NZ Book Month Pop Ups!

me and The Red Poppy Pop-up

I have a friend who is an engineer, and I am an artist. She and I have vastly differering  jobs but last night I almost ventured into her world. With paper. 

It was a New Zealand Book Month event run by The Wellington Children’s Book Association and  featured the wonderful collector of pop-up books (amongst other interesting antiquities) Trevor Morley and myself.  Trevor has a fantastic collection of books from rare collector's items by Ernest Nister through to amazing Star Wars pop ups complete with light sabres!  The young boys in the audience were entranced by the books and all thoughts of Playstation were gone from their heads as they contemplated the mechanics involved in the engineering before them.

Trevor also had an 'Adult' selection which required a driver’s license and proof of age to view. Much giggling was heard in the corner (oh, was that from me?) as pop ups of all sorts abounded. Trevor was a former vice squad cop, so he was at pains to make sure that no one was accidentally offended or over educated by a mistaken viewing.

I turned my hand to simple engineering and showed how to make words pop up to make simple and effective greeting cards, then went on to a larger project; making a pop up diorama of The Red Poppy; the book that has occupied my illustration career for a few months past. Everyone got to make a smaller black and white version of it too, with the help of the Storylines scissors and glue sticks kit that we use each year for arts and crafts at the festival day.

I promised the enthusiastic audience some links to useful sites that show how to make pop ups.

Here they are:

Extreme Cards:  this one has all the different sorts of cards you will ever need- very useful! It also has a pattern for the Volvelle; the disappearing picture- a bit tricky to get right but worth persevering with 

Popular Kinetics is another useful site- I particularly like the ‘make your own Occupy tent’ one. This site has lots of card ideas- just click on all the pages and occupy yourself for hours! 

 And, if you want to make a Red Poppy scenario this is how you do it:

1) Download the pictures below and print out 2 copies  of the background image and one of the characters. The line image is a guide for tracing onto the back of one of the backgrounds.

2) Fold and crease the backgrounds images in half one way and then the other so they it fold easily either way.

3) On ONE of the background images, cut along the solid lines (not the dotted ones)

4) Fold and crease along the dotted lines and make sure they bend from either side easily

5) Open  it up and push the cut areas out so they form box shapes; this is what you'll glue your other character pieces to. Lay it down flat again for the next bit.

6) Cut out Jim, Nipper and the poppies and glue them to the front of the 'boxes' you have pushed out.

7) Glue the other background to the back of the pop up, making sure you don't glue it to the box parts that pop out!

8) Open it all up and there you go! Jim on the battlefield heading  towards the patch of poppies in No Man's Land and Nipper the brave little messenger dog, waiting  to rescue him!

Now go to the Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie and buy a copy- it'll help keep me and David Hill working to produce some more lovely things to look and read :)

Happy NZ Book Month everyone!

instructions

cutting and folding guide- lay along the centre of your paper

Jim, Nipper and poppies

Background- print 2

© Fifi Colston 2012

Hidden Treasure

I'm quite busy at the moment; what with the launch of The Red Poppy tonight at the Children's Bookshop in Kilbirnie, working on another picture book for Scholastic and tearing the kitchen apart to create a nice clean space for new joinery. When I say 'I' in regard to the kitchen demolition, I mean Graham our builder who mercifully understands my appreciation of the layers of old wallpaper being uncovered in our 1910 villa. He stands aside whilst I photograph, peel and save patches of history, exclaiming all the while 'Oh, this is where they did a renovation in 1980, and this wonderful pattern from 1960 and... why this must be from the second world war, and this... wow that's on top of the original scrim!'

We have found no less than 7 layers of wallpaper paint and scrim; each telling its own particular story. This is more exciting for me than the prospect of a new kitchen (in which I will have no more excuses not to cook).

