So – going back a little – I thought I would show a little early b’art's photography. And what better to start with than one of my Grandfather's photographs of me when I was about two, maybe three years old. I think therefore it as taken in our Porirua house up on the southern hills of Porirua where we lived in an old cottage... I can still, just, remember - white weatherboard single story - with a huge macrocarpa hedge. We had no toilet in the house - the l'eau being a 'short drop' out in the backyard... a shed and a tin can under the toilet seat. Dad's job was to empty the tin by digging down a foot in our vege patch and letting nature have its way with the contents. Mum and dad said this garden was the best they ever had - bar none.
So why on earth do we need huge, expensive, difficult to maintain and difficult to manage sewage systems one wonders? better to spread the concentration of effluent into each and every section - especially the suburbs... grow goddamned food! The way we deal with "waste and energy is almost unbelievable.
I had a realisation back in the early nineties when these new mushrooming gymnasiums - where gyms (read - business) were paid to help lose the energy (read fat) people had worked so hard for only to then shove down their throats... My thought was - we could turn this on its head by charging the gym for the energy one is giving... ie... all treadmills in the gyms to be hooked up to generators. Could at least re-charge Kindles, lap tops or phones nay?
This photo depicts a part of what I think was a long and often difficult reconciliation between my father and his father Joseph Thomas. Joseph - the photographer, Joseph - the musician "Uncle Jo" as we called him (itself part of a complex web of no doubt pain suffered by dad at having his estranged father deliberately ignore him on the street once in wellington). Uncle Jo would later come and visit and do what he could - like take studio-ish shots of us then take them back to his Adams Terrace home and develop and print them.
Jo was part of a band of vaudeville musos back in the early 1900s. I still have his guitar in parts having suffered the cow glue melting in damp places I have lived... it has simply sprung apart. The other shots of family are staid normal but mine was this moment of joy and laughter - I always smile when I take it in - the gingernut in my right hand, my left hand bracing against an impending pee and my face - one of those great memories of innocent unbridled laughter.
The next shot is one I took while at Heretaunga College - part of the art scene there I guess - fellow photographer Glen Jowitt has made his name for his photography and once, later visiting on holidays from Ilam art school where we both went Glen and I took it upon ourselves to go and shoot an old people's home - I think I still have a few of these stills somewhere.
Uncle Joe was a golfer too and a very good competitive swimmer - and this is part of where our family sportiness comes from - Dad was a good swimmer as am I. Dad trailed once for the all blacks - a fullback playing for Poneke. My brother Ron , his son and I have all been reasonable golfers.
This shot of mum and dad - fills me with both the respect and a kind of terror I have of working class life. Mum - the stay at home, dad almost literally knackering himself daily for our well being. It fills me with my love for them, the hope in mum's clasped hands, but for them - all that work, the war, orphanages, pain - I give thanks.
Much later on I took it upon myself to record much of dad's story - having failed to do the same for mum before she passed away. Failed is too strong - more like that I was not then aware of the value of doing such a good thing as record one's parents' stories. I shot four, hour long hi8 video tapes of dad talking to me about his life - and recorded another similar number of hours of his stories on audio cassette - both in the film archive now. My plan has always been to make a film with this material - for my kids and any others interested. The title is "Dovetail" because - dad - being a cabinet maker and I asking him to show me (on audio tape) how to make a dovetail - and it being a loving tribute between a son and a father... I still absolutely love "dovetail", love the sound of the word, the feelings, the colours of the meanings it calls up... A dove's tail, the fan shape made from hand sawn and chiseled wood to hold the corners of drawers and boxes together - for just about ever - so strong, so little else involved, no glue, just wood holding two pieces of wood together at right angles.
There is mum in her scarf, every bit a house bound housewife of the 60's and 70's, My sister Linda always says I had a particularly strong relationship with her and her with me - me being the youngest, the naughtiest, the one who didn't get the strap over the bath, got away with things... for better and worse. Easy can be a curse.
