How art holds us (part 2)

shape, balance and past pain

I didn’t know, when I posted the first part of this newsletter: How Art Holds Us (part 1) that it would tip me right into the reason I started writing A History of Kindness.

How do we deal with past pain? Even the words ‘deal with’ imply some kind of wrestle towards a supremacy of spirit over what-happened. I’ve started to employ other words in this tussle: sit with, flow through, paint. I’ve learned that transformation of pain to art is possible at least in part, and that this is the flow through, the sit with and the transform. These days, I paint old sadness when it’s with me, and I write A History of Kindness to light paths I can follow.

Making stained glass is a lengthy project. There are initial drawings, then detailed plans. There is cutting, piecing, binding sections together with lead. There is paint, balance of colour and consideration of light. There’s placement within frames. 

I grew up witnessing, experiencing and taking cover from the emotional and physical violence of my male parent. Perhaps, we can put this person in context, a line of explosively violent men came before him. They were successful in their fields. They were respected. If they were tyrants in their homes, the prevailing culture didn’t mind too much, and the women practised endurance. I grew up silent, afraid, and determined to have a different kind of life. Blaze forward, and forget. But sometimes, the loss of safety at home still haunts me, the shaking in my cells returns: and on those days, I’ve learned to paint.

There’s a story in the court pages of The Otago Witness in 1894 about one of my ancestors. In an unprovoked attack my great-great grandfather severely injured a man. The victim won his case, and my great-great grandfather was ordered to pay him £30 in compensation.

Writing here, I’m not trying to forget my ancestors, but I am trying to push back against a culture of violence. I’m writing what I need to hear: people from the past I can trust, a histories I can lean into, paths on the way to peace.

In Te Ao Māori class recently we learned: through marriage you can whakapapa to your married partner’s ancestral lines. You can enter their marae as one who belongs, claim a place among the people. Ancestral pathways open to you through connection. I’m pākeha, tau iwi, limited in my understanding of whakapapa and genealogy in general: and yet in spite of this I have a huge sense of relief because, it turns out: I can draw a whakapapa line from me to John Brock.

There’s a picture of John Brock in one of the research books I used, a black and white photo of him walking, tall and cheerful along a street in Dunedin, he looks right at the photographer and grins. The tail of his coat flares out in the breeze. I know I’m reading a lot into a photo — he seems genuinely likeable.

I call in to visit my parents-in-law. The’re both wearing green for St Patrick’s day, just home from a party. We chat. They have two of my artworks on the wall of their home, butterflies situated under landscape paintings. The colour of each butterfly reflected in the colours of the scene above.

‘That one is by John Brock,’ says my mother-in-law.

‘Huh?’

One of the landscape paintings is green, with a centre of blue. 

Underneath it is one of my painted butterflies. 

‘John Brock. He made stained glass and was a landscape artist. He was my Dad’s sister’s father-in-law,’ says my mother-in-law.

I’m up off my seat, transfixed by the wall like a cricket to a blade of grass.

I work it out: John Brock is my great-grand-father-in-law. There’s a whakapapa line from me to him.

His landscape has been here every time I’ve visited. I’ve never looked at it.

I stand in front of it like it’s a rare moonflower. Olive green hills pour down to a deep sweep of the Clutha River. The Clutha — Mata-au: the river that speaks to my soul. It’s the one I introduce myself with in my mihi. It’s the river that exists in my mind to explain my place to me, the turbulent, opaque depths, the swift flow to the ocean. I’m in the living room standing next to John Brock, we’re high up in the hills, maybe at Beaumont looking down at Mata-au. It flows to the sea. We’re connected.

My kind, artist mother recently showed me a small cartoon picture of a big horse softly nudging nose to nose with a small horse, it reads: “There is nothing stronger than gentleness - Han Suyin.”

And like friends spontaneously calling and inviting me to lunch, you are here with me and John Brock, reading this. I thank you for your gentle attention. To be heard and seen, these are true gifts: visibility, a voice, a safe place beyond silent terror. A path beyond burnt ground. 

