I have taken some time to reflect, to consider several options, and to ponder what my next project will be. Next year will be my last Legato Exhibition for Commemoration and Peace in Cassino, Italy. It is the 80th anniversary next year. In 2019 I remember thinking "If this is my last Legato, it has ended on a very good note." And then 2020 happened. There has not been another edition since. But next year I think I will curate one last exhibition for those who suffered in that terrible battle. Then the remaining works will find their way into local museums, to be shared in years to come. I have stored and exhibited some of these works for close on 14 years, and I am calling time.
But without Legato, or the desperate urge to protect New Zealand from the unfolding pandemic, where do I put my passion and energy now?
I have always left global warming and conservation issues to those who know more about them than I do. I am a greenie in my life, but not a very vocal one. At times I have considered doing a PhD in arts therapy as an alternative form of discipline in schools, but doubt that post covid I have the energy for such intensive research.
Sometimes I am tempted to finish the novel I started writing - 30,000 words languish waiting the final push. Eleven or twelve children's books are in the pipeline, side-lined for now. A calendar has been painted, but not published. At other times I simply want to paint uplifting things, to draw attention to the beauty that surrounds us, if only we would take the time to look.
I have been reading some of Helen Clark's speeches as she travels the world inspiring us to do more, urging the world to embrace equality, and to work for the common good. I once read a book about the work that women do for peace, and was so inspired by it that the late Richard Wassell gave me a copy to keep. I also value the time I spent in London, studying with the late Douglas Lyne. He taught me to think big in all that I do. We can make a difference, each and every one of us, if only we just begin.
In 2011 I stood in Westminster Abbey, London, holding a wreath to place on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. While standing there I looked back at my childhood, barefoot and carefree, running about the fields, climbing out my window at night to look better at the moon. I still pinch myself. How did a girl from a tiny two-teacher school in the back-blocks, growing up north of Wairoa, who loved teaching calves to drink, and picking mushrooms, and even enjoyed pulling ragwort for pocket money, end up there?
I still don't know how those dots were joined. I do know though that there is another chapter to be written. No, not a chapter of the novel, I may never finish that. It's time to write a new chapter in my life. And there is nothing more exciting to a writer or an artist than a brand new, fresh white page.
