I have had such a spectacular beginning to the year. There have been adventuring through Northland over a 10 day period. It was a time full of exploring, hiking and, when I could, collecting. On the trip I took almost 2000 images of everything and anything that caught my eye. Each place that we stopped was so uniquely different. It was my first time travelling that far north. I loved seeing how the landscape changed from farmland, to rugged wild ridge lines, bays of islands, and sand dunes at a scale which I haven’t experienced.
Before we headed out I had wonderful intentions of making on the trip. I created a very neatly packed box of selected art supplies. Alas, I only opened it once to get a notepad out for a meeting. Otherwise it remained closed. In saying that, I can imagine if I did not have it I would have regretted it. It seemed that it was a trip for down time: books were read, naps were had and there was a lot of staring out to a blue horizon.
Now that I am back in the studio, it has been a pleasure to work my way through the images, videos and sound recordings. Through them I have been revisiting and re-experiencing the places that were explored. The experimentation has already begun, inspired by the beautiful things seen and picked up along the way. I am looking forward to my second year being a part of Handshake8 and the mentorship with the incredible Neke Moa.
