The C-Word

It’s been a very strange time. We’ve spent the last month or so asking after each other’s bubbles, and imploring people we barely know to stay safe. Depending on your beliefs, this was the month that the world demonstrated that we could put the interests of people above those of finance, or the end of freedom. Everyone, in every indus­try and every sector of every society has been affected in some way. But our core business is art, and we’re very conscious of the effects of a global shutdown on artists. It’s too early to know what changes this will bring to our sector, so we’re concentrating on the here and now. If your life is focused on making art, how are you going? We asked eighteen New Zealand artists to send us a picture of their lockdown studio set-up, and asked them a few simple questions.

What’s your Covid-19 studio set-up? Is it the same as pre-lockdown or are you in something more makeshift?

How are you finding this time? Is it hard, or is it a gift of time, or maybe a bit of both?

What are you finding essential during lockdown? Is there a piece of equipment/view/song you couldn’t have lived without?

Here are their responses.

The C-Word section

Gregor Kregar

Studio set-up?
I am sharing my bubble with my wife, artist Sara Hughes, and our two young boys. We are fortunate that Sara has a studio at home and I have my warehouse-studio just ten minutes’ walk away so we can move between the two.

A gift of time?
Strangely, I am enjoying this period, and I don’t find it particularly hard—usually, I spend most of the time by myself in my studio anyway. Now we are hunkering down and enjoying this time with the boys. Sharing some studio time but also making together. The boys are working on wax sculptures that I will cast in glass. I am working on a small wax each day, in the rhythm of the day-to-day.

Essentials?
Again, it is my studio that I find essential; I would go crazy if I couldn’t use it. And the second thing is my bike rides—I go for a short ride every day and time by myself, fresh air, exercise and the change of scenery makes me feel rejuvenated.

The C-Word section

Reuben Paterson

Studio set-up?
My new pace and practice has easily assimilated into garden views during the lockdown where the days repeat in the meditation of nailing individual sequins into the cured skins of gourds. I’m a part of the cycle of the hue [gourd plant] in this now, so for the dried hue I work with, I am also harvesting fresh gourds from the garden. This cycle keeps linking me back into the whakataukī around the hue, especially my understanding of the hue being about patience, persistence and time because hue do not hurry, but everything about them is accomplished.

A gift of time?
It’s a gift to be a part of something shared. It feels like we are tendrils reaching out to cultivate an interconnection like the whakatauki He kāwei hue, he kāwei tangata—descendants are like the runners of the gourd plant, reaching forever outward beyond the camouflage of our busy lives and where our inwardness can blossom to the surface.

Essentials?
I just love getting to the things that I’ve wanted to for a long time but felt like they required the making of time to do it. As I sit and sequin I can finally get to listening to the three translucent gold vinyl LPs of the Voyager Golden Records on repeat. Like a giant gold sequin with the same centre hole they carried messages to introduce our civilisation to whomever might encounter them. In 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager I and II, on a grand tour of the solar system and beyond, and mounted to each of these spacecraft a golden phonograph record to encapsulate the complete geographical, historical and cultural variety of the world’s music in ninety minutes.

The astronomer and science educator Carl Sagan chaired the visionary committee that created the original Voyager Golden Records forty years ago. I’m most moved by the recording of the brain waves of a young women in love, Ann Druyan, who met and married Sagan over a phone call. Her conscious mind was reciting culture and philosophy during the recording, but her subconscious was buzzing with the euphoria of the Great Idea of True Love. The hour was electronically compressed to a single minute that sounds, appropriately, like a string of exploding firecrackers. However quiet, we are still in a space to celebrate.

Whānaua kia tini
Whānaua kia mano
Whānaua kia rea
Be brought forth as many
Be brought forth as a multitude
Be brought forth innumerably

The C-Word section

Wayne Youle

Studio set-up?
My set-up is just the same as before the c-word kicked off. I had to go into a bubble inside a bubble and sleep, eat and work in the studio… I was borderline over the space by the end of those initial fourteen days.

The only difference is the studio is a whole lot cleaner, with all the extra time and general lack of materials.

A gift of time?
To be honest, I was already proficient in the art of social distancing, so that has been okay, no need to go many places. I am super fortunate to have space both in my studio and workshop and the property itself. I truly feel for those in the city—I certainly wouldn’t have coped at all well.

Missing close friends and my parents and the art shop and the hardware stores… that’s all (and galleries of course).

Essentials?
My new best friends are my typewriter and my vacuum cleaner; my partner’s sewing machine has been a blessing. My A1 cutting mat, books and all the fantastic pictures within them. I would be lost without the internet, family too.

The C-Word section

Glen Hayward

Studio set-up?
I had just sold my large studio and I am in interim digs so have set-up in a wee shed, but I do have all my tools. Absolutely marvellous, little sheds—so romantic, just me and the thing I am working on. And I know it is temporary, and deadlines have changed and events have been cancelled, so many things are uncertain and that I make is not.

A gift of time?
I think that it is not so much a question of time but of space. I spend most of my time isolated but I miss hugging the people I call my friends. I find middle-sized relationships disconcerting and being around people physically, literally means that they happen. Just being in someone’s presence compels me to have a relationship.

I have used the isolation to remove all the paint from a carved cow skull that was uncertain when I first made it (read unfinished), so I have reworked it and made it specific. My work is always in some sense embedded time as space, firstly in that wood is a container of time and then the carving is putting space in time. Time and space have become so conscious during lockdown I think we can produce all sorts of banal profundities about this. I have also made a new little thing of a brick in mortar with a candle in wax on it with a cigarette butted out on it with a nail in it. And stubbed cigarette sculptures; I no longer smoke but when I did, it ordered time beautifully—as anyone who has smoked knows, smoke time and clock time have a love affair.

Essentials?
My chisels and other tools. I also went to my storage space and got some materials before Level 4. To be comfortable I need to have potential so it is kept at the right distance, having lots of things to do, often allows me to lovingly disappear into something unnecessary and profoundly pointless. I want this to sound like I am screen free but that is a fib. I have become obsessed with YouTubing, particularly psychoanalytical authors. Especially if they advocate a way of understanding the space that exists between me and you as the medium in some sense, so that they mix romanticism with the pragmatism of what does this space do and what can we do with it; to see the manifestations of creativity as experiments in doing. This is one of the remarkable things about making sculpture, the expected things; someone who was dying saw one of my works and said that before they died they would like to do something like that. That experience is the romantic outcome, lovely and then there is the unexpected impact, somewhat humbling and somewhat misread... I had always said to my art audience that I wanted to make art my grandmother would understand. She came to a show once and informed me she absolutely loved it but that she had no idea what it was about. Family I guess.

The C-Word section

Brenda Nightingale

Studio set-up?
My studio is at my home and has a door to the garden. It is set-up to work any time.

A gift of time?
I have always fitted my art practice around life and the opportunity to work from home and get extra studio time has been great. In the first week of lockdown my project was to do some drawing and watercolour painting to post to my secondary school art classes, to encourage them to stay connected and making work in these unusual times. My practice is drawing based, often in watercolours, so a modest home studio is perfect.

Essentials?
Lockdown has certainly made me realise how much I need books. I think even if we are home for the foreseeable future I will have plenty to read and look at. I am halfway through Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light and also Benjamin Moser’s wonderful biography, Sontag: Her Life and Work, purchased from Scorpio Books just before the covid lockdown.

The C-Word section

Dane Mitchell

Studio set-up?
Actually, it’s the same as pre-covid, though less interrupted. My studio is part of my home bubble, so I’ve been fortunate.

A gift of time?
It’s a bit of both. I have to keep reminding myself that once we come out of lockdown my routine won’t change dramatically. My life in Auckland is pretty insular— that’s one of the reasons I like working here. Certainly it’s difficult logistically right now to realise things materially for me, as it is for everyone else, and I miss my engagement with fabricators and various research tools out there in the world that I’ve had to put on hold, but it has been super useful to deal with things I haven’t had time to do, namely organising my inventory/files/archives—both digitally and physically.

Essentials?
Music has been my company in the studio throughout this time. I can’t always have music on whilst I work, but this focus on organising is perfect for it. I’ve been listening to NTS radio (https://www.nts.live) non-stop. It’s an amazing internet radio station that a good friend of mine in London started, and I can’t recommend it enough. The other tool I’ve been finding essential is artgalleria.com, which is a cloud-based inventory software system I’m using. I’m slowly working backwards into the past, attaching research material, documents and information relating to fabricators and suppliers for each and all existing art works. It’s painful at times, but it’s another mechanism for allowing work to exist in the world and not just in my head.

The C-Word section

Hye Rim Lee

Studio set-up?
Not the same. I had to shift my desks around as I started making art masks when the lockdown started... and also the online teaching made me to shift my computer desk for Zoom meetings... I had to pause my animation production as the stress was too much, so I focused on hand-painting or drawing for designing masks and that has really helped me to get through this time.

A gift of time?
A bit of both. I found it very difficult as I got through the financial crisis and Hurricane Sandy in New York, so I realised I have developed PTSD over disasters... Very difficult times to go through indeed... but changing into online teaching at Whitecliffe made me so busy, I had a strange work stress more than anxiety over the PTSD, which might be better in my case... Although I had to pause my 3D animation production, my creativity blossomed with my art mask-making. When others all started panic shopping two days before the lock down, I went to Spotlight to buy fabrics and fabric paints, and started designing and sewing the masks with my collaborator. I haven’t drawn or painted in over fifteen years, so it’s been good to use my hands to create something fun and also helpful for others. So I have been way busier than usual. And now my art masks become a seed for my upcoming project.

Essentials?
The Bible... the words from God feed me and fill my soul. And my love / hate relationship with Zoom!

The C-Word section

Tyne Gordon

Studio set-up?
I am lucky to have a home studio already in place. I’m set-up in the garage, which is great, so much space and I can be messy.

A gift of time?
Uncertainty creeps in at times but overall I’ve enjoyed having more time to develop and experiment in the studio. Before the lockdown, like others, I was working towards deadlines which have now been postponed, which is bittersweet and leaves a foggy looking future. But I try to focus on the positives; the fact I have a studio at home and the freedom of being able to create without external pressures. It’s liberating.

Essentials?
I’ve really appreciated how close I live to the Heathcote River. Being in nature, especially near water, has been crucial to my overall equilibrium during the lockdown. I enjoy following the snake-like path the river maps out, a contrasting movement to the stasis I have at home.

The C-Word section

Hannah Beehre

Studio set-up?
I have a great studio space at the moment but I’ve been unable to use it. I was working toward a show at Nadene Milne Gallery due to open in May. However the cedar for my stretchers has been held up at the mill in Northland so work has had to slow right down. I bought my drawing things home and I have my workbook with me. Most of the time I am working on the couch, sometimes I just stay in bed.

A gift of time?
It’s a bit of both. I don’t often use my breaktime to rest so I’ve been attempting to settle into a much quieter way of being, not pushing myself quite so hard. I’m not especially patient or cautious when I’m working, but I do generate a lot of momentum and I think that is a strength. So this has been a challenge. I’m hoping that the enforced break will be good for the work when I’m able to start again but it feels very unnatural. I’ve been drawing a bit, writing and thinking. I’ve also begun a personal project for Instagram, documenting some of the things I have around me and that’s been quite enjoyable.

Essentials?
I couldn’t live without my workbooks and journals. These tools help me get my head clear, straighten my thinking and provide me with the sensation of moving forward. I’m also reading The Overstory by Richard Powers and the tone and pace of this novel seems to fit perfectly with my current headspace so I am grateful for that.

The C-Word section

Grace Bader

Studio set-up?
I am very grateful that my studio hasn’t had to change under our current circumstances. My space is covered in drawings, some with intention to paint, others to reflect on. I also have my easels and working canvases, along with some works I am planning on revisiting.

A gift of time?
The ebb and flow of life has most definitely changed for all of us. Each day is different, because I am also involved as a variable. My practice has always been a sanctuary and a place I can be very present in, I am enjoying being in my studio most days.

Essentials?
An early start has always been my choice and holding onto that has been important. I have been reading more, most recently about Agnes Martin. I am thankful for having more conversations with my grandparents. That’s been really nice.

Grace Bader is represented by Melanie Roger Gallery.

The C-Word section

Gregory Yee

Studio set-up?
Yes it’s almost the same as pre lockdown. It’s far more organised.

A gift of time?
It’s a bit of both. It’s challenging but working in the studio is grounding.

Essentials?
My pottery wheel and my playlist on Spotify.

The C-Word section

Oliver Perkins

Studio set-up?
My studio is at home so I had work in progress. Obviously no art supplies stores are open so I’ve had to be slightly more resourceful which is no bad thing.

A gift of time?
We are both working from home, Maria in the morning and me in the afternoon. Our children, Frida and Cosima are six and one so we are time limited or stretched depending on the mood. I mostly work in the afternoon, the time periods in the studio are shorter which has made for some fairly divergent passages of painting but going back every day allows for immediate reflection and reaction which has been productive.

Essentials?
Always the views of te whakaraupo and I’ve been listening to Luke Shaw’s work Metal Body: Ghost Field, which is part of Domino Domino at The Physics Room.

The C-Word section

Tony de Lautour

Studio set-up?
I have worked from home since the earthquakes so my studio set-up hasn’t changed.