Graham beckoned me over yesterday and said 'Look what I found' and there, tucked in between the wallboards and floor were an old pocket knife and a Red Triangle Badge. I googled the latter and found out this information:

The minister of Internal Affairs approved the Y.M.C.A to hold a public appeal for funds to assist their war work. It was decided that the appeal would be known as "Red Triangle Day" to be held on March 15th, 1917. The YMCA undertook considerable work within New Zealand and especially overseas during the war, providing Christian based home comforts, accommodation, social and recreational facilities and entertainment, convalescent facilities, and canteens. Providing Christian based facilities and fellowship was seen as a necessary alternative to safeguard soldiers from often immoral and corrupting alternatives.

It is serendipitous (and just a little spooky) that we found the badge this week, and our Anzac book launch is today, March 14th, 95 years later almost to the day. I like to think it is a sign from the universe that our efforts are being recognised and those soldiers who were thrown to the lions in WW1 approve. We live today, as they would have hoped, in a country unaffected by the hardship and terror of war; long may it continue.

The Red Poppy: Blossoming

So...the next exciting thing on my social calendar is the launch of The Red Poppy on March 14th at The Children's Bookshop. Beautifully written by David Hill, this is the book I spent half of last year illustrating (with the helpful assistance of Creative New Zealand). It seems to be being well received so far and we are getting lots of very positive feedback about it. Nipper, the brave little messenger dog is going to be at the launch- her real name is Molly and she will be freshly washed and available for patting and posing with. As long as she's fed the odd Anzac biscuit I think she'll be in heaven. I have been asked what drove me to illustrate the book- because as you know, this is mostly a labour of love and there is certainly no guarantee that something you have poured your talents on and sells well will make the book awards and be recognised in the way that we all crave. So I answered with the following:

My husband’s grandfather Rothwell, wrote postcards to his fiancé Hilda, from 1914-1918. Particularly poignant were two from France; they said simply “Am O.K” and “Keep smiling!” I was in the process of scanning and blogging these cards for the family when Scholastic asked me if I would look at a very special story to illustrate. I had decided some time ago that the next book I illustrated had to really mean something to me on a very personal level. Illustrating a book is a labour of love and I wanted to make a body of work that would enthral me and push me to produce as excellent work as I could. For that I’d need to relate to the story; it had to move me. Then I read David’s manuscript.  Jim’s letter home never mentioning the horrors of the trenches struck an immediate chord with me; those cheerful words from a young man, disguising the reality of his situation. Rothwell did come home from France to be a husband and father, but was far from ‘o.k’; dying just a few short years later from the cruel ravages of his war experience. Illustrating this book has been a journey through his time for me. I visited war museums, studied WW1 uniform, grew red poppies, photographed mud and rubbed chalk pastel until my fingers bled. I have learned much and my artwork is a tribute to him. It’s been a real pleasure working with David, Diana and Penny at Scholastic and Penny Newman the brilliant book designer who created the vision with me.

If you can, please come to the launch and have a Red Cross Battenburg Biscuit (my son, trainee chef is making them special like) and a glass of wine and help us celebrate our efforts and remember those who went before us, uncertain into war seeking a positive future. Which is what I hope this book will have :)

Jim

Steamy Affairs

So, I’ve joined a writers group. It was by accident really; I just thought I was going to lunch with a new literary friend, but now find I am signed up for monthly critiques and in depth analysis of my work. Apparently it’s not all about drinking copious quantities of wine and gossiping- that’s a bookclub. Darn.

I have my reservations about all of this- and it’s nothing to do with the people. They are wonderful and talented and generous with ideas. It’s me. I haven’t written anything approaching a body of work since...oh... my last novel, Glory, which was published in 2009; I wrote it in 2007. That’s basically, well you do the math, subtraction was never my strong point- I only add stuff to my life. Which I have done cheerfully for the last few years; Wearable Art, working on TV and in the film industry, illustrating, running workshops...but add another word to my novel(s). Well that’s a bit of a problem. 

I had a long discussion about this with Brian Falkner and Kyle Mewburn at the recent Bloom Family Festival where we were contracted to tell stories and run workshops. It was a very happy weekend with fellow writers, artists and of course our audiences. I shared accommodation with the boys and was most impressed to see Brian tapping away at his Macbook each morning before we forayed out to the festival. He was finishing his next work; I was just trying to wake up and smell the coffee.

