A smooth blue sheet behind a painted textured rock… Texture is bumpy and rough. It adds colour, excitement and a sense of satisfaction like you’ve worked hard all your life. I like smooth but there is something about a rough texture that makes you want to touch it and see what is there and where […]

Our tamariki these days are so lucky. Many still have their grandparents on both sides and some even have great grandparents and great great grandparents! I only knew one of my grandparents and she passed away on my ninth birthday. But I have vivid memories of her that I will never forget. She used to […]

We have a white picket fence at the front of our house. Wikipedia defines a picket fence as: a variety of fence that has been used mostly for domestic boundaries. Symbolically: a picket fence, ideally white, is seen by some as a symbol of the ideal middle-class suburban life… Hmmm… funny how a fence can […]

Just before I wrote this I was having a look back through all the rocks I had painted, the photos I had taken and the stories I had written so far. It is Day 213 today, so I’ve looked back over the past 212 days and wow! I was pretty stunned by what I had […]

Tonight I heard many stories of past told by Māori from around the country, and as I listened I was taken back to my childhood memories of growing up in a village, a close knit community that was the first 12 years of my life. Even though most of the kaikōrero were of my parents […]

One of the most stunning things I remember about living in Taranaki are the amazing sunsets. In summer, the sky would glow a rich red-orange-pink that lit up the sky and the earth. I spent many summer evenings following a sunset and capturing the magic before the sun went down and I soon realised that […]