JeanEB | Life on the Left Coast

I picked up this old book recently at a used book store – a slim volume with a very recognizable figure intent over his easel, paintbrush in hand. Winston Churchill in his own words, illustrated by his own paintings. In it he proselytizes for painting as a hobby, urging everyone to pick up a paint brush – “Try it if you have not done so – before you die”, he says. Yes, ‘before’ would be preferable.

Painting as a Pastime was written in 1932, 15 years after he picked up his first paintbrush at the age of 40. He says that painting came to his rescue at a most trying time. He had been fired from his job of head of the Admiralty (Royal Navy) in 1915 after the disaster at Galipoli and was pretty depressed when he started to paint, a hobby he would continue with for the rest of his life.

It’s a fun read, mostly due to its archaic sounding style and language, the way he presumes to give advice, its play on words and phrases and its humour, not all of it intentional. His descriptions of how painting feels to him ring true for me. He finds great joy in painting, wants to share it with the world and have the world join him in this.

Sir Winston Churchill’s words of wisdom to late starting painters:

The first quality that is needed is audacity. There really is no time for the deliberate approach. Two years of drawing-lessons, three years of copying woodcuts, five years of plaster casts – these are for the young. They have enough to bear…The truth and beauty of line and form which by the slightest touch or twist of the brush a real artist imparts to every feature of his design must be founded on long, hard, persevering apprenticeship and a practice so habitual that it has become instinctive. We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpiece. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint box. And for this Audacity is the only ticket.

Or in today’s parlance – just go for it.

Just to paint is great fun. The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. Try it if you have not done so – before you die.

…the vistas of possibility are limited only by the shortness of life. Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will ever get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape, and in every object in it, one never noticed before. And this is a tremendous new pleasure and interest which invests every walk or drive with an added object…this heightened sense of observation of Nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint.

Happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end, of the day.

When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.

Well I don’t know about spending a million years on this but I’ll do it until I don’t.

At the end of this past year I pulled out all the paintings I had done since I started my own “pastime” of painting a year ago February. Turned out there were 47. They had been stacked in the corner and now needed to be put away to make space for the new. It was a blast to see them again and I smiled at the memories of what I had done or, more to the point, tried to do – all experiments, some more successful than others, but each one teaching me something new. I thought it might be a good idea to find a way to go back at some time to see them again, without the hassle of pulling them out of storage – which is only a short term solution anyway. I don’t have a lot of storage space so eventually I’ll have to get rid of them, throw them away. So I got out the camera, took pictures of all of them, recorded details – dates, size, workshop and so on. Then I compiled them all into a photobook, using Blurb his time, and had it printed. Just like that. Sounds simple, no? NO.

But all that work is done and I’m glad I did it. The book looks great and now I can easily look back and smile in memory again just by leafing through the pages. A great record of my own “pastime”. I’m now finishing up another photo book with the New Zealand photos. Sorting, cropping, setting up the pages. The photo book companies claim it is easy to just drop in your photos to their templates, but it’s not. No doubt the more I do it the easier it will get. Like anything. I hope.

I hadn’t painted in a couple of months what with travels and other projects like these ones, but I am now back in The Bunkie Studio these days pushing paint around and loving it once again. As long as I do, I’ll keep at it.

Every painting is practice for the next one.

From the moment I walked into our new home for the next 5 days I was smitten. It was late afternoon and the sun was shining on our treetop view of Tasman Bay. It was Wednesday and the small sailboats were gliding out of the marina and assembling for race day. Our landlady was showing me around, explaining this and that, but I’m not sure I heard very much of it – I was in sensory overload. It was a seaside summer cottage (except it wasn’t; it was the top floor of a renovated old house built on the slope of the hill), beautifully designed with lots of nooks and crannies, views from everywhere, balcony, decorated in all the shades of blue that make me happy. The landlady is an artist as is her sister and both their artworks were all over the house – the hand painted fabrics, wall art, sculpture, as well as pottery and other pieces from other local artists. Shelves of eye candy magazines, DVD’s – all the comforts. We had barely unpacked when we were thinking of calling Dennis and extending our stay.

We had picked up the (right) car at the ferry terminal in Picton and taken the scenic route along the beautiful coast of Queen Charlotte Sound, then through the mountains to this small city of Nelson, which boasts the title among others of “Craft Beer Capital of New Zealand”. It could just as easily be called the capital of beach going, biking, vineyard visiting, studio cruising, restaurant eating, garden visiting, boat hiring, kayaking, hiking, Saturday morning market visiting, festival going, vintage movie house viewing, gallery gawking, book store browsing, wine tasting… Lots of day trips through the surrounding countryside, planted in vineyards, orchards and hops, and golden beaches on the way up to Abel Tasman National Park which is accessible by trail or water taxi along the coves.

Saturday morning market is a great place to go in Nelson to really get a sense of the place. It reminded me a lot of our market here, although much bigger in scale of course. But it still had that sense of small town, as local farmers and crafters displayed their offerings and neighbours paused and chatted. Cafes and restaurants are full and people stroll along the shops of the town streets. The day we were there a Buskers Festival was set up in a section of blocked off Main Street. It was great fun to stop and watch Bendy Em, the charming contortionist who had everyone laughing as she joked her way through a performance that culminated in her wrapping up her body into a 16” plexiglass box. Nelson is also a big back packing town and all that goes with it, as a start or end point for those multi-day hikes through the park or further afield.

We had a fine few days scratching the surface of this region but finally it was time to go and we headed to the airport to catch a flight to Auckland and connection homebound.

But Nelson had a few more surprises in store.

The flight didn’t leave until early afternoon so we had time to stop on the way at the World of Wearable Art & Collectible Car Museum (the WOW Art Museum) that many had told me was a don’t miss. This strange sounding partnership evolved out of an art project started 17 years ago by a woman and her friends in Nelson – a wearable art show. Originally, a show of entries by local artists, over the years it has grown until it has evolved into an international competition and award show extravaganza, now held annually in Wellington.

The Nelson museum was showing an exhibition of many of the 2014 winning entries, and when I walked into the darkened exhibition rooms with spotlit mannekins wearing over the top costumes so intense in colour and texture, my chest tightened and my eyes welled. Overwhelming and a huge surprise. Once again in a dark room off the side, I sat through a video of the actual show held last year. It is so much more than a fashion show, it is a combination of music, lights, dancers, acrobats – hints of Cirque du Soleil. The costumes are completely over the top, constructed of every material imaginable – but – all wearable, as the show video demonstrates. Someone claimed the WOW Awards Show makes Lady Gaga look like a librarian.

Too soon, but finally, time to leave. Traveling was easy. The small regional Nelson airport has no security lines, no security at all it seemed. No xrays, no officials, no hassle. Water bottle? Sure, go nuts. We flew out of Nelson with every intention of returning one day.

As a matter of fact, even before we landed back in the homeland we were already planning a return trip to New Zealand. Next time…maybe the South?