Mum was christened Florence Olive Gameson - daughter of Alfred Isaac Gameson of Birmingham - a carpenter , son of carpenters. He was a tall man who lived the latter part of his life in Foxton yet who had suffered the indignity of being left to fend and care for his kids as a working man failed and deposited them (mum among them) at an Upper Hutt orphanage where they were homed for many years. This - as with my father's identical orphanage situation where his mother Maryann also had to leave her kids for a few years as she got herself back on her feet to manage a home without a spouse after she and Joe split. Dada spent most of his earl life in downtown Wellington - the later part of his childhood in a house on Kent Terrace.
A couple of years back I gave usage rights of some of my photographs of Cuba street characters - including one that Peter McLeavey bought off me - of him and his daughter in their gallery - to a film being thrown together about Peter's longevity in art dealership and Cuba street life. This film was made by Luit and Jan Beiringer . At the opening party Peter said to me he suspected my art legacy was going to b that of a photographer. I am not sure he is right. I think I am more like Lye - with a finger in many art pies. A hand in many a gingernut art genres. The stills were shot for my 1992 Cuba street calendar with one large and four smaller stills on each month. This was published by the Illusions collective - Lawrence MacDonald , Lyndsay Rabbit and another chap who's name I have forgotten. The group were tenants of mine at my 181 Cuba street studios in the Yeti days - 1990 - 2000.
The pic of mum and dad is always liked by people - there is something about dad's nervous whistling, their (probably directed par moi) looking out to their suburban estate, mum's chubby fingered hands clasped in a real pride, Dad's arm cuddling mum, his hand made furniture in our north facing Brentwood street living room, Mum's home made "shift" frock patterned for real 70's fash. This was Trentham, beside the Bartons bush and park, beside the childhood loved Hutt river - before the MOW mowed our river into a surrogate canal so it could make yet another bloody motorway against the western hills of our valley. Gone those days of flinging ourselves off the rope swing into the big pool. gone those snorkeling sessions seeing trout swimming with us in our own river pools.
I always recall too the sadness of mum trying hard to re-enter the workplace - a difficult stint at a newspaper outlet in Trentham lead to tears and a foreboding in the house and home then another entrepreneurial effort which saw mum invent a method of making icing cake with wonderful patterns - using templates like plastic serviettes to impress the icing. I must have been around 17 years old when I offered to take mum to a small factory in Porirua where she attempted to "sell" her icing invention to the boss of this place. It must have taken less than half an hour and huge sadness and pain as mum returned to my car enfeebled by her rejection. I can't remember tears but I do recall dad's not wanting to support mum's free market adventure.
Entrepreneurialism - a hard road for an ex orphan with next to no education, low self esteem and the isolation of suburban child-rearing.
at Heretaunga College - part of the art scene there I guess - fellow photographer Glen Jowitt has made his name for his photography and once, later visiting on holidays from Ilam art school where we both went Glen and I took it upon ourselves to go and shoot an old people's home - I think I still have a few of these stills somewhere.
Uncle Joe was a golfer too and a very good competitive swimmer - and this is part of where our family sportiness comes from - Dad was a good swimmer as am I. Dad trailed once for the all blacks - a fullback playing for Poneke. My brother Ron , his son and I have all been reasonable golfers.
This shot of mum and dad - fills me with both the respect and a kind of terror I have of working class life. Mum - the stay at home, dad almost literally knackering himself daily for our well being. It fills me with my love for them, the hope in mum's clasped hands, but for them - all that work, the war, orphanages, pain - I give thanks.
Much later on I took it upon myself to record much of dad's story - having failed to do the same for mum before she passed away. Failed is too strong - more like that I was not then aware of the value of doing such a good thing as record one's parents' stories. I shot four, hour long hi8 video tapes of dad talking to me about his life - and recorded another similar number of hours of his stories on audio cassette - both in the film archive now. My plan has always been to make a film with this material - for my kids and any others interested. The title is "Dovetail" because - dad - being a cabinet maker and I asking him to show me (on audio tape) how to make a dovetail - and it being a loving tribute between a son and a father... I still absolutely love "dovetail", love the sound of the word, the feelings, the colours of the meanings it calls up... A dove's tail, the fan shape made from hand sawn and chiseled wood to hold the corners of drawers and boxes together - for just about ever - so strong, so little else involved, no glue, just wood holding two pieces of wood together at right angles.
