Antarctica Unpacked

There's a lot of gaps in my new house.  After years of dedicated anti-consumerism, simplicity and travelling I simply don't own enough possessions to fill all the shelves and cupboards now at my disposal.

One thing I do have in sufficiency is art to hang. I have taken My Antarctica out of its storage box and placed it in my small blue bedroom where it does much to lighten the intensity of the dark walls.

Note the almost empty book shelves! I need more stuff

My bedroom also features sections of an installation that I've shown a couple of times called Membranes. (The other half of Membranes is hanging near the dining table, also providing some privacy towards the same neighbouring property.)  It looks a very dark room in these morning photos, but in the afternoon sunlight streams in (not onto the wall with My Antarctica- I don't want it to fade- or melt ;-)).

I like living with Antarctica for the first time since I finished making it about two years ago.  I finally have enough distance to really feel it as a whole object, rather than a series of imperfections in my work.  Despite being such a big strong piece it actually works really well in a bedroom, where the blankets feel right at home.

Blizzard Wins an Award

Blizzard (2011)

I won an award!  One of the four 2012 National Contemporary Fibre Arts Awards, the one sponsored by the Nelson City Council for 'the work which best embraces the theme of 'Water and/or Light'  The winning work is Blizzard, part of my Antarctica series.

The judges "felt that there was a lovely subtlety in the work, and that we loved the feeling of disappearing into the blizzard which the depth of the work gave.We also liked the contemporary interpretation of the quote, and the choice of fabric."

I am deeply moved by this Award.  I got a bit hysterical when I first found out, laughing uncontrollably as I conquered my surprise to let the news sink in. Then I started to cry a little. And then, because I had a busy day planned I had to just get on with what I had to do.  But every time I remember this exciting news I roll through another emotional response.   Here are three reasons why it is affecting me so deeply.

I've been a selected finalist in national art awards four times in the past four years but this is my first win.  It feels like an overwhelming acknowledgement of the persistent hard work I put into my art practice, and my commitment to pursuing new directions.  I'm very glad Blizzard is getting this recognition because it is a little different from the work I'm best known for, so I feel the Award is encouraging me to keep experimenting technically as I dig deeper conceptually.

Blizzard (detail)

I almost didn't enter Blizzard because I didn't know how I was going to pay for the courier fee.  Nelson is on  another island, and Blizzard is a big work, not heavy but a large awkward parcel that was expensive to send.   Unexpected dental costs a few months ago used up all my savings and put me on a back foot money-wise.  I sent up a prayer to the universe to sort my finances out before the credit card bill came due and sent the work to Nelson anyway.  The Award is a cash prize of $1500 which will cover all my current bills and make a huge difference over the next few months.  Thank you universe!

Last but not least, is the timing of this award for Blizzard. A century ago this month Captain Laurence 'Titus' Oates died in an Antarctic blizzard. His final words 'I'm just going outside and may be some time' is one of the most famous Antarctic quotes and I made it into Blizzard.  It sends shivers down my spine to have my own honour coincide with this anniversary. There are many celebrations and memorials taking place for Scott's Polar Party this year, and I feel that this Award gives me another connection with Oates and his companions.

The Awards show is called Changing Threads and is on at The Refinery Artspace in Nelson, New Zealand until 21 April.  Unfortunately I won't get a chance to go down and see it, but if you do, please write and tell me all about it.

100 years since the first person at the South Pole

The South Pole on My Antarctica (shown here while still WIP) is marked with a small pearly button

"So at last we reached our destination and planted our flag on the geographical South Pole, King Haakon VII's plateau. Thank God! This took place at 3pm. Weather was the best when we set out this morning but at 10am, it clouded overand obscured the entire sun. Fresh breeze from the SE." Roald Amundsen

Today is the centenary of Amundsen's historic achievement, being the first person to visit the South Pole, along with his four companions and 18 dogs. Amundsen is one of my heroes (along with Captain Scott who arrived a month or so later- I don't think we have to choose one or the other to admire).