‘Why?’ I said, ‘can’t I just finish my sodding novel?’

‘Do you like what you are writing?’ they said.

‘Yes- I think it has legs and backbones to boot.’

‘So how did you write the other ones?’ they asked.

‘I just sat down and wrote them.’

And I did- Verity’s Truth was for a competition with a deadline. Janie Olive was as a distraction from the thesis script I was writing whilst doing my MA at the IIML, and Glory just because I could and had something to say out loud about not winning prizes. None of them took me that long and I had so much fun bashing away with two fingers at my keyboard, delighting myself with words and fitting all the parts of the plot puzzle together.

‘So what’s different with this one?’ they said.

‘I’ve shown it to people before it’s done.’

‘Ah,’ said Brian, ‘in the words of Stephen King, in his book On Writing, you’ve let the steam out.’

And that is exactly what I’ve done. I’ve committed the cardinal sin of showing too many people the WIP and asking for their opinions. And they, being wonderful and generous and knowledgeable, have given them. Shit- what an idiot! I now have not one, but two unfinished first drafts with lots of conflicting sticky notes and pencilled comments. And I know better than that. Really.

In all my other work practice- making wearable art, illustrating a book, designing a workshop, making crafts for TV...I NEVER show my rough ideas to others for comment. There are two reasons for this:

The first is that they might not understand what I’m trying to do before the problem solving is done and give unwanted advice from their perspective on how it should go. For instance, if I’m trying to make a piece of wearable art that says something about, oh let’s say... Arthritis (I’m not by the way), then I may have a real life experience of it that is different from another person’s. The thing I want to impart about it and the expression of that view (down to the materials and method used to make the artwork) will be different in my cerebral cortex than any other artist’s. If  I ask for advice on an unfinished plan, I’ll get helpful suggestions on what to show, what to say and what technique to employ- from SOMEONE ELSE’s experience. That’s no good to me at all- it will confuse me and make me doubt my conviction. This is very different from asking someone how to do resin casting so I can make the bone centrepiece that I’ve designed (and I haven’t ...once again, this is not a real piece I am making. This year I’m doing a Bizarre Bra which has nothing to do with aching limbs- aching fingers whilst I make it perhaps...). I only need structural help when I’ve made the creative plan. This is what an editor will do for a manuscript ... are you reading this Penny? (my beloved Scholastic editor). 

The second reason for not showing your undies before you’ve got dressed so to speak, is that you lose the excitement of knowing you have something that is only known to you. It’s your sly secret; your guilty pleasure, an affair with a whole world and bunch of characters that only YOU know about. It’s your illicit lover, to which you’ll go back late at night when everyone is asleep and you’ll play with each other and dream impossible things that ordinary life doesn’t allow. You won’t leave it alone until the passion has run its course; the first draft at least will be finished. 

And as Brian said whilst his fingers stroked the keyboard, a naughty smile on his face (yes I was watching Brian!), I’ve let the steam out. The passion and the thrill has gone and I don’t know how to get it back... I’m stuck with the predictability of everyday life whilst my writing muse is off shagging someone else’s brain and making them uber productive and on the way to writerly fame (Kyle Mewburn, that will be you). Apologies for the overly sexual nature of these analogies, but without passion all art is merely inoffensive wallpaper- and I DO have a bodice ripper I’m working on as well as a YA.

So, at our writer’s group meeting, we said what we’d like help with and what we would share and how long critiques would be etc etc. I declared that I would NOT be sharing anything and didn’t want critiques (the ones we had at the IIML nearly scarred me for life). But I DID want the group to hold me to account regarding finishing the YA at least. I gave them full permission to beat me with my own pages if I have not progressed from one meeting to the next. They cheerfully agreed.

Holy moley, I’d better start writing, or the next time you see me I’ll be covered in paper cuts.

Blanket Man, I owe you...

photo from www.stuff.co.nz

Yesterday Blanket Man died. Ben Hana was a well known Wellington icon; I’m not going to write about his life. You can read about him here and here. I passed him often on the street and we always shared a mutual nod of gidday, kia ora, how’s it goin? He really enraged some people- those that don’t like the streets littered with anything other than designer brands and successful people. But he never bothered me... because he never begged.

