Blog 1, January 7th, 2017 The news in November that I had been selected for HandShake 4 was rather daunting.  The 7.8 earthquake had left me shaken – with a recent move into a 12th floor apartment and nothing yet secure in it’s final location – our possessions were...

Blog 2, January 15th, 2017 Although I knew the names of these two fashion designers I really had no idea of the scope of their innovative work.  It was then a fascinating voyage of discovery wandering through the rooms of stunning and sometimes startling garments....

Blog 3, February 10th, 2017 With quiet excitement and some shyness we gather for the first time.  Most of us meet at Tanel’s opening at Avid amid the noise and tilted plinths holding his exquisite work. The afternoon’s presentations reveal we are a diverse group with...

Blog 5,  March 15th 2017 The preparations for PARK(ing) Day served us well.  We had spent a worrying week with really bad weather threatening the cancellation, but in the end the weather was similar to last year’s event – cool, calm and cloudy to start the morning and...

Blog 6, April 4th 2017 March 31st – Tongariro Crossing – perfect day, stunning scenery, and inspiring friends.

Blog 7, April 8th, 2017 I have a number of collections but at the moment I’m focusing on two.  I have been working with (and collecting) silver plate since 2013 – its perceived value, meaning and use has changed, particularly during the last half century.  Developing...

Blog 8, April 10th, 2017  Questions After my first conversation with my mentor there was a list of questions that sent me back to reading research. In my last blog I mentioned that I was interested in trying to form some kind of hybrid using pieces of silver plate and...

Blog 9  May 15th, 2017 Time in the studio – in fact lots of time in the studio – I’m there five days a week and at school two days and the feeling of pressure is growing. In the research department have gone back to look again at some artists I was introduced to in...

Blog 10  June 14th, 2017 Punched decoration on vintage Britannia metal teapot. Punches made from silver plate scrap. Tests of punched patterns on thin aluminium. I’ve spent a few days playing with the idea of trying to recreate some of the intricate patterns punched...

Blog 11 – June 18th, 2017 Clearing the decks. This weekend I realised that I was losing sight of what I was doing and removed all the extraneous bits and pieces from the desk.  What a difference it made – I could suddenly see there were three distinct groups of...

Blog 12  –  July 18th, 2017 Fired & Found, Avid, Wellington, July 1 – 15   From the show at Avid. My work in the foreground and Bronwyn Cornish’s wonderful ceramics (Sirenes and Harpies) in the background. On the right is Walnuhutu 1, by Lauren...

Blog 13 – August 5th, 2017 Occupation: Artist (https://occupationartist.wordpress.com/), one of the groups I’m privileged to be part of will soon be off to Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion (26th August to September 3rd).  We participated in this contemporary...

Blog 14  September 12th, 2017 Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne Gold leafed steps, graffiti and post-it notes – Sarah Read, Becky Bliss, Vivien Atkinson Binit, Becky Bliss Walking to Ballarat, 24 hours over 7 days, performance, Crossley Street, Melbourne, Vivien Atkinson...

Blog 15 September 20th, 2017   Another collection waiting to be cut up. Studying under Peter Deckers at Whitereia has led to being part of two amazing groups.  TheSeeHere (https://www.theseehere.com/) was the brainchild of Sunni Gibson, a micro- gallery housed in a...

  Blog 16  November 4th, 2017 Leanings, Pah Homestead (https://tsbbankwallaceartscentre.org.nz/)   The install, Pah Homestead Only one day to install and the opening in the evening.  There were a lot of nerves as we gathered at 8.00 in the morning, but everything...

Packing at Whitereia All change seems to be the theme of late.  I’ve been at Whitereia (the institute where Peter Deckers teaches Jewellery and where I studied and have been mentoring/lecturing) helping with the sorting (30 years accumulation), packing and storing.  A...

At the end of the Pah Homestead show I drove up to Auckland to collect work and ended bringing a load of the planks used for display back as well.  They have been sitting in my studio as no one really wants them.  The contrasting colours are really attractive and have...

Blog 19 February 15th Pile of MDF dust Is it better to claim to be multi-tasking than to admit out loud that I’ve (again) taken on too much?  I did think that the move to working with the MDF would be a quick and easy project but it has not turned out that way at...

