80 hours painting between 4 people over 9 days later….
Racing Tauranga. Greerton BOP. On behalf of the Garden and Arts Festival 2020.
Next installment of my work for The Garden and Arts festival is LIVE PAINTING and TALKING about murals to a CROWD as well as selling my own recently made SCREENPRINTS.
exciting! Stressfull! excting!
wow this container was smooooothh, llike the Resene Lumbersider paint was made for this surface, which was an amazing feeling after having a totally contrasting experience at the last job.
on day 1 at Triple one coffee,on the corner of 18th Avenue and Cameron rd, Tauranga, i got so much green paint down on both sides of this container-turned coffee station that i almost skipped off home ( on 3 buses).
I jotted down notes to myself about competance, confidence and how i felt so sure i was in the exact role for my skills. old leaf shapes painted cleaner and bolder than ever were really exciting me and the power of just working to a tight design rather than leaving it up to to art/chance was coming through.
The standard day2 jitters ( “what have i started..?”) were eliminated by alot of tasty coffee and a suprise lift home from my neighbour who works nearby who infact landed me the project.
All went swimmingly over 5 days infact and finished in plenty of time on a sunny friday afternoon thanks to the last minute assistance of fellow pattern-geek and mum-of-toddler Jasmine of Pinch and Punch who i have since teamed up with on a few projects and who i am getting excited about living own the road from in 2021.
In 2015 i had just returned to my home town of Glastonbury UK from a big stint in NSW Australia, i had been looking at alot of exciting shaped plants but sadly not painting very much for a miriad of reasons… Keen to get back up the ladder i designed a mural for some friends in Somerset based on a basic painty prep piece i did on a wobbly table in the caravan i was living in. I had no idea this design formation later refferred to as “jungle camoflage” was to determine so much of my desin work, large and small for so many years.
This painting was born directly from the original prep piece and was sent to Australia as a gift to an old friend , wrapped in a tote bag printed with the digital repeat based on the very same canvas.
In early August 2020 we were lucky enough to have a visit from this little Kiwi turned Glastafarian, Myfannwy.
Even luckier was that she helped me paint this mural in this lovely garden centre, did all the driving and packed even stranger-looking plant based lunches than me.
EVEN Luckier was that we got to talk, for 4 days. For once i was happy about technical hitches that extended the predicted length of this project. 4 days of child-free chatter with someone who actually understands..
There is literally no-body else on this planet who could have discussed the same socio-psyco-economic topics as me, in length whilst still getting alot done.
Being socially, economically and emotionally torn between the golden lands of Aoeterroa and the green lands of Somerset UK is a strange crack to be wedged in . Covid or no covid.
At her wedding earlier this year, a few glasses of champagne down, surrounded by her whole whanau (family) on their land ( whenua) . Having just wed in order to able to live in Glastonbury, She just turned to me and asked
“Faye they are all just so far away, how do we decide?” Nailing the eternal inner struggle of being bound to someone from the other side of the world.
Thanks Villa Ridge Garden Centre and furniture brand FERMOB for this tasteful brief and for providing a colour chart with pantone references. A new and proffessional feeling experience for me.
To Patio Rose cafe for the coffee ( obvs)
And for my Glastonbury brother Dolphin ( STAR SINGER SLIDES) for getting hold of her. Shes a gem. a real shiny one. i was so sad when she left and genuinely that hasn’t happened that much in my life. i’m working on it though…
At the end of the last UK summer, as i was preparing to host my last screen-printing workshop before moving to New Zealand, i made these prints of the flowers in my garden in Glastonbury.
Using a combination of open-screen techniques with photographic stencils ontop to make these layered almost collaged images.
Ghost printing with heaps of gloopy medium and paper stencils creates messy un controlled marks and textures whereas using tight and detailed stencils on screen adds the neat lines and details.
I love this method of working and am building up to working on some prints of my new “backyard” AKA Papamoa Beach BOP New Zealand. Using similar techniques to build up a memory of our lockdown time when i looked harder and longer at seaweed than i ever have. It was beautiful.
These “Our Garden” prints , both originals and digital prints on fine art heavyweight paper, ( all A4 size images on A3 paper) are now available to buy from Imprint Gallery, Historic Village, 17th Avenue, Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty, New Zealand.
They are the only original bits of artwork that i packed when moving my life here. Everything else remains on the walls in Glastonbury or stored in a shed. I miss my art. Alot. And i also miss the prices of art equipment in Europe . as slowly collecting up the necessary bits and pieces in order to print on paper here has been a costly project!
less than 3 weeks from enquiry to mural completion is my kind of project!
Incase you were as puzzled as me by the request of a mural at a lazer school here is the website:
Rejuv skin lazer treatments and training
Thanks to Heather for trusting me to get the colours right for her space. and the Bayhopper bus service for being amazingly reliable and remaining free to use.! Work commutes for me are distinctively different looking to almost everyone else in this country!
