Distances are deceptive in Antarctica

Many Antarctica observers remark how the extraordinarily clear dry atmosphere, white on white environment, and months of nonstop daylight, combine to make it very hard to judge distances. What appears to be a mountain range on the horizon turns out to be a crevasse a few steps later. The welcome sight of a tent or hut seeming only an hour's walk away, is in fact tomorrow's destination.

A couple of weeks ago I had a little frisson of almost finished anticipation. I was sure that by the weekend I would be attaching the white continent to its background blanket, and soon after that I'd be lacing the finished embroidery to its backing board. I purchased what I thought would be the final dozen skeins of DMC blanc. I rushed around to get the mounting materials in place.

and then

I remembered that the reason I work from the smallest, highest contour out towards the coastline, is because it's really tricky handstitching in the middle of unstretched fabric. And so I decided to delay attaching Antarctica to the Southern Ocean until the last possible stage of stitching.

and then

I noticed the extent of almost invisible basting done six months ago to mark the boundary between coast and shelf ice and remembered there are still nation-state-sized land-masses to cover in blanket stitch before I reach the sea.


and then

I worked out that not only am I not nearly finished, but I have to put aside Antarctica (where? how?) to complete some other work with deadlines looming, which I had thought I'd knock off once Snow Queen was out of the way.

You would think that here in Hamilton I would be safe from Antarctican distance delusions. But it seems that my total immersion in the Antarctica of my imagination and my creation has unanticipated verisimilitude with the real thing.

Volcanic steam vents in the snow

I did a final padding out of my Antarctic contours before stitching on the sea level blanket. I cut careful slits through the back layers and poked undyed wool roving inside and then needle felted it into place. This has created a much more pleasing (and geographically accurate) profile.

The cuts through many layers were beautiful and inspiring both with and without the roving. They reminded me of the iced up steam vents on Mt Erebus that I saw in Werner Hertzog's fabulous and crazy documentary about Antarctica called Encounters at the End of the World. Its a full length doco that you can watch for free online. Prizes for the first commenter who correctly identifies the two other images in the film that remind me of art work I've made in the past 12 months.

Ruby Anniversary

On May 12 1970 this baby-faced family boarded a plane from Winnipeg, Canada to Hamilton, New Zealand, and forty years later three of us are still here. Dad was taking up a position as English lecturer at an almost brand new Waikato University, and he will retire from there later this year. Mum optimistically thought New Zealand was New Caledonia and she could wear a bikini all year round; she's now a printmaker and community arts leader in Hamilton. Brother had turned two the day before immigrating, and now rides big motorcycles in New York City. I was, at three, a passionate consumer of books and if you read this blog you know all about my passionate productions here and now.

My parents had already emigrated once, from the United States to Canada just a few months before my birth. Then they were escaping Vietnam-era politics and the draft for my dad, who was working on his PhD about a medieval romance starring Princess Meliors (I know you've been wondering). After a few years in the snow, New Zealand sounded like a South Sea paradise, with progressive social policies.

We arrived with our North American accents and our fancy whiteware (a clothes drier! -unheard of luxury here). Hamilton in May 1970 was a dreary small town of damp, cold, little houses; the university was still more paddock than ivory tower. I think I adjusted most enthusiastically of the four of us to the culture (and climate) shock. I picked up the kiwi accent quickly (though I tried to hide it at home or be teased mercilessly for pronouncing egg 'ig'). I've always proudly and passionately identified as a New Zealander, a kiwi, a pakeha.

I'm incredibly grateful that my parents were brave enough to emigrate to the other side of the world, leaving behind their family, friends and culture. New Zealand was much further away back then: before there was internet; when long distance telephone was too expensive for more than an annual call; when airfares were too expensive for more than a seven-year sabbatical trip.

New Zealand is the home I love. But not so much for the picture postcard, tourism board reasons to love New Zealand. To be honest, the natural environment I am drawn to most is tropical rainforest. But I'm here and not there and that's because of the human environment. Our fresh young history. Our quirky inclusive political system. Our equitable health and welfare systems, that no matter how flawed are still better than most. The intimacy of a very small nation with barely a couple of degrees of separation between me and anyone else.

