Question 2

detail
Soft is the Heart of a Child (III)
June 2007

What makes you enjoy being an artist? What makes your artwork so special?

I believe we are all created for a wonderful purpose, as written in Psalm 139.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

I enjoy working as an artist because it feels like my perfect job-fit. When I’m working, sometimes I will jump around because I’m s-o happy with the way the colours are! I’ve never felt that way about any other work I’ve done…

5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.

I think what makes an artwork special is when people connect with it. Like when people buy a painting. There will be something about the painting that made them remember a time that has passed…


Psalm 139.
Today's New International Version
International Bible Society
© Copyright 2001, 2005

Question 1

detail
Soft is the Heart of a Child (I)
Mar 2007

How did you get into art and what made you interested? (Did someone influence you?)

I’ve always enjoyed the process of making art. I remember the first drawing I did at school. It was of a bus. I didn’t have to catch a bus to school, because I just lived up the street, but perhaps I had been read stories about children catching buses to school! That is how my art works...I read a story or a poem, I listen to someone speaking, I see something...I think about it & the thoughts come out as symbolic images. In my studio I still have one of my childhood books: Mother Goose – A Collection of Nursery Rhymes by Brian Wildsmith. Sometimes I look at the colours for inspiration.

My mother especially influenced me when I was young. She worked as an embroiderer so always had lovely fabrics around & hung out with other ladies who also liked to create. We had art in our house – I liked looking at it, thinking that an actual person had made it. It’s the same way I look at art now – I look closely for the brush marks of the artist, I think about the materials that have been used...

My mother encouraged me with my art-making & took me to see exhibitions. I remember one exhibition in particular...the artist had made some large abstracts using a series of dots. I don't think I had seen work like that before. My mother didn't like them, but I sure did!

Greetings to Highfield School

Identifiable Marks series
Elizabeth Love
2006


This week I was e-mailed the following questions by a 10 year old pupil at Highfield School, Timaru...

1. How did you get into art and what made you interested? (Did someone influence you?)

2. What makes you enjoy being an artist? What makes your artwork so special?

3. How long have you been an artist for?

4. A lot of your artwork on the website is Mixed Media. What does that mean?

5. Do you have some of your paintings in exhibitions in other places around New Zealand?


I thought they were great questions. They made me think about my practice as an artist & how it has been for me since I was very young.

Extending Silence

Detail from:
Extending Silence (XII): Evensong
Elizabeth Love

...to the four winds at Kakanui

Kakanui (I): To the Four Winds
WIP
Oil on canvas
610x910x35mm

Happy Valentine's Day

LOVE Hearts (44)
Elizabeth Love
Mar 2007
Mixed media on canvas
100x100x35mm


From The Prayer Tree
by Michael Leunig

When the heart
Is cut or cracked or broken
Do not clutch it
Let the wound lie open
Let the wind
From the good old sea blow in
To bathe the wound with salt
And let it sting
Let a stray dog lick it
Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell
And let it ring

Dave Dobbyn - Parachute Music Festival

Recently I attended the Parachute Music Festival. What a great event! If you have ever thought of going, GO.

The most moving part of the weekend for me was listening to Dave Dobbyn's sound-check & the lament, Beside You.

Here's to your garden
Here's to your kids
I heard you were in the neighbourhood
I've been a long time on the skids
And baby I'm beside you
You run from the river when it long ran over you

This is for you standing up to a bone chilling wind
This is for the failures you collected from my sins
And this is for your lonesome tears I never dried
This is for your hanging in in the hope that it never dies

And baby I'm beside you
You run from the river when it long ran over you

This is for you waiting up though the call never came
For the milk of human kindnesses you collected from our dream
And this is for your lonesome tears I never dried
This is for your hanging in in the hope that it never dies

And baby I'm beside you
You run from the river when it long ran over you
And now I'm running here beside you
And now I'm running here beside you

This is for the traveller on a blinding desert road
May good fortune smile upon you and may love be your only load
And this is for the only one who could quell my burning rage
To anyone who's been a broken man and anyone seen better days

Baby I'm beside you
And now I'm running here beside you
And now I'm running here beside you
And now I'm running here beside you
And now I'm running here beside you

I use Dobbyn's music quite a bit at times to work to. May he continue to be a blessing to many.