When I first became aware of Blanket Man, we had just returned from nearly 2 years living in Bristol. The streets of English cities are lined with beggars; mostly under the ATMs. They sleep there in blue, purple and red Asda sleeping bags, waiting for you to get your early morning cash and ask you for some. They approach you in train stations, London tubes, street corners and, well anywhere you might have change jangling in your pockets. They are all suffering from the particular poverty caused by drug and alcohol abuse. The money you give them won’t go to pay the rent or buy food for the child some of them drag along with them. It will go straight down their throats, up their noses or into their veins. After the first assault on your social senses you soon become immune and cease to notice them. So coming back to Wellington I was shocked to see beggars on the street, where buskers used to play. I thought ‘This is a joke right? they are pretending to beg and any minute now a candid camera style crew will leap out and say ‘Haha!’ as I try and avoid the entreaties of the man or woman in front of me asking for a dollar. Where the heck did they come from? And what happened to their welfare benefit?

The old days of alcoholics sitting down at Cabbage Patch Corner or in Pigeon Park sharing a happy flagon of sherry and slurring amongst themselves has now gone it seems. Now they feel the need to ask for money. Is this a mark of the recession?  Or did they Google their contemporaries in the U.K and take a few tips? Either way I do not support begging in any form where there is (barely) adequate state assistance. Which brings me back to Blanket Man. He never asked for anything but a smile or a nod. My daughter waitressed at Nicolini’s Italian Restaurant for 4 years on Courtenay Place and said he always paid for his meal, ate it on the street and returned the plate when finished. You might ask why he didn’t cook for himself? I ask you, where would he keep his pantry store? Not in his pants. He never wore any!

At the same time as returning from Bristol, I had been accepted into the IIML to do a MA in Scriptwriting. I was incredibly excited to be accepted into a select group of ten masters’ students and set about figuring out what my thesis script would be about. Suddenly any creative inclinations scarpered from my brain like unruly terriers off after rabbits; they didn’t bring any back though and I was left panicking. Each morning I would catch the bus into town, walk up to Uni bereft of ideas, nodding to Blanket Man on the way and wondering who he was and why he was dressed in a loin cloth, saying nothing, smiling at the sun and the passersby. He seemed so at ease with himself and the world around him. No begging bowl, no sign imploring charity; the only hand outstretched was to wave. I thought in another setting he’d look like a Tohunga. I called him The Chief in my mind and played with the idea that he wasn’t really a homeless person at all, but someone from a different realm keeping an eye on us and influencing outcomes where help was needed.

Then one day I wrote these words:

A figure wrapped in a blanket materialises on a park bench. As Becka passes, the blanket twitches. C/U on a rheumy old eye opening and gazing after Becka.

I had it! I had my thesis idea, Wild Cards, a kid’s TV drama  was on its way. I finished it, got a Merit pass, wore a capping gown and morter board and have since played with turning the whole script into a novel. I think it has legs, and when I think of the Chief in my story, I always see Ben Hana his own legs crossed and hold out my hand in thanks. I didn’t give him anything at all, but he gave me heaps.

Blooming heck- it's 2012!

Back to work this week.... for my SO this has been a very physical thing. He had to get up when the alarm rang at 7am, drag himself to the shower and put on suitable clothing for going to an office. He left the house at 8.15am when I was still slapping myself around the face to try and wake up. I contemplated going back to bed the minute he had left the building but that seemed like too much of an act of no solidarity. I drank coffee in my lounging pyjamas until 10am instead- at least I was semi conscious. The cat might disagree; I noticed he’d knocked his bag of biscuits to the floor and helped himself. Breakfast was obviously not fast enough for him.