Roald Amundsen is an inspiring example of single-minded focus on a lifelong dream. He did years of intelligent preparation including learning from the Innuit in the Arctic as well as other polar explorers and he employed the very latest technology available. His success is remarkable not only for reaching the Pole first, but for getting his entire party back alive, a feat that Scott tragically failed.

During the months I spent hand embroidering the continent of Antarctica I read and reread a lot of Antarctic literature and learned much about Amundsen. Pulling my needle in and out across the contour lines of the Axel Heilberg Glacier and across the polar plateau was a way of honouring this extraordinary man and the journey he started out on with seven other men and 86 dogs. Most of the dogs were killed for food along the way, and I wrote a poem for the dogs, because somehow Amundsen (like Scott) has proved too great a subject for me to write about,

Tipping Point in B-Block

The University of Waikato bought my large embroidered appliquéd blanket piece, Tipping Point, from the Imagining Antarctica exhibition. I didn't know what they had decided to do with the work until a Facebook friend mentioned how much she was enjoying seeing it in her work place, B Block at the University. That afternoon I caught a bus to uni and found my way to the top of the hill, near Silverdale Road.

B Block is the Administration block, so more used by staff than by students (in my six years of study at Waikato, I entered the building only a couple times) . As I approached I could already see Tipping Point's strong contrasting geometry through the glass doors. The familiar nervous excitement I feel whenever approaching my work in a public place started fizzing in my tummy. The piece has prime spot in the reception area and looks very nice against the pale blue-grey wall.

This is currently the most easily accessible of my pieces*. Anyone can go into B-Block so if you are in Hamilton swing by Silverdale Road and pay a visit.

*My Antarctica (Ross Island) is also in a public collection, at the Waikato Museum but is not on view right now. Several of my handmade books are held in the Special Collection at the Auckland City Library, and can be viewed on request. And of course you can click the Recent Works link near the top of this page to see photographs of recent work including some held in private or public collections but most available for sale now.

Poems and Interviews etc

I'm very honoured to have my poem 'Ponting's Genius' featured as the Tuesday Poem on Tim Jones' blog Books in the Trees. It's one of the Antarctic poems I will be reading on Sunday 28 August 3pm at ArtsPost, surrounded by my Imagining Antarctica exhibtion. As well as the Antarctic series I will be reading other recent poetry, mostly relating to same environmental themes that inform my visual arts plus plenty of science fiction poems like Cake (coming out in Enamel 3 next month).

And in the special bonus artist's talk portion of the event I will be discussing my visual art- the thinking behind this exhibtion, and my technique. Questions welcome (though you may find many of your questions answered in the interview that will be appearing in Books in the Trees later this week).

* * *

Here's some of the print media attention I've received this month.

In the Waikato Times Arts Page on 19 August. The lovely photo is by Jody Saturday, a photographer friend with an extraordinary talent for taking flattering portraits. Despite my wan, worn-out countenance lately she managed to make me look good, along with Melt. (The Waikato Times link takes you through to the full story)

In Riff Raff 3, Hamilton's 'edgy' arts magazine I got a full page of photos of my stitching.

Opening Antarctica

Imagining Antarctica is at last successfully installed and opened. Its wonderful to see all the pieces I've made over the past 18 months finally all unpacked and hung together, filling the space beautifully.


There is more to say of course, but truthfully I feel a little shell shocked and completely inarticulate. The lead up to last night's preview was intensely exhausting and stressful. Right now all I want to do is sit in the sun and reread favourite novels.


If I had been up for making a speech at the preview it would have included a lengthy list of thank yous, worthy of an Oscar winner. My deep gratitude goes to so many people who have provided all kinds of support, but most especially to those whose help has been practical and/or saved me from crisis. Stuart Briden, Grace, Emily Rumney and Stephanie Chalmers each contributed with invaluable advice, materials, curation and/or installation and without these professionals my work would not look nearly so fine. Chris Fairly and Robin McIntyre have been tireless transporters and interested problem solvers. Lynda Johnston saved me from being buried under boxes of finished work by offering secure storage. Anna Littler, Sarah Oliver and Eleanor Lefever Taschen have all saved my sanity on more than one occasion in the past months. But most especially I must thank my parents, Norman and Martha Simms, for their ongoing generous assistance is what makes my life as an artist sustainable. Also they make really excellent opening food.

