Long time, no post! Life
is busy, work is busy and I have much to catch you up on.
2025 started with working on a new children’s book in The Little Yellow Digger Series. It’s a 123 counting board book and it will be available for Christmas. Yes, books take a long time to be born, bless their beautiful little spines. I drew 56 diggers for this baby, and I now know my backhoe from my crawler!
During this illustration time, I was also working on my 30th World of WearableArt creation. 30 years, 30 pieces and it will be my last. It’s taken years in the making and is my magnum opus. TBH if the top award was ever going to fall into my eager hands, this I hope, would be the one, but as with all other years, one prepares for others to take the well-deserved glory (such stunning works of art) and to remember why you do it. Not for the dosh, that’s for sure, but for the pleasure of creating. I’ve learned so, so much through making entries for WOW over my career and that has resulted in other fantastic costuming work commissions.
One of which this year was for promoting Te Papa’s Toi Art Collection.
I worked with EightyOne, a Wellington based advertising agency to bring Creative Director, Chris Bleakley’s vision to life. What an absolute pleasure to work with the team who trusted me to create these Eyes on Art. The Iris Twins are everywhere in Wellington!
Photo: DAVID UNWIN / The Post
People are asking me, ‘What are you going to do next year if you aren’t doing WOW?’
I know they mean what creative things will take the place of it for me and perhaps don’t realise that I’ve always fitted WOW in as a hobby in amongst my paid creative commissioned work. But it will leave me some nights and weekends free (and actually some daytime too). The gap will be filled in the first instance early next year by costuming for a brand-new kids theatre show in April called ‘a Monster Ate My Story’ written by the wonderful author illustrator Ruth Paul. It will feature some fabulous creature characters and brilliant monster. I am working on prototypes as you read. We had a wonderful weeks retreat in Ōtaki in August courtesy of IOWO to really get stuck into the script. Here is Ruth, myself, Peter Hambleton and Charlotte Yates (photo taken by Emma Robinson) hard at work!
Expect another post (and photos!) about my 2025 entry soon as the WOW Rise Show opens on the 18th September. Then on the 20th immediately after awards night, I head off to France to a residency near Beziers where I will create art for 3 weeks. I have then have a creative inspirations presentation to deliver in Bristol and another at the Hong Kong Design Institute on the way home, and of course, all the art galleries I can manage in between. This will set me up for my next 30 years of creativity until I expire with a glue gun in my hand