I love our our anti-nuclear and anti-whaling leadership. I love the journey towards each other that Maori and Pakeha have undertaken in my lifetime and that so much te reo is part of my daily life. I love that Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world. I love that I was exposed to more British popular culture than American when I was a kid. I appreciate the perspective provided by growing up in a small country on the edge of the planet, the outsider's and the underdog's point of view.

I've had a few tries at living in other countries, and every time I end up back here in New Zealand. It's always been the easiest place to make friends, in every new town I've moved to, at every stage of my life. No matter how likeable people are in other countries (and I do have some dear friends made overseas), I've never found such an easy abundance of close intimates as in New Zealand. Maybe it's because I'm an outsider in other countries, or maybe it's because kiwis really are exceptionally open, warm and relaxed. I don't know. But I count myself among the lucky few in the world who get to live in this beautiful, easy, caring, safe, temperate little land.

Filling my life with delight

Looking out to sea from behind the South Pole

My long search for an appropriate blanket to use as the background of the Southern Ocean is finally over. An old pale green woven double blanket appeared on Trade Me with a starting price close to what I would expect to pay in an op shop. I was the only bidder, overcoming my resistance to the unhelpful photo, and with postage it still cost less than any of the other suitable blankets on auction. It arrived as promised, stinking of smoke and with a prominent stain. Since my intention is a very hot wash to felt it up a bit, the stink doesn't matter, and the stain will hide perfectly under the Dismal Mountains of West Antarctica.

First glimpse was a relief, as the colour and texture are what I want

In order to spread the blanket out flat I had to move my furniture to create enough floor space. In The Time Traveller's Wife (the wonderful book, not the terrible movie) Clare's need to make big art while working in a small space comes out in the form of tiny maquettes and sketches of birds in cages. "Every day the ideas come more reluctantly, as though they know I will starve them and stunt their growth." Luckily her time travelling husband decides to win Lotto and buy her an enormous studio.

As Antarctica grows bigger and bigger, I gradually expand my thinking about what I can fit in my little place. There is no grand plan, and the solutions only occur to me as they are required. I do worry about how I'm going to store the finished work, but I don't worried that I won't be able to finish it. I went to bed last night with no idea of exactly how I'm going to fit the next stage of hugeness into my life. I woke up this morning with complete clarity about what to do next.

Where the open sea meets the shelf ice

Simple Elements

Blogging bonus- I'm featured today on the Simple Elements blog, where I was asked about what inspires me.

Snow Queen

Looking down from the polar plateau across the Ronne Ice Shelf to the Antarctica Peninsula.

My dear friend, Harmony, enquired today after my 'Snow Queen'. I can't think of a better name for this imposing and dangerous, beautiful and demanding, sensitive and sulky character that has taken over my life this year.

I am slowly fixing up the islands of the shelf ice, but I took some time out the other day to lay the finished high ground on the sea level contour, just to make sure its all going to fit. Which it is.

Laying out the last layer for the first look, and considering my background blanket options.

I may be some time

My paid job goes full time for a couple of weeks.
I'm not sure I'll want to do much blogging in my own time.

Right now

Every day I go outside and collect the ripe feijoas that have fallen from the neighbour's tree onto this side of the fence. The feijoa tree happens to overhang the swan plants which have been nursery for many new butterflies this week.


One morning I spent nearly an hour watching the first one stretch itself out into autumn air. I love watching their wings go from crumpled to smooth as their bodies shrink proportionally.


Today I found a butterfly upside down on the concrete below. I think it was knocked off of its perch by a falling feijoa. I righted the butterfly, so it could crawl away, but its wings were bruised and bent, so it will never fly.



I started working on the final contour of My Antarctica this afternoon. It's a little nerve-wracking and I've been putting off starting it for a few days. To begin with, I'm unpicking a bunch of islands that I chain stitched about five months ago, when I had only cut out this first contour, and didn't have my now-singular vision of an entire continent of blanket stitch.


