Sunday smudge day.

Sunday evenings might be a good time to slide into a little weekly journaling. Just a quiet chance to reflect on the week that’s been, unpack whatever happened in the studio today(Woodblock printing), and cast an eye toward what’s coming next. I’ve been meaning to keep this space more up to date, and maybe this is how it begins—no pressure, just a gentle rhythm.

Excellent news—I'm a finalist in the 2025 National Contemporary Art Awards. I’ll be heading to Kirikiriroa on July 31st for what promises to be a very fancy pants evening indeed. My artwork  Rattle and Hum will be shipped off this week, carefully packed in a custom-built crate that Alan is putting together in the shed.
I’ve got a new painting showing in The Providores Gallery on Urupukapuka Island as part of a Matariki exhibition. My work honours Waitā, the star connected with the ocean and all the life within it. It’s a theme that runs deep for me. The gallery is at Otehei Bay, and the boat trip across to get there is glorious—an exhibition and an adventure rolled into one. 

Today, I christened my new rolling press with its first proper ink session. The results were...  educational. I now understand the true importance of having a decent stack of newspaper squares and rags on hand, of folding a scrap of paper to pick up the print paper cleanly, and of resting the woodblock on a square of tissue so it can be moved without smudging everything. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, but I learned heaps. I went for a stomp up the road to get over the less than glorious results and figured out that the best way forward might be to use my weekdays to prepare: carving blocks, building collagraph plates, and gathering textures. And reserve Sundays for printing, when everything’s ready and I can just roll with it (literally).  Then I can journal all my mishaps and triumphs on Sunday evening.
Somewhere between all the ink, spinning, knitting and teaching, I’ve become fascinated by folding paper into tiny triangular patterns and spraying paint across the surface. There’s something mesmerising about how the folds catch the paint, how the lines intersect and echo. It’s a small experiment, but it’s tugging at something deeper. Maybe it’s just another way of chasing the places where lines meet and meaning unfolds.

So that’s where things are, this Sunday evening. A little progress, a little mess, and a whole lot of art. Hopefully next Sunday I will have some better ink stories and more good art news.