this year I am thankful most of all to community and people who I have shared with 
conversation
music
art
theatre
ideas
smiles 
joys
cellebrations
sadnesses
challenges
pain
disagreements
togetherness

the friends who have listened
to me when things have felt too much
too confusing
too frustrating
too unexpected

those who have given to me
their time
their ideas
their stories
friends who have let their guard down and trusted me

friends who have been by my side
those I have known for many years
new friends who share smiles and experiences

I thank the creative environment which has acknowledged and facilitated my creative practise

I thank each individual within any place I have visited
for whatever reason
perhaps to buy a coffee
or a bottle of wine
food
anything!

we are all connected in some way

let’s live love and grow deeper togethernesses in 2023!

Thank you 2022, you have been a wild year and impossible to pin down.
​

The principle relationship in the drawing of an idea into the physical/mechanical/tactile is the relationship with my total body

Thoughts and ideas are absorbed and then acted upon

The principle ingredient in any manifestation is the human action

This is infused with idea and thoughts which grow and alter are born and die
forming
moving
the studio is an incubation place

To make 
from idea
like a mother
gestation of a received spark
intense
physical
mental
spiritual
absorption
making new
out of my body’s energies

When I lived in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand I received traditional Maori Healing (romiromi) and wisdom from Papa Jo Delamere and Manu Korewha.
Up until this time I had taken and used whatever I wanted from the physical world to make bodies to form puppets and sculptures.
These bodies began to feel strange and frightening and not ‘right’.
One conversation with Manu has stayed with me and is of the greatest significance to the process of manifestation I am involved within.
On talking about my being an artist and puppet maker, Manu responded that I was a genetic engineer; the different parts of what I make would forever be in argument with each other unless they were each acknowledged and thanks was given.
This act by the artist/maker of acknowledgement can be viewed as a form of prayer (karakia).
The physical is acknowledged in the most profound sense so that the thing made is new and its constituent parts are content in their energies and so happily act in concert.
The conversation of materials is my preferred sculptural analogy as it is inclusive towards the maximum information of any combination of physical/mechanical elements.

The place where a thing is from is honoured in the deepest sense and so alleviating the strangeness of the newly made and allowing it to sing, joyfully and significantly in its new manifestation.