Box o' Bergy Bits

The technical term for small icebergs is bergy bits. I kid you not. I am finishing off the last iceberg for next week's Imagining Antarctica exhibition. Already I have a box of seven completed icebergs, which I think of as my Box o' Bergy Bits. All the finished ones got measured, priced and labelled today. Whew. Another job ticked off my list.

Last iceberg, to be finished in the next five days.

Snow Progress

I'm feeling a bit calmer this week than I have been for the past month or so. It helps to have cleared some finished work out of my tiny studio into temporary storage, and very reassuring to be chewing through my to-do lists. For example, the melt water tunnel piece (Melt) is now finished and mounted. I really want to make another one, more of a straight crevasse version, but I won't have time before the exhibition, so this one will just have to represent all meltwater features for the moment.


And I'm making good progress on Stragusi (another wall relief showing wind blown snow features). Now that I've worked with beautiful ice blues of Melt, my standard white on cream stitching seems a little bland, but the textures and patterns of this piece more than make up for the monochrome palatte.

Melt in progress

I know, I know, the one I'm working on is almost always my favourite, but this piece, called Melt, really is my current favourite. The luscious ice blues of the glacier's melt-water tunnel are so deep, so rich, so creamy yet pure, and this time its my best yet graduation of hues. The sensual curve of the tunnel's negative space lined with satisfyingly plump layers of needle felted blanket are irresistible. I feel sure that Melt will be snapped up as soon as the exhibition opens.

There is also an elusive nostalgia associated with this piece for me. The top layer of ice blue thread on creamy felted wool reminds me of something I knew as a baby- perhaps a bonnet. That's it, a white woolen bonnet with satin ribbons in a classy 1960's style, covering my baby-head against the Canadian snows.

Three views of icebergs

Break Up (detail)

I've recently finished stitching three iceberg pieces. Break Up, the large 2-D embroidery is at the framers right now. An iceberg tip with two towers is has joined the box of other smallish iceberg sculptures (where it is the biggest in that collection).

Newest two tower iceberg tip

And the monstrous full iceberg with below water base is all stitched up, but my Plan A for mounting it isn't going to work. I like to lie awake at 4am and imagine alternative plans that can be achieved within the budget and timeframe. Suggestions more than welcome.

My iceberg base lolls about still unsupported

With all this bergy goodness in my life at the moment I was excited to hear Gabby O'Connor on Radio NZ National's Arts on Sunday programme talking about her beautiful iceberg art. I wish I had time to get to Wellington for a look at it in City Gallery, the photos on her blog are amazing! Her iceberg base is over 12m long and made out of tissue paper on a geometric structure. Stunning, grand, gorgeous! I'm in love. I hope my Wellington readers will go along to her show and then tell me all about it ( E!)

Colours for crevasses

Choosing colours to make into crevasses.

Work in progress (Icebergs)

After finishing my giant iceberg last month, I still have an appetite to make more, to keep exploring the forms and finessing the technique. Icebergs are much quicker to make when I'm not including the 70% below water. So these are just the tip of the iceberg.

A beautiful break up

This week my iceberg-making has shifted from a close-up full-length 3-D model berg to an aerial view, looking down on the break up of an ice sheet.

Unless you've been hiding your head under a rock (like most politicians apparently), you surely know that if, or more likely, when one of the really great ice sheets at either pole begins breaking up, that's the tipping point at which sea levels are expected to rise dramatically and sea temperatures to shift decisively enough to oh, I don't know, reverse the Gulf Stream or something and then we'll really see climate change, oh boy.

It's not something to look forward to, my beloved Antarctica breaking up and melting away. But we'll no doubt watch it on Google Earth and You Tube and it will be breathtakingly beautiful as well as a terrifying portent of doom.

