Dust.

Back from steamy Auckland... and I mean steamy in the rain and wet asphalt way...

This is my wreckage of a desk - still littered with discarded tools and rimu dust!
I of course forgot to take my camera up to Auckland so I do not have pictures of my show yet, but here are some work in progress shots....




Ok... so I will try to make this sort of ordered...


I was working with ideas of memory and value.
Sounds very esoteric, but really I am just fascinated by things that we
leave behind. I mean, we look at photos like this one on the right, and there is a sense of history, of a life that this woman had. Who did she
become? Was she famous ? was she loved and did she have a full life or did she die early and unremarked?

We make shrines to our loved ones, our famous icons, our religious or historic figures. We often use photos, mementos, and sometimes even hair, bones or the ashes as a reliquary.

As some of you will know, I like to use the left overs of insects and animals in my work. I wondered what lives these small creatures had.
Were they famous? Who saw them live their small passionate lives?
What daily happenings did they influence?
I began to play with the idea of value = the value of their insignificant lives.

People often give me things that they find, that they know I will find a use for. These birds were found in a friend's roof - deceased, dried and mummified - having been trapped in said roof for possibly years.

Things like this, and small fragments of butterflies, crabs and bugs have been accumulating as treasures in my studio. Gathering dust and stories.

Taking a selection of these "treasures" onto my work desk, I played with mixing up the parts, and began to find new creatures in their combinations.
I wanted to suggest a precious or important find - but without the masculine hunting trophy or the scientific specimen feel.
I dreamt up boxes to house these treasures, set with giant lenses (from old projectors) to distort and soften the viewing of the bones.

The feminine image behind the bones came almost at the last moment. I had been struggling and puzzling over how to feminise and, I suppose sentimentalise, the bones. I really wanted to avoid a "horror" specimen. I was aiming more for memento mori.... and I felt that the old victorian style image may remind people of this.

Luckily, a friend Alistair McAra, was having a pinhole photography exhibition at this time, and I asked him if he could take my portrait to mimic the feel of such a shot....

This is one of the shots, with a construction of a butterfly crab in place

This was the shot I found that I wanted to mimic.

And another of the shots of me, with a partly finished construction... this one really shows the grainy film we used!

I had another friend of mine make the boxes for me... and they came up just right....
They are laminated ply, bent and steamed into shape - and Bruce,  thank you so much for seeing my vison so clearly and turning it into reality!
The lenses look just perfect. Each one distorts the image underneath. These are all functioning jewellery boxes - the constructions are set into the thick lid, which lifts off to show the compartment for a matching bronze brooch.

And if you are wondering what I did with all those bird mummies ? I made them a beautiful box..... (well, Bruce and I made the box... I carved the feet!)

That's all for now... more soon !