Freelancing is a very different way of working and I have been used to years of frantic deadlines up until Christmas Eve and then nothing until mid February- when the salaried workers have finally shuffled enough paper to prepare briefs and deadlines for the following year. I’m under no illusions about the productivity of an office in the weeks before Waitangi Day. Everyone is thinking about the summer break they had (or didn’t have because of flooding at their camping spot), the BBQ’s still to be had (with good weather finally kicking in) and the ever present needs of children still on holiday (unless you are the CEO of a City Council that is...sorry to cast aspersions Tony). They are there in body but minds have yet to catch up and throw themselves into unwilling craniums. It's the Stepford time of summer, and everyone's a robot in the workplace.

For years I’ve been grateful for the lack of commissions over the latter part of January. It's allowed endless holiday time (unpaid of course) in which to potter about, read, go to movies with the kids, dig about in the garden and foray to the beach, weather permitting. Jan 9^th to Feb 7^th was the caregiver’s dream instead of the working mother’s nightmare. It has also created a Pavlovian reaction in me to the extent that I find myself on January 11^th unable to drag myself back to my workstation for anything other than Facebooking, Googling why my Android phone won’t download apps anymore (oh the hours I can waste with this one!) and looking up recipes for great salads (we have a lot of courgettes and spinach coming on...)

This wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have things to do- namely finish illustrations for an educational reader, start pencil roughs for a picture book and create finished collages for an iPad app. This is apart from two entries for Wearable Art I have planned and the ever present novel I owe it to my conscience to finish writing. I feel terribly guilty at not doing anything more productive than helping my daughter sort through her stuff to sell before moving to another city and giving my son a lift to Bunnings to buy wood for a project he’s building at his flat. I SHOULD be into it, raring to go and leaping into action. I SHOULD be planning my year and how I’m going to take over the world Fifi style. I SHOULD be reading worthy books to feed the literary part of my mind. I SHOULD be pounding away at the keyboard, writing something other than this post and creating enormous success for my future. I WAS supposed to do a hot air balloon ride this year as research for that bit of writing...

But actually, when I read the last line of Harriet’s blog, “Life can change in an instant so appreciate every one, who knows what is around the corner?” the wise words of my friend’s beautiful 18 year old daughter dealing with cancer, I realised that what I’m doing right now is fine; spending time with my family and nibbling around the edges of work. I’ll get it done- I’m good at reaching deadlines; I pride myself on it.

I’ll finish writing the novel, if I finish writing the novel. It won’t change anyone’s life except my own if I do or if I don’t. And even then not by much. I might even biff it off the hard drive and free up some bytes for more blogs! 

This year I’m not going to try so hard. It’s exhausting and I much prefer to let things percolate and have serendipity take its course. If I had a clear plan with goals and milestones and knew what I was going to be doing by September, I’ll be bored by March. Besides, as Harriet says...

In the meantime, come and laze with me at the Bloom Festival in Matakana Jan 20-22nd. I’ll be telling stories and running workshops along with a huge bunch of wonderful performers in art, writing and music. The perfect filler upper before work really starts for the year- enjoying the summer and the fact you don’t really have to do anything much with your brain right now except soak up some creative nourishment so you too can sprout this year. Bloom and grow, bloom and grow...

Pants

Today along with the rest of Wellington, I did what is normal when confronted with the calmest and sunniest of days in our oft inclement capital; I drove straight into town and hit the Boxing Day sales. It was a bun fight I tell you and my particular mission was to cover my own buns with half price pants. To ensure I had the best advice on what suited me, I took my adult daughter, a veritable savant for clothing. I also took my cash because she gets terribly hungry shopping; I blame that on her early experiences as an enfant, when in new mother desperation to get out of the house I would load her into a buggy and push her up to Merivale Mall where we would start with coffee and a bite to eat and end up in Quinns. When the February quake hit Christchurch, we both wept to see those devastating pictures of shoe boxes hanging out of the establishments exposed second floor...

“I’m after shorts” I declared, “something for our holiday next week, sort of mid length cargo kind of things.”

“Hmmm” replied the Knowledgeable one, “I’ve never really liked you in those.” I’ve worn this sort of thing camping for about 20 years now, so this was news to me. How long have I embarrassed her with my comfy strides?  Two decades apparently.