What I particularly enjoy about making this piece is that I carry around the individual bergs in a little bag and can stitch on them anywhere, any time. And now that I am starting to attach the finished bergs to the background and stitch in a cold, deep ocean between, there are many happy hours of nice and easy flat blanket stitch. After wrestling with two major sculptural pieces, this one feels like a breeze.

Iceberg Baby

Coochie coo: dandling the upside down iceberg on my knee

People keep asking me what I'll be working on next, now the island is finished. The question seems strangely irrelevant, though I appreciate the interest expressed. Truth is I started working on the next thing the next day and that's almost finished now plus I've got another major project half finished, a third one just beginning and a clamouring sketchbook full of pieces that I intend to chew through as fast as I can this winter.

The big iceberg that I started making in January, then put aside for a couple months of single minded island making, will be done with stitching by bedtime tonight. There's still a whole problem to solve about mounting it, but there will be no more needle pulling thread through the soft fat layers and that is what signals 'finished' to me. Because now I have turn to some other bit of blanket to get my embroidery fix.

Every major piece I work on feels like my 'baby' especially when the end of making is hoving into view. But this big iceberg is more babylike than anything I've made since my daughter was tiny! It's about the size, shape and density of a swaddled infant. Resting on my lap as I stitch, it's not as heavy as a baby, but the maternal feelings are resonant with their object nonetheless.

More like a swaddled husky pub in correct orientation , or maybe an albino piglet?

Blizzard and Island

Detail of Blizzard, a work in progress

Today I finished the stitching part of my Blizzard. There's still work to be done to mount it, but that will come later, after I've finished the urgent island I'm making to a deadline. The decorative/visible stitching of Blizzard had to be sewed standing up. Each long filmy piece of net curtain took its turn pinned to the cord that usually holds a noren to screen my sleeping alcove from the rest of the studio.

In order to see what I was doing on the translucent material, I had to work in daytime, with the panel between me and the window, so my thread was silhouetted against the light. Covering each panel with the Blizzard design involved a lot of stretching and bending while I sewed. It was tiring work, which I alternated with the demanding task of needle felting the layers of my island.

Now that the Blizzard is packed away for the moment, I've picked up another task to alternate with needle felting. I'm embroidering the ocean background for my island. I want a very deep blue sea so I'm using my bluest blanket overlaid with a solid ground of dark teal blanket stitch. The colour needs to be very rich and vibrant to hold its own with the intensity of the island colours and it's the largest piece of blanket I've worked on since I finished My Antarctica.

The timing of my switch from Blizzard to ocean stitching is perfect. Today is really the first day its been cool enough to make covering my lap with a heavy wool blanket appealing. The island is part of my Extraction series, with no relationship to the Antarctica theme, yet covering my lap with blanket takes me back to the pleasures of last winter's stitching marathon.

The island and its ocean, although based on a dream with no strong climatic or geographical links to reality, nonetheless reminds me of an island I noticed a couple of hours into my last flight home from Brisbane. Somewhere in the middle of the Tasman Sea, a dot of a gorgeous green atoll sits in a vast blue deepness. It looks absolutely nothing like the island I am making, but I don't have many islands in my memory that are as small and as isolated as this one, so that's the connection.

That island was one of the two most beautiful and unexpected scenes I've ever viewed from an airplane. The other was several hours of Northern Lights, aurora borealis, as I crossed Canada from East to West on an almost empty plane for an almost endless night. One day I might have to stitch those curtains of light too.

A tiny island somewhere between Australia and New Zealand.

Many as One

My embroidered tessarolax fossil (framed) is now part of a wonderful art for Christchurch fundraising project called Many as One, organised by Claire Benyon- another artist with a passion for Antarctica.

The idea is that anyone can donate any amount and go into a weekly draw to win one of several works of art donated by diverse artists. My favourite is the wonderful engraved perspex by Lisa Roberts, another Antarctic themed piece. But there is an amazing variety of art most of which has nothing to do with Antarctica. I encourage you to go check out the site, click to make a paypal donation in any currency, and be in with a chance to win any of the exciting art works on offer.