Looking afresh

A 1987 article in the Otago Daily Times about a retrospective exhibition of John Brock’s landscape painting is titled: Looking afresh. The writer reflects on the growth, style and balance of the artist:

“The earliest painting is of St Paul’s, from a studio window in the glass works where he was trained. Careful judgement of shape, balance and angles are the prime concern.” 

“An exhibition like this which runs from paintings made in 1908 to 1973 gives us a rare chance to see specific developments in the artist’s work …

Occasionally his work is clumsy when he is trying new techniques, subjects or simply following a formula. These paintings allow a glimpse into the processes of art, into the mistakes and habits every artist suffers from but which are rarely shown.” 

¬ John Reid Jr. the Otago Daily Times, 10 Aug 1987, p 26.

That which is rarely shown. The stuff of poetry. So lightly, and with gratitude to you for reading this, and to John Brock and my parents-in-law and their immensely kind son whom I love, whose whakapapa I claim — 

Pearls

When I wear them
a line of cool silk
below my throat
in the space between 
the part where I breathe
and the part where this continuous 
muscle beats,
I’m self conscious.

They were expensive
the pearls my mother gave me
a tradition I have worn
when I want to be taken seriously
when the smallness in me
wants to say
take me seriously
I’m wearing pearls.

I’ve become ashamed of
the impulse to dominate, to make others
afraid so I can feel as if I
belong in the room and will be
listened to, so
I stopped wearing the pearls
entirely, didn’t wear them for years, except
when I was:
afraid or
pissed off.

They are so light 
serene as skin in a river.

Somebody matched them.
They are all the same size, aren’t they? 
Actually, what are they?
I pool them in front of me, they gather to each other like leaves.
I look at them. I’ve never looked at them.
One has a line, like a blade scraped through it.
One has pocked moon craters.
Two have tiny brown spots.
Some are pinkish.
Some are blueish.
Divots, scrapes and flaws.
My God.
They have been in shells.

They are from the sea.

How is it that I have never —

Between each pearl, there is a knot in the string
which holds one pearl separate from the other 
a person tied these knots; these separations for the moment when
another person might take time to perceive.
And I suppose another carefully drilled a hole through each moonscape
so they could be threaded.
Oh, and long before that a person dove down.

My mother bought them for me
a wedding gift placed in a blue velvet box. Paid across
the cold sand and broken shells of her own marriage, 
wading through the stink of seaweed to get them
a stubborn hope, perhaps.

So, now I wear these silent moons: when I wash dishes
or under a worn t-shirt to eat lunch with a friend; or with a pencil in hand 
drawing out old pain.

And if you think this is symbolic, like maybe I’m trying to change my relationship with the past, and walk a path of peace, and lay down my tendencies to aggression and riding a hot-air sense of privilege and tradition, which drives me into corners like an out of date GPS with a machine voice which wants to pattern me down no-longer roads — you would be right —  and here I am walking into waves with you; and also holding your hand; you who have been consistently kind; and I know you will see that it’s just: I’m changing my relationship with these pearls.

¬ poem by Kirstie McKinnon

Thanks so much for reading and subscribing to A History of Kindness. Part 3 on How Art Holds Us, coming soon and will include an interview with the amazing and inspiring artist and writer Claire Beynon.

http://www.clairebeynon.com/

Glossary of Māori words

whakapapa - lineage

marae - courtyard - the open area in front of the wharenui, where formal greetings and discussions take place

mihi - speech of greeting

pākehā - New Zealander of European descent

tauiwi - non-Māori

¬ definitions from Te Aka Māori Dictionary

https://maoridictionary.co.nz/

 

References

Miller, Brian. Capturing the Light. Lifelogs, 2016. 

John Reid Jr’s 1987 ODT article about John Brock was written in response to Gray’s Studio’s retrospective exhibition of John Brock’s landscape art in 1987, in Gore, NZ.

PapersPast https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers