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Winter Wandering

30/6/2020

We had an outing

For the first time since lockdown we went for a drive together
Just the 2 of us
Because we wanted to

We drove across the country, in the rain, to the other coast
On the way there we watched familiar scenery go by & enjoyed a Sunday drive

We spent time with people we love
We spent time in their space & in their conversations
We were well fed, wrapped in warmth & happiness

The next day
We drove back across the country, in the rain, to this coast
On the way back we took a slightly different route & enjoyed different scenery

Winter has begun
June has ended well

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Covid 19, Alert Level 1

8/6/2020

as we get closer & closer to ‘normal’ i feel less expansive, less free … almost like I’m being suffocated or stifled or constrained

i want to stand on a mountain & scream into the wind with joy
however i know that if i were to stand on that mountain i would scream
& my scream would turn to tears
& i would fall to my knees & be overcome by grief

perhaps because i’m so uncomfortable in their ‘normal’
perhaps because i so desperately crave change …

i need to find the change in me
i need to find the joy in me
i need to find the ease in me
i need to find the expansiveness in me
i need to find the breath in me

i need to breathe

Pare Kawakawa : Navigating Grief

22/5/2020

It's 12 months since I finished Pare Kawakawa & as Puanga/Matariki draws near it seems appropriate to reflect & share.
I've never been able to write about this work here & yet I have shared it elsewhere.
It hung in our LTTL exhibition last year & it's in a book !
I dunno.
Sometimes these things are just too close.

Pare Kawakawa is in the studio with me.
It keeps me company.
It sits adjacent to the high south facing window & through the window I can see the sky.
A sky just like any other day.

this is what I wrote in May 2019 when I completed Pare Kawakawa & submitted it for consideration for publication.

‘Pare Kawawa: Navigating Grief’ is a kawakawa leaf monoprint which has been appliqued on to a fabric background & embellished with embroidery.
The materials used are cotton fabric, cotton thread & textile paints.
It is a new work which came about because I wanted to articulate the impact that the shootings & subsequent deaths of the 51 people in the mosques in Christchurch has had, & continues to have, on our nation &, of course, it has become a way for me to process my own grief.
New Zealand is a small nation & to lose 51 people in this way is incomprehensible.
When I realised I knew one of the 51 my already broken heart felt like it might explode.

I wanted this work to remember them, to represent the 51 people who have died.
I wanted the work to be quiet, to be gentle but not fragile.
I wanted it to be light; to suggest the time & the light that comes after the heavy darkness of death.
The moment when things shift, spirits lift, time expands, stretches to infinity & the mind can quieten so that the heart can remember.

And, above all else, I wanted it to be beautiful.

I have found it impossible to write about & very difficult to talk about it.
There seem to be too many words, too many stories & I find the words & the stories become chaotic when I try to write them down.
My thoughts become cluttered & disorderly.
The sheer volume of words becomes as unbearable as the grief.

When I sit & stitch I don’t question. My choices are clear & instinctive.
I simply make one stitch at a time.
I intuitively know what to do.
I trust the process & my heart guides me.
My mind is free to wander & when the tears come I pause to let them fall.
It will be nice when I am able to stop crying . . . but it seems that it won’t be today.

Pare Kawakawa has been included in an anthology 'Grief Become You - a narrative of loss' edited by Maya Stein & published in December 2019

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