There is mum in her scarf, every bit a house bound housewife of the 60's and 70's, My sister Linda always says I had a particularly strong relationship with her and her with me - me being the youngest, the naughtiest, the one who didn't get the strap over the bath, got away with things... for better and worse. Easy can be a curse.
Mum was christened Florence Olive Gameson - daughter of Alfred Isaac Gameson of Birmingham - a carpenter , son of carpenters. He was a tall man who lived the latter part of his life in Foxton yet who had suffered the indignity of being left to fend and care for his kids as a working man failed and deposited them (mum among them) at an Upper Hutt orphanage where they were homed for many years. This - as with my father's identical orphanage situation where his mother Maryann also had to leave her kids for a few years as she got herself back on her feet to manage a home without a spouse after she and Joe split. Dada spent most of his earl life in downtown Wellington - the later part of his childhood in a house on Kent Terrace.
A couple of years back I gave usage rights of some of my photographs of Cuba street characters - including one that Peter McLeavey bought off me - of him and his daughter in their gallery - to a film being thrown together about Peter's longevity in art dealership and Cuba street life. This film was made by Luit and Jan Beiringer . At the opening party Peter said to me he suspected my art legacy was going to b that of a photographer. I am not sure he is right. I think I am more like Lye - with a finger in many art pies. A hand in many a gingernut art genres. The stills were shot for my 1992 Cuba street calendar with one large and four smaller stills on each month. This was published by the Illusions collective - Lawrence MacDonald , Lyndsay Rabbit and another chap who's name I have forgotten. The group were tenants of mine at my 181 Cuba street studios in the Yeti days - 1990 - 2000.
The pic of mum and dad is always liked by people - there is something about dad's nervous whistling, their (probably directed par moi) looking out to their suburban estate, mum's chubby fingered hands clasped in a real pride, Dad's arm cuddling mum, his hand made furniture in our north facing Brentwood street living room, Mum's home made "shift" frock patterned for real 70's fash. This was Trentham, beside the Bartons bush and park, beside the childhood loved Hutt river - before the MOW mowed our river into a surrogate canal so it could make yet another bloody motorway against the western hills of our valley. Gone those days of flinging ourselves off the rope swing into the big pool. gone those snorkeling sessions seeing trout swimming with us in our own river pools.
I always recall too the sadness of mum trying hard to re-enter the workplace - a difficult stint at a newspaper outlet in Trentham lead to tears and a foreboding in the house and home then another entrepreneurial effort which saw mum invent a method of making icing cake with wonderful patterns - using templates like plastic serviettes to impress the icing. I must have been around 17 years old when I offered to take mum to a small factory in Porirua where she attempted to "sell" her icing invention to the boss of this place. It must have taken less than half an hour and huge sadness and pain as mum returned to my car enfeebled by her rejection. I can't remember tears but I do recall dad's not wanting to support mum's free market adventure.
Entrepreneurialism - a hard road for an ex orphan with next to no education, low self esteem and the isolation of suburban child-rearing.
The next shot of Dad in his own chair - slumped back, smoking indoors, endless chops and sunday lamb roasts. Again the clasped hands - an almost prayer. He also made the cushions and did most of the sewing in our house. He had left his trade of cabinet making after the war - somehow returning he could not get back into it - he blamed the introduction of all the new machinery the industrialization and dehumanization - the cutting off of the hand made part of the making - he once lost one and a half fingers to his trade. So post war he did a stint as a dress maker's cutter. so was very competent at this stuff. i am sure it was an issue between mum and him - that he was better than her. She probably knitted the jersey - as she did for us all - later she got into a flash knitting machine - all that speed but it was never as hand made after that.
Here he sits watching the black and white Bell TV, curved sides. Television - my first memory was of going to the Spicers in Manor Park where we lived after Island Bay - which followed Porirua. I was about six or so and the Spicers had the only TV set so we were invited to go and watch - and one night I saw William Tell - and was so terrified Mum had to bring me home to console me. I can still very clearly remember her stroking my forehead as I drifted off to sleep. All my kids have received this treatment.We used to play around the English styled village green in Manor Park - by name - by nature? cricket every Sunday - but these games and collectivity waned under the TV wave. It had swept in and over us all.
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