Coccoliths, carbon sequesterers - LISA ROBERTS (Sydney, Australia)
Engraved perspex
120 x 65MM

I highly recommend Lisa Robert's website, not least for her fantastic Antarctica animations.

(This post brought to you by free WiFi in Garden Place, as the modem at home has died, and I don't know how soon it will be replaced)

Imperfect Iceberg

I can normally go for days, even weeks, without paying any attention to the news, but all too often lately a disaster which touches my world turns me into a news junkie. Today I am teary and shakey with fear and grief as I listen compulsively to the stories of survival and loss coming from Christchurch. I can't concentrate on anything, I keep jumping from one activity to another, all the time with my attention turned to radio and internet news.

A tragedy on this scale puts one's personal neurotic little dramas in perspective. At least today I have a day off from work to indulge my news addiction, and work has been the source of my neurotic drama recently. I've been on a full time training course every day; instead of my usual part-time evening routine which allows me plenty of time to manage my art work while staying relaxed, healthy and rested most of the time.

Full time intensive learning quickly exhausted me and I didn't have the resiliance to get through it without becoming very unhappy. I did manage to survive without getting physically ill, but only by withdrawing from almost all non-work activities including some that had been planned (and eagerly anticipated) months in advance. And that only made me feel worse. Yesterday was our final day of the training, and we spent the afternoon completely distracted by the earthquake news as it broke, increasingly more devastatingly.

The one saving grace of the past two weeks was my stitching. I managed to do a little bit of my big iceberg most evenings while watching junk tv shows so that its about half finished now. Stitching helped me relax, restored a little self esteem and positivity, but last night I couldn't manage more than a few stitches on the iceberg, because my hands were shaking as I flicked between Facebook, Twitter, the news video streaming websites.


Aside from the awful news from Christchurch city, the earthquake also managed to have a beautiful iceberg connection. The incredible blue of this newly exposed ice from Tasman Glacier is caused by its formation over hundreds of years as layers of snow are compressed and more and more oxygen is squeezed out of the ice (the blue faded to white within an hour or so of being exposed to the air). These layers of ancient ice hold the history of the earth's atmosphere with minute particles of volcanic ash, pollen and other traces that settled on the snows surface between one fall and the next.

Like a real iceberg, my stitched sculpture tells a story in its layers, tracing my emotional state of the last couple of months. The first few week's stitching is very even and tidy across the deepest teal shades of the graduated colours. I was stitching through a relaxed happy summer with plenty of rest and fun between each layer. This part of the iceberg showed the culmulative improvement in my skills in this technique since I started making layered blanket sculptures.

In contrast, the lighter aqua layers that I stitched in recent evenings and weekends around my full time training are relatively sloppy, uneven and careless. They show the traces of exhaustion, irritibility, anxiety, sorrow and shame. In the middle of all this I decided to restitch part of my early 'good' work because the colour change was too abrupt, so now there's a few layers of crude stitching through the centre of my earlier tidy happy work.

Fortunately, at about the same moment that I stepped back from the iceberg enough to notice the contrast between the stitching of my different emotional states, I was reaquainting myself with Brene Brown who's work on authenticity has been a great solace to me lately. So instead of getting even more upset and ripping out many hours of work, I decided to leave it in place to show the environmental reality of its creation.


Of course, I realise that the difference between my 'good' stitching and my 'sloppy' stitching isn't very noticable to anyone except another stitcher, or super critical viewer. After all my 'good' stitching isn't as perfect as I would like. You may not think it matters, but I always notice, and the uneven stitching will be what I see first and foremost whenever I look at this iceberg.

But when so many lives are devastated, not only in Christchurch, but in Libya, in Queensland, in so many parts of the world, it seems to me that to elide imperfection is to disrespect their suffering.

Donating to support Christchurch earthquake relief

Jane Ussher's Still Life

Still Life: Inside the Antarctic Huts of Scott and Shackleton is a magnificent book of haunting photographs by Jane Ussher. Not since Ponting have these buildings been so beautifully photographed. Jane's images of the huts deserted for 100 years and yet almost undecayed are strong enough to sit comfortably alongside the now iconic contemporary images of Scott and Shackleton's occupation. And as a book object, this heavy, cloth bound volume, with wide format photos in gatefolds at the centre of every black stitched section, is covetable.

