Happy Hat Box!

Ra whanau ki ahou!

Yes it’s my birthday and to celebrate, I made a hat box birthday cake! This is a great way of catering for the different dietary needs of friends. We have three celiacs in our family, so it’s really vital not to get the cupcakes mixed up! 

Here are the instructions for making this cake- sorry you’ll have to find your own recipes for the edible bits (baking is not my strong point- my son is better at that; I do the art and he does the cooking!)This is a really easy craft but looks so gorgeous! I did one for a friend for her wedding, themed it with sea colours and decorated it with driftwood and paua shell. You'll have loads of crafty fun with this one :)

Here's me making the craft on the Good Morning Show today- complete with a terrible cold (made better by kisses from Brendon Pongia and Matai Smith. Ka pai!

Matariki Star template

Here is the template for the Matariki Star serviette rings- go here for instructions- happy crafting everyone!

Happy Matariki

It's Matariki, the Maori New Year, so make the The Seven Sisters (Pleiades star cluster) with me on Good Morning, this Tuesday, 14th June. I'll show you how to make the beaded stars, serviette rings and a stunning centrepiece for your table and Matariki feast!

Handmade Instructions

For all of my lovely attendees from the Handmade masterclass workshop yesterday, 

email me for exclusive instructions and templates!

Handmade in Wellington

You may be aware of an exciting new event called HANDMADE 2011 happening 4-5 June at Te Papa.

I’m really excited to be involved as a masterclass speaker in the HANDMADE programme with lots of other wonderful activities celebrating all things HANDMADE.

I’m doing a masterclass called Wrap and Dangle: the Art of Giving

in the Gift It category on Sunday 5^th June 11.00am-12.45pm Tickets to this are $45 and you can come along and watch me demonstrate [insert description].

I will also be attending the Meet the Makers & Pop Up Store party, on Saturday 4 June from 6.30pm at Te Papa. This will be a great opportunity to have some fun with friends, support the makers selling items and talk to us about what we do. Tickets are $30 refreshments will be served and you don’t have to be a HANDMADE attendee to come along.

You can find out more about the other classes, demonstrations, lectures and tours and purchase tickets at www.handmade2011.co.nz

The inaugural HANDMADE is the place for people who want to learn the skills and crafts of previous generations but with modern style and flair.

• Make in a workshop with expert teachers
• Watch Masterclasses with high profile makers
• Join a tour
• Learn in the lecture series

Come to one thing or as many as you like depending on your budget and available time.

There are limited numbers in the 150+ activities on offer so it’s best to get in quick to book your activities so that you don’t miss out on your first choices!

I’d be delighted if you’d join us as part of the HANDMADE weekend.

Sweding...

I have been remiss at blogging! All I can say in my defence is that 'I was busy Your Honour'. What with you ask? (or not, if you have given up following me)...

Wearable Art for one; the deadline is the end of this week and I have been very busy hand sewing things and creating an unholy mess in the lounge, dining area, kitchen and my tiny studio. The family will forgive me soon...

The other has been the ANZAC book by David Hill that I am illustrating for Scholastic. I had a wonderful week at New Pacific Studio in Mt Bruce over ANZAC and the following week to get to grips with the final pencil drawings before I put brush to paper and stylus to wacom tablet. Working day and night with only breaks for coffee and the odd poached egg on toast...bliss. Now how many other people can say that about their work?

I also went to the Spinning Tales, the Children's Book Writer's and Illustrator's Hui in Auckland, which was fabulous and reaffirmed to me just how lucky I have been to be traditionally published in this increasingly tough world. Times are a changing; exciting and challenging and I say 'bring it on!' even though it may be uncomfortable at first. At the Hui I sang for my supper at the Literary Feast with a rendition of 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak. It was a sweded version and for those of you unfamiliar with the sweding concept, go here to find out more about 'Be Kind Rewind', the movie by Jack Black and the art of making something from whatever you can lay your hands on.

Such was the response to it and requests to see it again by those who didn't attend the Hui, that I reprised it at The Library Bar in Wellington one night for our WCBA Club night. Mike Bodnar filmed it for us under less than perfect lighting conditions and managed to edit out the waitress walking in with a latte for someone (and asking who had ordered it). All the props were made from egg cartons, paper plates and scrumpy bottles, and the claws were fashioned by the audience over a glass of wine prior to filming. Thankyou to the enthusiastic audience for roaring and clawing so marvellously! Instructions on making the claws are below.