Unpicking involves first basting around the outline so that I know where to put the new stitching afterwards. Then I carefully snip the top of each stitch and pull the threads out very gently with long surgical tweezers. This particular blanket is a bit thin and loose, and unpicking with less than absolute attention leaves a slightly threadbare patch which doesn't have enough substance to carry the replacement stitching. So it's anxious work.


My Antarctica is currently occupying most of my tiny studio/home. I won't attach the sea level contour to the rest of it until I have taken care of all the islands, so there are two huge pieces of blanket which need to sit flat and separate. Everything else in my life is kind of scrunched up around the edges of the work. I'm used to living so tightly that every object has to be tidied away as soon as I've finished using it, but now every activity (eg going to bed or getting dressed) involves rubic-cube like rearrangement to achieve.


I think maybe, after I finish with My Antarctica, I'll make some small embroideries: lap-sized, hoop-sized, brooch-sized.... I have lots of ideas for what to do next, but no one of them can become compelling while Antarctica is occupying all available space.

Antarctica 1959

A blog reader, Barry Smith, who has been following the progress of My Antartcia, recently sent me these photos that he took of the Beardmore Glacier in 1959. He says, 'we were part of a NZ Alpine Club expedition and spent about four months down there surveying, geologising, biologising and climbing... in mainly good weather.'

Barry took this triptych of photos 'looking up the Beardmore from near its exit into the Ross Ice Shelf. We were the first there since Scott. I was so staggered by its immensity.'

Shackleton was the first to climb the Beardmore in 1908, reaching the Polar Plateau but turning back when just 100 miles from the South Pole. In 1911 Scott used this broad river of ice as his pathway Pole (Amundsen took the then-untried Axel Hiedelburg Glacier as his route to the Plateau).

Thank you Barry, for letting me post these wonderful photographs.

All images (c) Barry Smith

Five hundred metres

My Antarctic now includes the peninsula, and is finally looking more like itself with the 500m contour. Here it is being pinned together last week, but I've already stitched round most of the steep coast of the continent. Only the shallow slopes of West Antarctica remain, so I'm mentally preparing myself for the final, sea level, contour which I expect to be a technical challenge involving shelf ice and many islands.

The wabi sabi of Robert Falcon Scott

If I were Amundsen I would have stitched my Antarctic contours on a customised industrial machine, after years of patient, careful study to perfect my technique. I would have finished the continent in a week.

Instead, I have stabbed myself in the finger three times this morning and scratched across my chin with a bent needle I should have discarded last night. Right now I am forcing myself to take a break from the blankets and run errands, write this, make some healthy food for later. It feels like a terrible sacrifice to turn my back on Antarctica (even after three hours of pretty solid stitching). The white continent is shining in the afternoon sunlight over my shoulder, a siren song. An infatuation.

Last Sunday the needle slipped so badly my finger bled for a long time and I stopped stitching for three days because any pressure on my finger started the blood leaking out again. If my work wasn't white, blood stains wouldn't have stopped me, but there's a limit to how much watermelon snow I can tolerate. And to be honest, it was a guilty relief to turn away from the project because last week I was full of ambivalence about it. The ambivalence about being almost finished was compounded by writing the artist's statement for Ross Island.

Perhaps if my ideas/ideals were mediated by a machine, or a pieceworker in Vietnam, composing an artist's statement wouldn't involve such heart wrenching self-analysis, I don't know. I only know that I am as susceptible as most children of the mid 20th century to vilifying Scott, but the more I think about my own practice, the more I identify with him, or at least his legend.

The legend of Scott made a virtue of inefficiency by glorifying old-fashioned exertion and effort, defining heroism as persistence. The imperfections of Scott's practice were prized in the early 20th century, in much the same way that in Japan, the "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" qualities of wabi sabi are valued by connoisseurs of traditional Japanese beauty. "Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty, intimacy, and the suggestion of natural processes."