Blog 20 1st March There is a tantalising thought that there is a day not so far off when I might have a day off to sleep in or just be lazy all day, but not yet – I’m thinking maybe June?  Before then there are extra long days to be put in to get everything sorted for...

Blog 21 15th March Last week was busy with the installation of the show at Toi Poneke in Wellington. Gabby O’Connor played a large part in directing the alterations or perhaps interventions made to the gallery.  We each ended up with a large painters dropsheet hung on...

Great to have Liesbeth den Besten in New Zealand again and to hear her talk about Artists as Collectors.  I was especially interested in the work of one of the artists she spoke about – Hanne Darboven, a German conceptual artist who accumulated a vast collection of...

Blog 23 April 12th The trip to Sydnay marked the culmination of a work that has been in progress since December 1st 2017.  The R Matrix was made in response to the theme of the current Sydney Biennale, Superposition, a complex theory drawn from quantum mechanics. The...

  Blog 24 April 20th Arrived back from Sydney and got stuck into some gold-leafing for a show some members of Occupation: Artist are putting on for No Filter.  The group decided to support the Dowse who are putting on a fantastic Symposium on April 12-13th.  We...

Blog 25  June 25th, 2018 Some of the unresolved experiments and ideas Literally – I’m really needing to use the space between the end of the last HandShake show and the next to get on with some work long delayed by the frenetic activity of the first half of the...

Blog 26  August 4th 2018 When did “home” become embedded in human consciousness? Is our sense of home instinctive? Are we denning animals or nest builders, or are we, at root, nomadic? For much of the earliest history of our species, home may have been nothing more...

Blog 27, January 20th, 2019   This iteration of the HandShake project has finished and it time to think back over the past two years and what my involvement has meant. Personally the project has stimulated an added impetus to make, a renewed energy and long hours...

  February 10th, 2019 Acting out the idea of the fabric brush   The HandShake 5 cohort gathered in Wellington and were treated to an interesting and stimulating Workshop conducted by Roseanne Bartley.  The first of the two exhibitions we will participate in...

February 20th, 2019 Draping venetian blind   Of course, Lam de Wolf is the first starting point – looking at the broader scope of her work and noting that much of it is closer to contemporary textile art was a definite factor in her appeal, that and the fact that...

Looking at Te Uru – the architectural space and the brief to respond to that in some way.  A starting point has been to look at a couple of different artists – Mel Bochner a conceptual artist who from the 1960’s developed a number of formats for making work one of...

  In my spare time (lunch is over-rated) I made a necklace that responds to the Google translation of the Dutch that described one of Lam de Wolf’s necklaces. I put the description of my necklace through the translator: Ketting gemaakt van stof bedekt trouw met...

Susan Collis, When We Loved, 2017 Thinking about space as led me to look at some artists who make interesting use of space.  Susan Collis’s exhibition When we loved you best of all, 2017 doesn’t look like an exhibition.  The room appears vacant except for some odd...

One of the sessions during Roseanne Bartley’s workshop at the beginning of the year was based on the idea of using a list of verbs as the basis for working with one of the materials we had brought.  Having a list of words (materials, colours, times, actions) as the...

Artists using order and repetition often create works that result in large arrangements that can seem obsessive and even claustrophobic.  Lam de Wolf use of splashes of paint and the fraying of torn fabric offer the opportunity for disorder to invade the rigidity of...

Social history has provided me with a rich source of ideas and material for making work.  The rapid changes in the way we live our lives are a part of human progress, but the speed with which we embrace changing fashions and technologies sometimes comes at the cost of...

Looking at the use of knitting in relation to war has revealed some other really interesting connections.  I have to thank my son for the first discovery – he was listening to a history podcast in the background and caught the words knitting and espionage.  Strange...

With the CODA work packed up and now (I guess) on the way to Apeldoorn it seems like a good time to look back on this part of the HandShake project. All the ‘bracelets’ packed in their cotton bags I’ve had a lot of fun investigating ideas that came up in...

  The inspiration for my work in Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion came from a Chinese proverb: An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance.  The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. I was...

The Convention Reformed Some time has passed since I became aware of the quiet movement to make the repair of garments a feature and also a contemporary art project.  Liz Allen had the 2004 Summer Residency at Enjoy Gallery in Wellington.  Called Mendt,...