A gift of time?
With two small children at home, Holly and myself are both finding it hard to get time to work. By the evening we just want to sit down and watch TV. I am managing to get brief amounts of time in the studio and have started some new work as well as working on some older unfinished paintings. I am definitely not making as much as pre lockdown.

Essentials?
In the past few weeks Lego seems to be the most essential item at house. I’m enjoying making vehicles “for the children”.

The C-Word section

Emma Fitts

Studio set-up?
About a month before lockdown I’d moved out from working in the garage at home and into a studio at The National. I was enjoying the bigger space and longer commute to work each day. Needless to say, I am back in the garage for now. Just before lockdown I was able to get into the studio and pick what I needed to work from home. I actually quite enjoyed the process of picking and choosing what materials and books felt important to me right now. It was like I was heading off on another artist residency and could only take what I could fit into my suitcase. I’m lucky to have the garage space at home. I share the studio with the pantry, the gardening tools and bicycles. We’re getting along okay so far.

A gift of time?
It’s a strange and really interesting time. As an artist I often feel like I am in some ways working against the regular clock of society. Sometimes on a studio day I will spend it walking around the city or reading a book in various spots around the house, or even napping in the studio. A studio day for me is fairly varied and I feel happy and productive if I get three hours of concentrated work done. It’s a new feeling to know other people are using their time as I usually do. I’m enjoying seeing this kind of schedule mess-up. When I selected what materials to bring home from the studio I chose new ones—new colours, blank rolls of canvas and paper. And like being on an artist residency, I’m enjoying not being surrounded by old work and am taking this as an opportunity to start some new research and a new body of work. For me it’s been a very restorative time.

Essentials?
I don’t enjoy having much equipment but do like to think of my clothing in this way. I’ve enjoyed my blue linen cap very much. The softer autumn sunlight means I can get by without sunglasses and just the cap. I live centrally and have been spending a lot of time walking and running around Hagley Park, along the Avon River and through the red zone and my cap has been a perfect companion on all these journeys.

The C-Word section

Sara Hughes

Studio set-up?
My studio is a separate building next to our house and I have an office/clean space in the garage we converted. I work between these two spaces so my set-up during this time is no different.

A gift of time?
With our two sons at home I have less time in the studio and I actually feel less isolated now than I do during my normal life when I spend long periods of time in the studio by myself. I have embraced this and, as when the boys were pre-schoolers, it is my observations of their visual creating and our making together that has been positive. This week we have been creating paper cuts for screen printing, it’s nice to step back from my practice and engage in different techniques—it always gives me new ideas. We are also lucky to have Gregor’s studio nearby too and we have all been making wax sculptures that he will cast in glass.

Essentials?
We had been wanting to watch Peaky Blinders for some time but it’s always a big commitment to start a long series... the programme opens with Nick Cave’s song Red Right Hand, it’s a bit apocalyptic for this time really. I don’t think our paradise is lost but it’s a chance for the world to make some big changes. It’s ringing in my ears— it’s a brilliant song.

The two paintings that hang behind the boys in the studio I made in 2019. I put them up during this time. Titled To the end of the universe and back they were made in response to the love I feel for my children. It’s interesting how art works take on different meanings over time—they have been essential for me during these strange times.

The C-Word section

Katharina Jaeger

Studio set-up?
I struggled with getting organised for lockdown. I had only just settled into a new studio and put on the power a few days before lockdown, thinking I could return to get things when needed. There is no studio at home, it is tiny and a shared situation and there are still earthquake renovations going on. I’m just making do with the corner of the kitchen bench or table, a side on the couch or working outside.

A gift of time?
It’s very strange—I do worry about family. I’m adapting and had to let go of what I was doing at the studio. Perhaps the earthquakes have equipped us quite well in some ways. There are always other things to do and think about. I have started to make smaller components to integrate into the work when allowed back into the studio again.

Essentials?
As I didn’t take anything home from the studio I just went walking. This is making me think about taking my work outside again and how I would approach this. Needle, thread, fruit, my phone camera and a journal have all been great to have around, as well as listening to ESG.

The C-Word section

Kate Unger

Studio set-up?
My Covid-studio is exactly the same as before lockdown as I work from home. I am very relieved I stocked up with materials pre lockdown, aware that ink, paper and solvents would be impossible to access once it occurred.

A gift of time?
I am finding this time strange but also quite wonderful. It seems so much simpler and easier to find studio time without outside distractions.

Essentials?
My most essential pieces of equipment are my printing press, my studio and my constant companion Tuppy (dog). I am also using audio books from the Christchurch City Libraries—a wonderful service and no need to leave the bubble.