And whether they're the accurate bits, I don't know,
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_00: but they're the bits that you kind of Hang
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_00: on to and often memories aren't accurate are they because your memory and my memory
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_00: of the same situation could be super different
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_00: but nevertheless they're
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_00: the fragments of A memory that's left.
• 1:26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that kind of process of painting taking away, painting taking away.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just left with whatever I'm left with at the time that looks right and,
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_00: well not looks right, because I'm trying not to,
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: trying to make them just be more
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Organic maybe, not worrying so much,
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: just the gesture is important and that build up take away the abstraction of it.
• 1:26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Some areas are pretty grungy and that's kind of nice,
• 1:26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I quite like that because there's often areas in the painting that are very still
• 1:26:51
  SPEAKER_00: and very serene which is that kind of void and they're tethered to that kind
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_00: of grunginess down the bottom which is super fun.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_02: What about teaching? You've spent a lot of time teaching.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_02: What is it when you're dealing with perhaps an adult learner?
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_02: What's the most important thing that you try to convey to them?
• 1:27:14
  SPEAKER_00: To that we don't want to be the same.
• 1:27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be true to you because that's
• 1:27:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to be, as an artist,
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it's your truth
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_00: on the surface that is the powerful stuff.
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we don't want to be the same.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_00: People are looking to connect with uniqueness and that bravery that comes
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_00: from Than putting our stuff on the canvas.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes courage.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've had people in my very,
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_00: and I just teach, you know,
• 1:28:12
  SPEAKER_00: pretty entry level of community art, probably.
• 1:28:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when we touch on abstraction, you know, people get upset.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_00: People can get upset.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you have to walk
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_00: that carefully as a tutor because it's a bit like
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_00: the acupuncture freeing your dragons.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can create a bit of a mess with somebody, so you're responsible.
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to walk carefully.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that's in a way is powerful as well because it's like art is therapy
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_00: and I guess my art has been my therapy as has the practice, the weaving practice.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's therapy, it's healing, it's powerful.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very encouraging and
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't compare yourself to other people.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think back.
• 1:29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Don't call your work rubbish.
• 1:29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Don't degrade yourself.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try and make it perfect.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy the process.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_00: People have these expectations that are so unrealistic.
• 1:29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, when was the last time you had a paintbrush in your hand?
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 30 years ago. You know, like You know.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Only way into to art is by doing it,
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_00: you can't think about it and do it.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage people to doodle like we used to do on the phone, you know,
• 1:29:52
  SPEAKER_00: just doodle, just make a mark or it doesn't matter what the mark is
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_00: or just do something with a pen or pencil
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_00: and a journal and don't compare yourself
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_00: and don't, I mean, some of the most powerful work is
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_00: So lean and so stripped back,
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_00: but just has that honesty
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: of intention in the mark.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's often where something you connect,
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_00: the viewer can connect with it because it's so pure and so, it's not perfect.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a place for that,
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_00: but for the Average, not average,
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: but for the adults or, you know, a learning adult student.
• 1:30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's, you know, we often do blind, you know, blind drawing,
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_00: which is where you are perhaps looking at us, you know,
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: sticks or flowers or whatever.
• 1:30:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're looking at a still life set up and you've got, you're working on an easel.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not looking at what you're doing.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the most beautiful work come off the looking.
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the connecting with the object rather than the anguish that comes from making
• 1:31:17
  SPEAKER_00: the thing on the paper a photo representation of what's in front of you.
• 1:31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Who wants that?
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it's not attainable.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's the component in it that makes it interesting?
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is my view, because there's a place for perfection, but it's also, ...
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:31:44
  SPEAKER_00: People get a huge buzz out of doing, you know,
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_00: drawing that's not got any kind
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_00: of measurement, you know,
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_00: they can't It's not accurate, so they can't pull it to bits.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_00: They can't say, oh, this is rubbish or that's worse words than that.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people are so critical of their own work and I go,
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_00: well, you know,
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's so exciting when people are able
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_00: to do something without the constraints
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_00: and wanting it to be a mirror copy.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a similar message that you give to your grandkids then?
• 1:32:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm assuming that they've seen what you do and are pretty interested in it.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_02: What sort of messaging do you try and impart to them?
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're hugely supportive of my work.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're, you know, the older ones are probably a little bit more understandable,
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: but yeah, I think that's my whole message is just be yourself
• 1:32:59
  SPEAKER_00: and find your own path.
• 1:33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't compare yourself to others and, you know, be,
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's good to be left of centre.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when my eldest son was at school, I think it was in English class,
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_00: and some of the feedback was that he could only write one genre.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, sweet.
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have a genre.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have stuff to write about.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have content.
• 1:33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just paint your stuff.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be true to yourself.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people, especially with the abstraction, they go, what shall I paint?
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Paint your shit.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_00: If I can say that, sorry.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Paint your stuff.
• 1:33:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's powerful.
• 1:34:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:34:05
  [music]