Jane Ussher's slide show from the book.

One of my Antarctica projects involves some text which I have cut out of blankets. I always like to have a portable stitching project so I can work on it away from home. Icebergs and coal mining tunnels are bulky and awkward, but I can pull these letters out of my handbag anywhere, anytime and blanket stitch the edges while I talk or wait. I can even look at photos and stitch at the same time! Which gave me this idea...

"t" with cross next to Shackleton's hut

I'm stitching what is probably the most famous and poignant quote in Antarctica's short history. Captain Oates' final words as recorded by Captain Scott: "I'm just going outside and I may be some time". In the Huntsford-led campaign to undermine Scott's heroic legacy, this quote has been disputed, but I agree with Fiennes that the words were in character for Oates.

Anyway, I'm stitching each letter in random order so there's nothing much that makes sense from the letters completed so far, except this:

Below the surface

Colour tests for underwater iceberg

I am beginning to make a new iceberg. This one will include the 80% of the iceberg hidden below the water. It's been very difficult to find information on and images of icebergs below water, but after several months of research I finally feel ready to begin.

All the iceberg tips I have made (including the current work in progress) are based on photographs; there are so many beautiful and detailed images of iceberg tips for me to copy. However, my below-surface berg will be based on a composite sketch, pulling together all I have learned, seen and imagined, without having a single reliable image to inspire me.

The Rayleigh effect scatters sunlight so that the further from the surface, the bluer the light that shines through ice. I'm actually basing my underwater ice colours on a description of a deep crevasse in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, Antarctica where he says

...only the very bluest light made it down here, glowing from out of the ice in an intense creamy-translucent turquoise, or actually an unnamed blue unlike any other she had seen. (...) all of it a blue that could not be described and could scarcely be apprehended, as it seemed to flood and then to overflood the eye.

KSR's novel is the origin of my Antarctic obsession, my most thumbed literary reference (though I do double check my facts in my Reader's Digest encyclopedia of Antarctica). His book can be seen as a framework for the exhibition of Antarctic pieces I will have next August, for he seamlessly brings together the sciences, the human history, the current politics, and potential futures of Antarctica. These are the same themes that I am responding to in my work, and so it is no accident that the next step of my imaginary Antarctic journey is to go below the surface, below the entrancing and accessible tip of the iceberg, to explore the unnamed, the indescribable and the scarcely apprehended.

Tip of the Iceberg

Four months ago I dreamed about making an iceberg in the form of a tiara, or maybe a crown. In my dream it was twilight shades of blues and purples. Subsequent research identified my iceberg as a combination of the types called "dry dock" and "pinnacle", fanciful fairytale ice structures sculpted over time by wind and waves. Unfortunately my dream didn't include directions for how I could make this wondrous object. Would it be embroidered, quilted, felted or crocheted?

I have imagined all of these possibilities, rejected most, and trialled a few. Finally I seem to have found the method which will work: a variation on My Antarctica technique which favours height over breadth with substantial needle felting and loose embroidery. Its taken quite a bit of unpicking to get this far, but I finally seem to be back in the zone.

Reluctantly I abandoned my dream colour scheme and reverted to the white on cream materials that are left over from my first Antarctic projects. I have a policy of using the materials I have on hand rather than buying new where ever possible, and the blue/purple spectrum is almost entirely absent from my floss stash. Besides, I'm confident about my white on cream scheme, and think it worth forgoing the risks and uncertainties of experimenting with colour at the same time as experimenting with technique.

I'm using my beloved Kaiapoi blanket and with every stab and stitch this weekend, my thoughts are with the town of Kaiapoi just north of Christchurch, evacuated after yesterday's earthquake. My dear friends Sharkey and Sean live there in a little old house which has miraculously survived, when many of their neighbour's homes haven't.