So far I’ve been using a very basic darning stitch – I have the mantra ‘over under’ constantly running through my mind as I work.  But thanks to reading Tom van Deijnen’s (tomofholland) blog I’ve become aware of other darning methods, Finnish, Scottish and Swiss – all...

Blog 1, January 7th, 2017 The news in November that I had been selected for HandShake 4 was rather daunting.  The 7.8 earthquake had left me shaken – with a recent move into a 12th floor apartment and nothing yet secure in it’s final location – our possessions were...

Blog 2, January 15th, 2017 Although I knew the names of these two fashion designers I really had no idea of the scope of their innovative work.  It was then a fascinating voyage of discovery wandering through the rooms of stunning and sometimes startling garments....

Blog 3, February 10th, 2017 With quiet excitement and some shyness we gather for the first time.  Most of us meet at Tanel’s opening at Avid amid the noise and tilted plinths holding his exquisite work. The afternoon’s presentations reveal we are a diverse group with...

Blog 5,  March 15th 2017 The preparations for PARK(ing) Day served us well.  We had spent a worrying week with really bad weather threatening the cancellation, but in the end the weather was similar to last year’s event – cool, calm and cloudy to start the morning and...

Blog 6, April 4th 2017 March 31st – Tongariro Crossing – perfect day, stunning scenery, and inspiring friends.

Blog 7, April 8th, 2017 I have a number of collections but at the moment I’m focusing on two.  I have been working with (and collecting) silver plate since 2013 – its perceived value, meaning and use has changed, particularly during the last half century.  Developing...

Blog 8, April 10th, 2017  Questions After my first conversation with my mentor there was a list of questions that sent me back to reading research. In my last blog I mentioned that I was interested in trying to form some kind of hybrid using pieces of silver plate and...

Blog 9  May 15th, 2017 Time in the studio – in fact lots of time in the studio – I’m there five days a week and at school two days and the feeling of pressure is growing. In the research department have gone back to look again at some artists I was introduced to in...

Blog 10  June 14th, 2017 Punched decoration on vintage Britannia metal teapot. Punches made from silver plate scrap. Tests of punched patterns on thin aluminium. I’ve spent a few days playing with the idea of trying to recreate some of the intricate patterns punched...

Blog 11 – June 18th, 2017 Clearing the decks. This weekend I realised that I was losing sight of what I was doing and removed all the extraneous bits and pieces from the desk.  What a difference it made – I could suddenly see there were three distinct groups of...

Blog 12  –  July 18th, 2017 Fired & Found, Avid, Wellington, July 1 – 15   From the show at Avid. My work in the foreground and Bronwyn Cornish’s wonderful ceramics (Sirenes and Harpies) in the background. On the right is Walnuhutu 1, by Lauren...

Blog 13 – August 5th, 2017 Occupation: Artist (https://occupationartist.wordpress.com/), one of the groups I’m privileged to be part of will soon be off to Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion (26th August to September 3rd).  We participated in this contemporary...

Blog 14  September 12th, 2017 Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne Gold leafed steps, graffiti and post-it notes – Sarah Read, Becky Bliss, Vivien Atkinson Binit, Becky Bliss Walking to Ballarat, 24 hours over 7 days, performance, Crossley Street, Melbourne, Vivien Atkinson...

Blog 15 September 20th, 2017   Another collection waiting to be cut up. Studying under Peter Deckers at Whitereia has led to being part of two amazing groups.  TheSeeHere (https://www.theseehere.com/) was the brainchild of Sunni Gibson, a micro- gallery housed in a...

  Blog 16  November 4th, 2017 Leanings, Pah Homestead (https://tsbbankwallaceartscentre.org.nz/)   The install, Pah Homestead Only one day to install and the opening in the evening.  There were a lot of nerves as we gathered at 8.00 in the morning, but everything...

Packing at Whitereia All change seems to be the theme of late.  I’ve been at Whitereia (the institute where Peter Deckers teaches Jewellery and where I studied and have been mentoring/lecturing) helping with the sorting (30 years accumulation), packing and storing.  A...

At the end of the Pah Homestead show I drove up to Auckland to collect work and ended bringing a load of the planks used for display back as well.  They have been sitting in my studio as no one really wants them.  The contrasting colours are really attractive and have...