We started with the obvious, Glassons where I have bought all my previous shorts. I looked around but all I could see were tiny little frayed things that required much bikini waxing and labial tuck surgery. Some of them went up to size 16 which had me quite alarmed at the images that crowded into my head. Camel’s foot and all the humps. Luckily there was a pile of longer style shorts which the Savant delightedly assured me were the favoured style of cruise ship tourists. I ignored her and tried on 4 pairs, some with turn ups, some without. They all ended above my knees which end shortly above my ankles- height not being a terribly strong feature of my family’s genetic code. I looked quite like one of The Hobbit Dwarves on a hiking holiday. 

Kathmandu had an extra 20% off everything that was discounted by 50%. That made pants a mere $78 for something that didn’t fit either. “These are fricken boring” said the Savant, “let’s get some cake.” Their pattern cutters work with leggy Norwegian backpackers for a template. As I am  a) miserly and b) not called Astrid, we went on our way.

The cake shops were shut and I was surprised that a 23 year old can sigh just as long as she did as a tot on retail excursions; especially when we went into Max. At first it looked promising; racks of long shorts, or was it short pants? I gathered up an armful and headed off to the changing room. There were a few waiting before me and we patiently stood garments in hand. It was good practice for the shower queue at the camping ground. What DO people do in those cubicles? Are they wearing enormously complex support undergarments that require much lacing, or maybe they are Libran with the decision making ability of a jellyfish. Many foot tappings later (and more sighs from the daughter) I was in and out of the changing room in under a minute. It doesn’t take THAT long to realise something doesn’t fit- the minute it won’t pull up over your calf muscle or do up at the waist, or shows far too much bra indentation, it’s a given that you won’t be thinking ‘Maybe...’ If you do, you have far too much disposable income. Give it to me; I’ll invest it in shoes from I Love Paris.

I won’t go into the detail of every shop and pair of shorts I tried on. We could be here for hours. I certainly was. The last pair I tried on was no better than the first. I wanted cargo pants; they were pedal pushers. They were designed to forbid my knees from ever cycling again. Wide at the hip, skinny in the leg; like miniature rugby goal posts, making me feel like a front row prop trying thrash my way into them. My hand wandered towards another pair on the rack. 

   “No!” barked the Savant “they are menopausal green!” I withdrew my fingers from the sap coloured fabric as she muttered about ‘Women of a Certain Age’ and their predilection for top stitched shoes and ghastly Hulk clothing. To lighten the mood I picked up a pair of white Capri pants and suggested I buy them. Over the years we have shared many snickers about the suitability of white to cover one’s derriere. The possibility of VPL, flower print knicker show through and the ever present threat of menstrual catastrophe has meant that we have restricted (in our heads) white pants to pre-pubescent and post menopausal women. Therefore, when we see someone of an age between that band wearing them, we share a disapproving moment. It bonds us and smooths over any differences in opinion on any other topic at hand.

“Oh God Mum, you are a good ten years away from those and then you’d have to holiday in Majorca in them,” she said rather too loudly for the Yorkshire woman in white capris standing next to us.

We tried one more shop, Jay Jay’s. There was nothing for me there at all, but the Savant tried on three pairs of cute little vaguely vintage numbers. They looked amazing and were only $30 a pair. I admired her lean and (longer than mine) legs, her tiny waist and pert bottom. “Are you going to get them?” I asked breathlessly. Heck, I’d have bought all three for her; such was my delight at finding shorts to fit someone in our party of two. “Nah,” she replied, “they aren’t quite perfect.”

“Sweetheart,” I said sighing louder than she ever could, “that’s just pants.”

Bottoming out

My TV career then and ...then

This morning I stepped on the scales to find that I had magically gained half a stone somehow and my jeans were a great deal tighter around my derriere than last week.Two things occurred to me:

Firstly, maybe this is what happens when you hit your 50’s and spend the week before Christmas eating and drinking at a multitude of social gatherings; your body just says ‘bring it on’ and there it stays. On your middle, your thighs and your behind (never, I notice, on your chest where it would be more Nigella like). And secondly...if I was Pippa Middleton, my enlarged gluteus maximus might have bought me a publishing deal of epic proportions, well if I was 25 years younger and my sister had just married the next king in waiting of course. And too, if the bottom in question was a great deal more uplifted than it is these days, as it peers downwards seeking the comfort of any available couch. 