The visible flaws in Japanese wabi sabi design show show human hands at work. My own entire artistic practice, from handmade books to letterpress printing, from crochet coral reef to embroidered continent has made a virtue of slowly handcrafting what is usually done by machines in this age. And although I always make my best effort, I don't wait until I have mastered a craft before I start into an insanely ambitious project. Thus my work is full of imperfections, my craftsmanship is incomplete and my dedication is impermanent.

I don't see these as heroic qualities. And yet, I think the imperfections of my craftmanship say something important, that needs to be said today, exactly one hundred years after Scott was saying something similar in his choices on his last expedition. Efficiency is a virtue, but it is not the only virtue. Dragging my needle in and out of old blankets; stomping through snow pulling a sledge: these are not the most efficient methods to achieve our goals, yet their symbolic value should not be dismissed any more than the intrinsic satisfactions of physical work. It is uncomfortable to write this, perhaps because the legend of Scott's wabi sabi was serving an Empire of inequality.

My Antarctica is offered to a conversation about curbing climate change by recognising that the comforts of industrialised consumerism are unsustainable. This cannot and should not be an easy or quick conversation and I don't want anyone to mistake my contribution for glib or slick. And that is discomforting because I've always felt embarrassed about being earnest, because I would rather be seen as cool.

Last year after the 'scandal' of the National Contemporary Art Awards I quoted Brian Eno, saying the good thing about art is… it doesn’t matter what happens , it’s not dangerous, it’s not life, if you don’t like it you can switch it off, or rent another DVD. Art is something we deliberately let ourselves enter into because we know we can take some mild psychic risk. (keynote address, Luminous Festival, Sydney Opera House June 2009).

With My Antarctica, I have upped the ante of psychic risks to which I subject myself. Yet these amount to a few pricks and scratches, some intellectual tossing and turning, a bit of angstful soul searching. Yesterday, having finished the artist's statement and sent in my 2010 NCAA entry, I picked up a new needle and returned to My Antarctica with fresh passion. Over and over again I survive the psychic risks of making art. Over and over again, I am embraced by art's psychic rewards. And fortunately, no lives are threatened by my polar explorations.

Unrelated words and pictures

For the past week or so I have been observing with interest the action on our swan plant. Caterpillars eating and growing and then hanging upside down and turning into beautiful cocoons whenever I'm not looking. The cocoons start out light bright green and darken to emerald studded with gold beads. I haven't seen any butterflies yet, but I'm watching.

The only thing that these photos have to do with the following poem is that they were made last weekend. The poem resulted from a writing game shared with a group of local writers who meet to eat cake, drink tea and write together on a Sunday afternoon. This piece was the result of pulling 5 random words out of a hat and spending a few minutes trying to compose them into something I like. Can you guess which of the five words were from the hat and which ones I chose for myself?

She has fashioned a jest
from embers, from ashes
flinging words like sparks
out into the dark
laughing until she is soupy inside
delirious, feelings rising like smoke
until her rimu heart bursts into flames.

Looking for a needle in a haystack

Bent needles

Ross Island has come home from its long sojourn at the framers. It took me months to scrape up enough money to pay for the most expensive frame I've ever invested in. As usual, Sarah at the Framing Workshop has done a superlative job, and I can't begrudge a penny. The frame is so good that I am even overcoming my usual post-completion loathing for my own work. This is useful, as now I have to write an irresistible artist's statement to compensate for the tiny 250kb photo required for an NCAA entry.

Ross Island framed (excuse the photo quality- it's impossible to take a good shot of a glass frame without studio lights and years of training)

Meanwhile I have finished another contour of the Antarctic continent; slip sliding down those steep slopes to the sea. My thread consumption is not quite so great on these narrow contours but I'm still going through needles quite rapidly. They quickly bend into curves working the heavy layers of blanket and a curved needle is harder to control and more likely to prick and scratch my fingers than a straight one.

