My Art Journey

As a kid I poured over animal books. I got them from libraries, my parents bought me books, I got them cheap at secondhand book sales, and I read and re-read them.

One, a pictorial book of black and white photography of English countryside flora and fauna by a particular photographer had a quote I don't remember exactly, but the spirit of which haunts me every time I create.

Roughly remembered, he claimed that the goal of the photographer was to allow people to see the same things they'd seen before in a fresh way they'd never seen it.

It became a deep seated mantra. To show people things in new ways. For me, with my art, I strive to achieve this by capturing moments.

I'd watch my pet birds flying, and replay the videos of slow-motion video on those "learn about animals" interactive CD-roms that were so popular in the 90's over and over again, memorizing the poses.

I'd sketch in the back of math workbooks the bone structures of dinosaurs so I could better understand how to pose them properly in drawings, accidentally teaching myself basic anatomy. I'd take my rubber deer with a wire frame and make sure the legs bent where they were supposed to, and then spend a half hour posing it just the way a deer would be leaping, walking, running...

Then I got to use my father's expensive digital camera, and was able to start capturing things as they moved. I admit my photography was never particularly good, but I was following the siren's song closer than before.

All of this building to the moment when I took my ex-dental tools in had to make my first artwork. I'd agreed with mum who was going to mentor me through the process to start a falcon, but the inspiration hit me suddenly when someone kindly left a dead kingfisher on our doorstep.

It took a few phone calls to find out it wasn't a warning from some hitherto unknown mob, but a gift from a friend who knew the family artistic tendencies and thought we'd be interested in seeing one up close.

We made a few calls to the Department of Conservation and found that we could get the specimen taxidermized if we donated the finished piece to museum or similar – you can't keep the effects of native animals as a private citizen. We'd be allowed a short time to borrow the mount for observation and study for our art.

I quickly found the taxidermized specimen lacked the life I saw in its living counterparts, but as a reference for feathers, shape, color, it was invaluable to an aspiring artist.

Seeing the mounted kingfisher, I suddenly saw the work I wanted to create; in flight, poised, about to dive, wings spread - catching that last cushion of air on the downward stroke before being folded in to pierce the water's surface like a javelin.

I supplemented my references by sneaking in the bushes to photograph a kingfisher who liked to sit on a particular post on our lifestyle block. I printed them on the expensive photo paper on our family printer so I could sit them in front of me while I carved the warm wax. This was my first work.

I had created.

At an art showing, people saw my work, they loved it. Someone bought it. My mother had guided me in the process, so it was the first in a limited edition of 25.

I was a wildlife artist who had sold work. I was inspired, I created more – and people continued to enjoy my work.

Sales are necessary as an artist, and praise is nice but awkward to receive, but the look of someone who is drinking in your art is life-giving mana. To see someone walk past our stand at an event, stop, return, look, bend forward, investigate, step back, walk around.... this is joy to observe.

Compliments from these people are always sincere.

I went through a stage, as all artists must, of trying to find what works would sell. I experimented with smaller artworks, but they took as much time as the larger works. I tried and was discouraged at times.

Along the way I rediscovered my core drive – the drive for art that pleased enough to drive sales dried up and sloughed off like a dead skin being shed from a gecko. Not that I don't seek recompense for my work – the laborer is worthy of his hire, after all. I still seek success financially.

But the core drive of my art became true to self again. I would create the pieces I love, and that love translated directly into my work. You can feel it when an artist infuses his work with the passion of creation.

Once, my work was criticized for being a "slavish recreation" - a quote from an artist in the role of judge at an art competition. I took time to reflect on the statement, and eventually had to honestly judge it as a baseless accusation.

Why baseless? The artist was accomplished and established in his own right, and usually I would ascribe some wisdom at least in experience in such a judgement.



When detail and realism is pursued, not because of a misguided idea that realism is inherently 'better', but from the driving force of the love of capturing that particular aspect in their art that springs from deep within the artist as a driving passion, it is a purest expression of the artist's self.

My pursuit of detail and realism in my work is a core motivation, the fuel to my inspiration and desire to create. It's not a default of an artist who hasn't found his style –

it's an artistic decision, no, an artistic demand that he must follow because that is the siren's song that calls him. And so is a style in itself, with no need to justify.

I've spent hours perfecting techniques to recreate the minute bumps of a frogs smooth skin, the tiny eye feathers, the grain of wood, because I HAD to. I must, because my soul demands it.

And with that understanding comes another revelation – I don't fret when people don't like my art. I harbor no resentment to the person who didn't understand my work – they have their own muses to chase.

There's too many pieces to create and not enough time to worry about making art that pleases everyone, so I'll continue to please my spirit with the art I want to create.

After all, I've found that there's so many people in the world, all kinds of people, and I've met so many already, and I think it likely I'll bump into more. And if they glance, and then stop to look at my work for a moment, I will be satisfied, and continue to create.

See my work in my gallery