Blog 19 February 15th Pile of MDF dust Is it better to claim to be multi-tasking than to admit out loud that I’ve (again) taken on too much?  I did think that the move to working with the MDF would be a quick and easy project but it has not turned out that way at...

Blog 20 1st March There is a tantalising thought that there is a day not so far off when I might have a day off to sleep in or just be lazy all day, but not yet – I’m thinking maybe June?  Before then there are extra long days to be put in to get everything sorted for...

Blog 21 15th March Last week was busy with the installation of the show at Toi Poneke in Wellington. Gabby O’Connor played a large part in directing the alterations or perhaps interventions made to the gallery.  We each ended up with a large painters dropsheet hung on...

Great to have Liesbeth den Besten in New Zealand again and to hear her talk about Artists as Collectors.  I was especially interested in the work of one of the artists she spoke about – Hanne Darboven, a German conceptual artist who accumulated a vast collection of...

Blog 23 April 12th The trip to Sydnay marked the culmination of a work that has been in progress since December 1st 2017.  The R Matrix was made in response to the theme of the current Sydney Biennale, Superposition, a complex theory drawn from quantum mechanics. The...

  Blog 24 April 20th Arrived back from Sydney and got stuck into some gold-leafing for a show some members of Occupation: Artist are putting on for No Filter.  The group decided to support the Dowse who are putting on a fantastic Symposium on April 12-13th.  We...

Blog 25  June 25th, 2018 Some of the unresolved experiments and ideas Literally – I’m really needing to use the space between the end of the last HandShake show and the next to get on with some work long delayed by the frenetic activity of the first half of the...

Blog 26  August 4th 2018 When did “home” become embedded in human consciousness? Is our sense of home instinctive? Are we denning animals or nest builders, or are we, at root, nomadic? For much of the earliest history of our species, home may have been nothing more...

Blog 27, January 20th, 2019   This iteration of the HandShake project has finished and it time to think back over the past two years and what my involvement has meant. Personally the project has stimulated an added impetus to make, a renewed energy and long hours...

So far I’ve been using a very basic darning stitch – I have the mantra ‘over under’ constantly running through my mind as I work.  But thanks to reading Tom van Deijnen’s (tomofholland) blog I’ve become aware of other darning methods, Finnish, Scottish and Swiss – all...

Blog 1, January 7th, 2017 The news in November that I had been selected for HandShake 4 was rather daunting.  The 7.8 earthquake had left me shaken – with a recent move into a 12th floor apartment and nothing yet secure in it’s final location – our possessions were...

Blog 2, January 15th, 2017 Although I knew the names of these two fashion designers I really had no idea of the scope of their innovative work.  It was then a fascinating voyage of discovery wandering through the rooms of stunning and sometimes startling garments....

Blog 3, February 10th, 2017 With quiet excitement and some shyness we gather for the first time.  Most of us meet at Tanel’s opening at Avid amid the noise and tilted plinths holding his exquisite work. The afternoon’s presentations reveal we are a diverse group with...

Blog 5,  March 15th 2017 The preparations for PARK(ing) Day served us well.  We had spent a worrying week with really bad weather threatening the cancellation, but in the end the weather was similar to last year’s event – cool, calm and cloudy to start the morning and...

Blog 6, April 4th 2017 March 31st – Tongariro Crossing – perfect day, stunning scenery, and inspiring friends.

Blog 7, April 8th, 2017 I have a number of collections but at the moment I’m focusing on two.  I have been working with (and collecting) silver plate since 2013 – its perceived value, meaning and use has changed, particularly during the last half century.  Developing...

Blog 8, April 10th, 2017  Questions After my first conversation with my mentor there was a list of questions that sent me back to reading research. In my last blog I mentioned that I was interested in trying to form some kind of hybrid using pieces of silver plate and...

Blog 9  May 15th, 2017 Time in the studio – in fact lots of time in the studio – I’m there five days a week and at school two days and the feeling of pressure is growing. In the research department have gone back to look again at some artists I was introduced to in...

Blog 10  June 14th, 2017 Punched decoration on vintage Britannia metal teapot. Punches made from silver plate scrap. Tests of punched patterns on thin aluminium. I’ve spent a few days playing with the idea of trying to recreate some of the intricate patterns punched...