Crackpots

So, one month ago tomorrow, I did some fun artwork on the Good Morning Show with Brendon Pongia. We had a few laughs, made some poured acrylic paintings and I tootled off to have some lunch and think about my book illustration project in the afternoon. Then I got a text from a friend to say Christchurch had been hit by a massive quake and all my plans went out the window. The past month has been distracting to say the least; worrying about friends and family, glued to facebook and the news media...

But at some point we have to pick up and get on with things; my book illustration job is underway, family have gone back to Christchurch to mend their broken houses and jobs and queue for coffee (now is a very good time to have a mobile coffee cart in Canterbury from all reports). And friends are wondering what to do with their precious possessions that are ‘munted’ (now a Christchurch colloquialism).  

A very fine Christchurch illustrator friend, Jenny Cooper, had a good idea.

‘Don't chuck out your broken plates! Christchurch needs them! Let's all keep our precious broken plates, mugs, jugs, vases, tiles..... anything that was beautiful and has a memory attached..... if we pop them in a box and tuck it away in the garage, in 6 months we can organise a memorial mosaic sculpture, perhaps in the Botanic gardens. Perhaps craft people and mosaic specialists will help, and we can re-use these lovely irreplaceable old bits of china, maybe build some benches or a garden, think of how lovely The Giant's House in Akaroa is. Have spoken to a City Council Member who says yes go for it, please repost this to everyone in Christchurch who might be interested.... it might not happen overnight, but it will happen!’

I like good ideas, so I thought I’d get the ball rolling (or the plates as it were) by making something from a piece of cracked ceramic ware on The Good Morning Show on Tuesday 22^nd March at 9.30am.

Jenny sent me her smashed Katie Gold handbag pieces carefully packaged in bubble wrap to which I then took a hammer (sorry Katie- I was very respectful about it) and created the flower pot you see here. I’m no expert mosaic artist and am learning as I go; there is enough of the broken ceramic to make three small pots looking ‘same same but different.' By the time I’ve finished the third one I’ll be far more useful to the project Jenny is proposing for Christchurch. In 6 months time I’d like to go down there and be a part of creating a public artwork with anyone else keen to be involved. If you have broken china, we have a place to store it, just email me for the details. 

We’ll be looking for sponsors to help with this by way of materials; tile adhesive, grout etc (btw...the fabulous Bunnings donated me the materials for my flower pot) And like all good ideas, we figure this will just evolve creatively and purposefully until it becomes a beautiful and functional reality. Just like the rebuilding of Christchurch :)

Of Mice and Men

I’ve been wondering what on earth to write about since 22/2/11 (note that the numbers are all 2’s and this was the second destructive quake...sorry, part of me leans towards superstition and fate). There has been a lot to absorb and some extraordinary feats of courage...and fundraising going on during this time. 

I had lunch with a Christchurch friend today, temporarily exiled to Wellington until her work premises is made safe, who admired my NZ hearts ChCh tee shirt and said she’d buy one. I said she should be given an ‘I got out alive’ one for free. She said since she’s been in Wellington she’s been dragged along to every fundraiser and charity dinner and spent a fortune essentially donating to herself.

For myself, I’ve given to the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, I’ve bought the tee shirt, I’ve sent care packages to friends to cheer them up, I’ve lent my car and house to evacuees (ok friends and relatives but still in need of a funk hole) and I have followed on facebook all the initiatives to raise money for Christchurch.

But I stopped short of donating my work to Trademe. 

Why would I do this? After all, I have piles of it sitting around at home in boxes being eaten by silverfish.

The reason is this. In good times it’s very hard to get the public to buy art, unless you are a name artist and even then it’s not that simple. Trademe is littered with artworks; some good, some very good and some would be much better kept in the portaloo. For the good and very good artist there is nothing worse than seeing your passion sell for your $1 reserve and find it costs you more to ship it than you anticipated. There is a now a flood of fabulous work donated by fabulous artists and crafts people and managed by tireless co-ordinators for the Christchurch Appeal. You can buy anything nice for a bargain basement price. It’s like the $2 Shop but with talent and class. But there’s something about getting art really cheap. It is never appreciated in the same way as saving up your next three years disposable income for a Shane Cotton would be. I suspect that’s why the trade is a bit slow. Artworks I have given away to people often ends up in their batches, to rot with sea salt. They don't know what to do with it when it's free.

