Studio Insights - September 2024
CREATE: What I’ve created/done & what I’m working on.
INSPIRE: What art has inspired me.
LEARN: What I’m learning to develop my practice.
PLAN: What I’m planning next.
September was a huge month with lots happening! I was a finalist for two award exhibitions, travelled down to Christchurch and Nelson, and visited around 15 different exhibitions. It’s been great, but I'm also hoping October involves a little more creating rather than showing.
With my trip down south there was too much great stuff to reflect about - so I’ve decided to give that trip its own special entry later on. Keep an eye out for an extra update!
Starting this month I’m including a quote which has resonated with me in each update.
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
CREATE: Award Exhibitions
Wellington Regional Arts Review & Tasman National Art Awards
September kicked off with the showing of my painting ‘Ethereal Moss’ in the Wellington Regional Arts review. It was an honour to be selected for this and I was incredibly impressed with the quality of display and the wide range of works selected. This painting is challenging to light, so it was a treat to finally see it in a proper professional public gallery setting! The people’s choice award is still open, so make sure you attend and vote for your favourite (hopefully mine, but please be honest).
This exhibition runs until November 17 at Whirinaki , Upper Hutt, New Zealand.
I also displayed my piece ‘Dead-end’ at the Tasman National Art Awards, held at the Mapua Community Hall in Nelson (On until October 12th). While this wasn’t nearly as professional of a space as Whirinaki, I thought they did a fantastic job with the setup and transformation of what is essentially just a big gym. (When I dropped off the day before they were having a yoga class in there.)
I must say I’m sometimes quite bewildered by the selection of art judges. In my opinion there were some strange choices of winners in the Wellington Regional Arts Review. Maybe I just have a very closed minded taste in art? I’ve never tried judging, I’d probably be terrible. But I can’t say I’ve talked to anyone who disagrees. Thankfully I did think the judges did a great job in Mapua, every winner was in my opinion very well deserved (even though I wasn’t selected for any!)
INSPIRE: Wellington Brick Show
As I said, I made my way into approx 15 different galleries/exhibitions over the month - in big part thanks to my trip, but I was also just quite steady throughout the month. My new year's resolution was to visit more exhibitions - go me! I may have taken it too seriously, but can you ever appreciate too much great art?
I’ll keep this one to just Wellington, and detail what I saw down south later.
Wellington Brick Show - Walter Nash Centre in Lower Hutt.
I can’t say I’ve ever had a huge interest in lego, but I found this grand display of creations truly inspirational. This place had everything - Hogwarts, Star Wars, moving vehicles, interactive displays, animals, landscapes and much more. If you could imagine it, they somehow made it from lego.
There were two things that stood out to me, beyond the meticulously beautiful creations I appreciated;
One - a distinct lack of people trying to sell. Coming from the context of art shows, which aims to get work out the door ASAP, this was a little alien to me. I kept thinking, “but what is the point of all this hard work?” As it turns out, beyond a few awards to the best creations, the point is simply that these people just really really love lego. And they want you to love it too. It’s basically just a big geek out fest, and that’s beautiful.
Two - I noticed these little signs next to people’s stands, displaying each event attended and achievements made. Some were so extensive with accolades as to dwarf their own creations next to them. I thought this was such a fun way to display a resume of past shows, and wondered how I might do something similar for my art shows.
And a special mention to the exhibition ‘Non Disclosed Artist’ held at Thistle Hall
I’m trying to be more succinct with my inspire section, but it’s hard when theres so much great art out there!
LEARN: Fastier History
While visiting extended family I was shown a book writen by professor Fred Fastier detailing in great depth the origins of my family name right back to Paris in the 1700s. I was a little shocked it took me until 27 to discover such a goldmine exists. When I shared this profound discovery with my parents, they responded: “Oh that old thing? Yeah we have a copy deep in the closet somewhere.”
I’m pretty sure people have asked before if I’m related to Fred, and I said I didn’t think so. He quite literally wrote the book on my family, and my name is in it.
This is your reminder to ask your family if they forgot to mention any valuable family heirlooms hidden amongst shoe boxes and old coats. You never know what you’ll uncover.
In this book I learnt about my relation to Myra Kirkpatrick (b.1910, d.1970), a well known landscape painter with work in permanent collections of the Dunedin public art gallery and Te Papa. Her work is quite beautiful - I’ll have to go on a hunt to see these in person if possible! And so to all those that insist on asking where in the family I got my 'talent’ from; at last you have an answer. Because we all know it couldn't possibly just be hard work and lots of practice.
This particular quote in her story stood out to me - spoken by her sister after Myra returned to painting while battling a major illness.
Doctor: “Doesn’t your sister realise that her life is at stake?”
Sister: “And don’t you realise, Doctor, that painting is her life?”
Myra Kirkpatrick, left to right - ‘The shop with the shining windows’ (1956) , ‘Crouching Headland’ (1959) , ‘Head of Blue Lake, St. Bathans’
PLAN: Production Time
My plan for October is to plan less. The last few months have been quite busy with various exhibitions and planning directions. I’m shifting now back into production mode, working to create a series of paintings for each of my shows next year and also begin work on a future solo show. I’ve gotten a little lost in all the planning and need to regain a bit of momentum - Now’s the time to sit down and get some paint on the canvas.