My mother was a prolific artist. Her favorite medium was watercolor but she was endlessly inquisitive, making batiks, woodcuts, handmade paper, and woven cardboard baskets among other things. Also, she was a second-degree black belt and she worked for years as a nurse in the hospice service she started in Nelson, New Zealand. So yeah, generally a badass. When she died in 2007 I had the task of sorting through her tiny, sunny studio. During that process, I realized that we had never shared this part of our lives. A little seed of an idea germinated - a posthumous collaboration.
The jumping-off point for this collaboration was the handful of her paintings I kept, a small bundle of handmade paper, and some lino blocks. Motifs from the paintings inspired several repeat patterns which became the basis for this show. As I worked, memories unfolded and insinuated themselves...her eclectic international doll collection, the reproduction victorian paper toys she loved, her favorite black and white polka dot dress, the collection of shells and sea wrack that accumulated on her porch. The gang of teenage girls who hung out at our house, getting dolled up in the bathroom. The fantail (a bird Maori call piwakawaka and are considered a harbinger of death) my sister saw visiting her just a couple of days before she died. Rather than being painful, the process of the collaboration has been a joyful and healing one, which I hope is reflected in the work.