I have been an artist since I was a tiny little girl. I have never wanted to be anything else. The tiny mouse in the photo was one I made when I was 11. There was a fad for them in gift shops at the time and I cunningly sketched one whilst loitering and looking like a young shoplifter, then went home and made a pattern for it. I turned out my entire family in mice. My older sister was getting married, so I made a bride and groom set. My other sister was into tramping so I made one with a backpack, tramping boots and iceaxe, posed on a rock. My mother was a little cuddly matron mouse, crotcheting a rug (I fashioned a weeny one with a bent pin) and my father mouse was dressed in waders and holding a fly fishing rod. I gave them all as presents. Me of course, the artist mouse I kept, because I knew this was my future and nothing would make me happier than to live into it. None of my family still have theirs (note to whanau: feel free to contradict me here). I rest my case.

So, years later, still basically on the income of my prophetic little effigy, I won’t give my art away to help people; because it won’t raise nearly enough money for the very large hole left by the earthquake.

Neither will cutting benefits, subsidies and student allowances. And Prince William is darling, but is saving up for his wedding, so we can’t rely on the monarchy to bail us out.

No, I think the answer lies in Charlie Sheen; the man with Adonis DNA. We should invite him over. He could have a large, last party, and our wonderful student army could go in and shovel the excess cocaine off the porn star’s backs and sell it on. I think that would about cover it.

No words...

In the wake of the Christchurch earthquake can't think of anything useful to say, so I'm posting this piece by Zara Potts, about her experience. A piece from her heart and her gut. My blog post in November last year 'Stirred but not too Shaken' seems totally redundant in the light of the past few days. There is no old eclectic part of the central city anymore. My heart goes out to Christchurch, all my friends there, my mother-in-law who we now have sleeping properly for the first time in days in our spare room and everyone I don't know there too. Kia kaha. Everyone else, please give generously to the Red Cross.

Valentine Verse

I can't remember in the history of this blog if I've ever posted the following verse. It was created quite a few years ago in whilst living in Christchurch. There was a competition on MoreFM radio to write a poem for Valentines Day. I decided I would win it because we were desperately in need of a treat. Now I have learned a thing or two in my years on this planet and one of them is 'A for presentation'. I figured that if my poem was written as a piece of artwork on scroll of handmade paper tied up with a large ribbon, it might actually get read by the radio station. I was right, and it won.

The prize was a night for two at The Chateau on the Park complete with a fabulous fine dining dinner for two in a rose strewn gazebo, a string quartet, a magician AND our own fabulous Geraldine Brophy in a gorgeous ball gown reading my poem out loud to my loved one. We seemed to be the highlight of the night for many Japanese tourists watching us from their balcony. The radio station called us in the morning to find out if we had had a suitably romantic night. My husband had caught a red eye flight to Auckland for a business meeting and was unable to comment but I happily reported that we had slept brilliantly. It was night off from the children!

My loved one has done quite well from my competition entries; it was our 28th wedding anniversary two days ago and we went to dinner at Hippopotamas on a voucher I won at Te Papa last year in a quickfire WOW challenge. The meal and service was divine as was the 2008 Savingnon Blanc from Haythornthwaite Wines in Martinborough. And no, they didn't pay me to say that.


In the meantime, here is the poem that won us such a treat all those years ago:

A Lover's Feast

I'd like to make you dinner,

With French champagne to pour,

I'd drink in your sensation,

You'd be my Soup de Jour.

Then maybe for an entrée,

We'd try some quail's eggs,

Arranged around your ankles,

I'd eat them off your legs.

For main course you'd be something,

With oysters down your spine,

I'd smother you in dressing,

And soak your mind in wine,

Desert would be indulgent,

Quivering with cream,

I'd drizzle you in chocolate,

Then lick your platter clean.

But eating's so domestic,

With the kids at home,

They don't know were hungry,

And long to be alone.

If we had an evening,

Together, just me and you,

I'd love to turn you into,

A Valentines meal for two.