As I poured light milk on my porridge to counteract the maple syrup I’d liberally doused it with, my husband pointed out the Dom Post article about the Nelson couple who have ‘hit the mother lode’ with an 8.5 million dollar Lotto win. I hope it’s the friends we go camping with so that we can ditch the tent this year and all go and stay at a luxury resort on their money (they’d shout us wouldn’t they?) I’d like to rest my weighty buns on something more supportive than a camping chair this season. I refused a piece of toast proffered by hubby, not just because the bread was a bit mouldy, but because if we did go and stay somewhere posh, I’d need to look fabulous in togs and I have a week to do it.

This bought me to another realisation...why do I need to look like a 25 year old when I am clearly not? My mother and grandmother never had this compulsion. But they were never on the telly. And low... the light went on- I am not on the telly anymore! With the demise of Avalon and Good Morning moving to Auckland, my current (sporadic and tiny) TV career is at an end. I no longer need to look good on the streets in case someone sees me and it’s all over the Women’s Day that Fifi the Craft Queen wears daggy old jeans, a threadbare Glasson’s tee shirt and no lipstick on a daily basis. Not that I ever made Woman’s Day of course- it’s a scenario that we like to play out in our heads isn’t it? The fame and fortune one. It’s one I’ve been playing for years and like Monopoly (which I suck at) never goes the way you dream of. A roll of the dice and the empire you hoped to build is rubble before you even finished the foundations. 

Fame and fortune, like winning Lotto, rely heavily on two things; commitment and serendipity. The Nelson couple played those same numbers, regularly for years. On the rare occasions that I buy a Lotto ticket I go for a Lucky Dip- my odds of winning are not improved by buying a ticket 3 times a year; and...the numbers simply never come up. Likewise with my TV career. My 7 year stint on What Now as a Craft Queen and 6 years on The Good Morning Show came about not because I was set upon having a job as a television presenter, it was because I was persistently and consistently doing something I really enjoyed; arts and crafts – then someone in broadcasting noticed and wanted me to show viewers. I couldn’t have got the work if I’d taken myself off to broadcasting school and bombarded TVNZ with my CV, show reels and egg cartons. It’s not the way it works.

The flipside of such random luck is the voice inside your head that says ‘This is it baby, you are on your way and now the deals will come in- you’d better start getting professional about this!’ And then you worry about your clothes, your wrinkles, what you might say on Twitter and if your arse is too big. When I worked on What Now there was no internet or digital media; opinion and gossip spread a little slower. Getting drunk on a Friday night didn’t mean your audience would see pictures of you on Saturday all over Facebook, hair and dress askew chatting up a bartender.

 Since I’ve been on Good Morning, I’ve sanitised this blog so that it has become mostly a (fairly boring) web page for craft instructions, set up a fan page for facebook so that my personal life is kept hidden from my art followers and chewed my adult son’s ear off in the supermarket car park for being surly to a check out operator...”Do you know how hard I have worked to build up a public profile? And I don’t want you jeopardising that with your attitude- you hear me?!!!” And still the offers of further greatness haven’t arrived; and at 51 with a sagging bottom, they aren’t going to- unless I take up the art of cuisine (and that is never going to happen).

And you know what? I don’t care! I don’t have to do any of the above anymore; I’m not accountable to viewers who might sit in their armchairs scoffing Cheezels whilst criticising TV presenters for their back fat (the cruel things people say on forums is unbelievable) And I’m going back to why I set up this blog in the first place. To write about stuff that makes me mad, makes me sad or makes me laugh. No-one is going to offer me a £400,000 publishing deal because of my connections and shapely rump. I don’t envy Pippa, she has her whole media scrutinised life to lose ahead of her. I’m delighted to just be ME- an artist, teacher, wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt and friend who loves drawing, making stuff and writing odds and sods to amuse myself and others. I shall also let out my waistbands.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season 

xxx Fifi