I ran out of size 6 embroidery needles, which seem to stand up to my unreasonable demands better than the more common size 8. I visited five different shops before I found a packet of 6's and during the many days of searching I was using up size 8s like they were disposable. I actually snapped a needle while stitching, and my finger tips are shredded. Needless (pun intended) to say I bought two packs of 6s when I finally tracked them down. Thirty-two size 6s should see me through to the edge of the ice shelf

Two fresh boxes of DMC blanc ten days ago. Three skeins left.

My Antarctica

It's only taken me ten days to stitch the 1500m contour. Sooner than I expected, I find myself at the edge of the plateau and the way off is steep and treacherous. I'll be adding the final countours even faster I think; a downhill race if all goes well; or a bum-shredding slide if things get twitchy.

My poor health of the past week has helped the acceleration by excusing me from almost every activity except work and Antarctica. My normally passionate relationship with food has been betrayed, so that I have a more visceral response than usual to reading about starving Heroic Age explorers.* As Shackleton, Wild, et al march to the 89th parallel on half rations (1909), I am drifting through my days on mint tea and honey and not much more. They were glad for a sparse meal of old horse-blood gravy after months of half rations. I may be fantasizing about chocolate gateau but I nervously approach even miso soup.

I'd miss food more if I was so sick I couldn't stitch, but fortunately embroidery is one of the few activities that doesn't make me feel worse. As it is, less time spent shopping, cooking and eating means more time for stitching. Hurrah!

But looking down the steep, slick, icy slope towards my destination, I have mixed feelings.

I don't want to finish my Antarctica, because then it will be over. I'm in love and never want this stitching to end.

I do want to finish my Antarctica because I am looking forward to getting to work on other (related) projects.

I don't want to finish my Antarctica because when I'm done stitching, I'll have to deal with hanging, photographing, packing, storing, shipping, pricing, naming and showing a really big, unconvential, artwork that from a distance will look like a pale blob.

I do want to finish my Antarctica because will be a big, bold, meaningful piece and I want it to have an impact on the people who see it.

I don't want to finish my Antarctica because I always love my own art most while I am making it, and least as soon as I have finished it. My love affair will be over and I fear for a broken heart.


*Currently engrossed in a somewhat irritating account of Shackleton's 1907-09 British Antarctic Expedition.

Obsession

I worry that if I harp on too much about Antarctica the internet will get bored with me and go away. But I have nothing else to say really. It's an obsession but one that I monitor carefully to ensure I can continue to maintain sufficient internal and external resources to safely indulge it.

Update: I have added another contour now, and at 1500m the piece is now too big and too stiff to fit on the tapestry frame. I alternate between working with it spread out on the table or draped across my lap. This contour means I've crossed the halfway mark now, with only three more layers left to add. Out at the edges of the continent it's mostly very steep, so my stitching follows longer lines and fills in narrower widths.

Although still months away, I feel like the end is almost in sight as progress seems swifter, probably because the rest of my life has been streamlined simply to support several hours a day of stitching. There are a great many other things I could (and sometimes should) be doing, but all I care about is filling in the great white ice fields, stitch by stitch, step by step.

A potential bottle neck appears as I start running short of DMC blanc embroidery thread. I am going through two or three skeins most days. To get the quantities I need I have to place a special order at the Bernina shop in town, but there was a misunderstanding last month and my order never came through. I've reordered but I'm down to my last couple of skeins, not knowing when the two boxes on order will come through. And I'm not entirely sure whether two boxes will last me until the next time I can order. The thread is the most expensive material for this project and unfortunately I can't afford to stockpile.

A quiet thought sometimes occurs that if I do run out of thread for a few days I might catch up on the writing, accounting, cleaning and other mundane obligations that are not yet urgent demands, but will become so eventually if I continue stitching so obsessively. As a great sacrifice I have not touched a needle this morning, instead rearranging my little studio home for winter. Somehow, sorting out everything else I live with has left the great roll of loose contours adrift. It's a long white sheet-shrouded sausage which is now sitting forlornly across most of my table, not a convenient place since the table really needs to be clear for other purposes, such as stitching.


Even when I put Antarctica to one side for a few hours, it still dominates.