Blog 11 – June 18th, 2017 Clearing the decks. This weekend I realised that I was losing sight of what I was doing and removed all the extraneous bits and pieces from the desk.  What a difference it made – I could suddenly see there were three distinct groups of...

Blog 12  –  July 18th, 2017 Fired & Found, Avid, Wellington, July 1 – 15   From the show at Avid. My work in the foreground and Bronwyn Cornish’s wonderful ceramics (Sirenes and Harpies) in the background. On the right is Walnuhutu 1, by Lauren...

Blog 13 – August 5th, 2017 Occupation: Artist (https://occupationartist.wordpress.com/), one of the groups I’m privileged to be part of will soon be off to Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion (26th August to September 3rd).  We participated in this contemporary...

Blog 14  September 12th, 2017 Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne Gold leafed steps, graffiti and post-it notes – Sarah Read, Becky Bliss, Vivien Atkinson Binit, Becky Bliss Walking to Ballarat, 24 hours over 7 days, performance, Crossley Street, Melbourne, Vivien Atkinson...

Blog 15 September 20th, 2017   Another collection waiting to be cut up. Studying under Peter Deckers at Whitereia has led to being part of two amazing groups.  TheSeeHere (https://www.theseehere.com/) was the brainchild of Sunni Gibson, a micro- gallery housed in a...

  Blog 16  November 4th, 2017 Leanings, Pah Homestead (https://tsbbankwallaceartscentre.org.nz/)   The install, Pah Homestead Only one day to install and the opening in the evening.  There were a lot of nerves as we gathered at 8.00 in the morning, but everything...

Packing at Whitereia All change seems to be the theme of late.  I’ve been at Whitereia (the institute where Peter Deckers teaches Jewellery and where I studied and have been mentoring/lecturing) helping with the sorting (30 years accumulation), packing and storing.  A...

At the end of the Pah Homestead show I drove up to Auckland to collect work and ended bringing a load of the planks used for display back as well.  They have been sitting in my studio as no one really wants them.  The contrasting colours are really attractive and have...

Blog 19 February 15th Pile of MDF dust Is it better to claim to be multi-tasking than to admit out loud that I’ve (again) taken on too much?  I did think that the move to working with the MDF would be a quick and easy project but it has not turned out that way at...

Blog 20 1st March There is a tantalising thought that there is a day not so far off when I might have a day off to sleep in or just be lazy all day, but not yet – I’m thinking maybe June?  Before then there are extra long days to be put in to get everything sorted for...

Blog 21 15th March Last week was busy with the installation of the show at Toi Poneke in Wellington. Gabby O’Connor played a large part in directing the alterations or perhaps interventions made to the gallery.  We each ended up with a large painters dropsheet hung on...

Great to have Liesbeth den Besten in New Zealand again and to hear her talk about Artists as Collectors.  I was especially interested in the work of one of the artists she spoke about – Hanne Darboven, a German conceptual artist who accumulated a vast collection of...

Blog 23 April 12th The trip to Sydnay marked the culmination of a work that has been in progress since December 1st 2017.  The R Matrix was made in response to the theme of the current Sydney Biennale, Superposition, a complex theory drawn from quantum mechanics. The...

  Blog 24 April 20th Arrived back from Sydney and got stuck into some gold-leafing for a show some members of Occupation: Artist are putting on for No Filter.  The group decided to support the Dowse who are putting on a fantastic Symposium on April 12-13th.  We...

Blog 25  June 25th, 2018 Some of the unresolved experiments and ideas Literally – I’m really needing to use the space between the end of the last HandShake show and the next to get on with some work long delayed by the frenetic activity of the first half of the...

Blog 26  August 4th 2018 When did “home” become embedded in human consciousness? Is our sense of home instinctive? Are we denning animals or nest builders, or are we, at root, nomadic? For much of the earliest history of our species, home may have been nothing more...

Blog 27, January 20th, 2019   This iteration of the HandShake project has finished and it time to think back over the past two years and what my involvement has meant. Personally the project has stimulated an added impetus to make, a renewed energy and long hours...

So far I’ve been using a very basic darning stitch – I have the mantra ‘over under’ constantly running through my mind as I work.  But thanks to reading Tom van Deijnen’s (tomofholland) blog I’ve become aware of other darning methods, Finnish, Scottish and Swiss – all...