The New Zealand version of Covid-19 lockdown 2020 was a powerfull process, in that alot of “noise” went away. No fear, barely any illness even, just quiet. Among ALOT of social commentary, what happened in my mind was that suddenly i was inspired to just draw pictures for my own good without any need or desire to share them on social media. Part of the noise that went away for me was pressure to create. This is what i made and i don’t care if i never use these images for anything. ! what a relief!
Having only JUST landed in the Bay of Plenty to live with my family… i was very lucky to get involved with this local mural festival at the very last minute….
I left almost all of my creative intention back in the UK, with the hope of making our transition into an entirely new way of life on the other side of the world a bit less complicated. Art in all it’s forms is essential to me but also comes with a lot of invisible, and relentless work, ( like updating websites for example!). I was planning on avoiding the ups and downs of creative living for a while, especially having left ALL of our free childcare back home…. BUT…. all of a sudden i was being sent photos of big walls and being invited to opening ceremonies and artist’s breakfasts. 16 other artists were to be painting murals around Tauranga and Mount Maunganui at the same time as me and some of them had been flown in from the US and Italy.
Stumbling into my biggest project to date, with no time to prepare was a bit nervewrecking of course but having the support of a team of organisers and working literally alongside lots of other artists, was a real help. I had 5 days countdown untill NO childcare so the pressure was really on and the ladder i was using was heavy!!
The theme of the Festival was
“ Although small, its is precious”, which luckily fit in with the plant and seed observations me and my daughter had been making since arriving in this new home of ours. I didn’t have any time to delve deep and theoretically into the brief, So i used a tried and tested pattern forming method of overlapping and intersecting botanical shapes using a cool colour scheme. As usual tried not to complicate things, but most probably did . I have been wondering alot about this since my brief conversations with artist Askewone (NZ/NYC) over mushroom dumplings at one of many artist dinners we had during the week... Bringing art back to its simplest form is probably the hardest. The greatest abstract art looks simple but most definately isn’t, mainly due to the long road the artist has been down to get back to basics.
Alot of the other murals were portrait based which is totally awe-inspiring and followed a general theme of most street art here, of honouring your ancestors in order to reconnect with lost or hidden culture.
I was trying hard NOT to think about connecting with my own culture or roots as clearly i was no-where near South West England. Had i neglected the binds i had created over the last 4 years of being based in Glastonbury by coming on this adventure? Or was what i’d learnt from those more stable years enabling all of this?
I listened to Brene Brown podcasts and tried to think broadly about human nature and just kept painting in the lines…
Here are some of my favourite shots taken by a variety of people whilst i was busy up the ladder, or busy eating vegan burgers or taking breaks in the air-conditioned gym whos wall i was painting.
Amazing work by all involved, and incredible effort by Jah and Lovie Smith of Street Prints to get this kind of project funded 5 years in a row.
Mural is located in Phoenix Lane , Mount Maunganui behind the Natural Fit gym and Save Mart op shop.
for further info and lots of amazing pictures visit www.streetprints.org
Watching Italian artist MILLO painting, actually painting as i watched, was a mega highlight of my year . Shame i didnt get to hang out more with him and the rest of the international team due to toddler duties
such a gentle man, making such gentle art, in such a brutal medium.
look at his work here > www.millo.biz
November 2019. Country kitchen still going strong. We’re about to stretch our wings again though.. off to NZ o see what the Bay of Plenty can offer us. i will miss this view more than any other….
10th Novemeber 2010- Dark times make us stronger in the long-run. The kitchen of 38 Bove Town is heavy with history and packed with paternal presence but slowly it is starting to shine...... i'm making it mine :)
Whilst i was working for Indigo Herbs, cooking, chopping and cleaning alot at home as well as in a commercial kitchen.. i discovered a new way of working with my art on paper..
chopping up prints and rearranging them just like salads.
These are 3 collages i have made over the last 2 years . Personal work doesn’t come very often in my life as i tend to be busy working on commission.so i’m really happy that these square framed objects are now in my life like a little family .
New Dawn
Original Green Salad
Milk and more
Local paint producers Thorndown paint were very kind to donate the materials for this new Glastonbury mural.
https://thorndown.co.uk
Thanks to the organisational skills of Kim Von Coels with the support of the Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce and a whole host of local sponsors, there have been new murals popping up all over Glasto all summer which is slowly turning our town into the creative colourful place it has always had the reputation of being!
https://www.facebook.com/theglastonburymuraltrail
What an amazing weekend we all just had out in the Print Workshop at the Dove in Butleigh!
have so much thanks and praise to write here but am now busy organising the next one!
a big re order and 3 new card designs based on new work making me feel like i’m making progress!
love these square cards they are my best and most useful marketing tool ever!
