With a unique aesthetic and process for the world of urban art, Dark Ballad has established himself through a series of striking works across Ōtautahi, including gothic-inspired paste-ups and a woodblock tablet series for the 2023 Little Street Art Festival, as well as an ever-expanding collection of collaborations that range from prints to t-shirts. Working with figures from the worlds of fine arts and graffiti, these collaborations are always fresh, and through their ultimately one-of-a-kind woodblock printed aesthetic and finish, they are retain a key point of difference from more mass-produced clothing offerings. In addition to his technical output, Dark Ballad has also been involved in community arts initiatives, including curating the Carve surfboard art trail in New Brighton for the Duke Festival of Surfing in early 2025, a public art installation featuring over a dozen local artists. With such a wide range of activity, we thought it was well overdue we sat down with the ‘Master of the Dark Arts’ for a chat about his experiences, his philosophies and what might come next…
Continue reading “Dark Ballad – A Deep Cut”Tag: paste ups
Postcard from Mexico
Mexico is a hotbed of colourful culture – from the heritage of Aztec history, the muralist movement, the folkloric expressions, energetic graffiti and more recently, the emergence of a contemporary mural style infused with all of these influences…
Mexico is a hotbed of colourful culture – from the heritage of Aztec history, the muralist movement, the folkloric expressions, energetic graffiti and more recently, the emergence of a contemporary mural style infused with all of these influences… Last year we were lucky enough to spend some time in Mexico, visiting Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta and capturing some arty goodness. It can’t be understated how massive Mexico City is, bustling and colourful, the juxtaposition of traditional graffiti, fun street art, murals and public art a reflection of the city’s diversity. With only a couple of days to explore, much of the art we found was in the Condesa area where we stayed, but we also were able to witness a huge amount of art as we travelled outside the city to the impressive pyramids of Teotihuacán, murals, slogan typography and of course the frescoes of the ancient Aztec city itself. Puerto Vallarta is renowned as a bright, vibrant destination, and the collection of murals throughout the city most certainly adds to that profile – often displaying elements of local culture and history…
Continue reading “Postcard from Mexico”Street Treats, Vol. 9
Ōtautahi is changing. This might sound obvious for a city that has literally faced a massive rebuild – of course it is changing. But, the change that feels most prevalent right now reflects a greater sense of control and order – the spaces of opportunity are dissipating, filling with shiny new buildings. Of course, this is inevitable, we like shiny things, generally. But it changes the way we think about possibility. New things are to be preserved and maintained, we seek the liminal spaces for exploration. This change makes Street Treats even more important – recognising the way street art adapts to new environments and responds to prevailing landscapes. Street art reminds us that there are alternatives, that there are comments, that there are possibilities. The streets speak…
Want to contribute to the next Street Treats volume? Email us your flicks at [email protected]…
The Paste-Up Project – with Cape of Storms
Urban collage artist Cape of Storms became the third contributor to the Paste-Up Project in early June, her bright installation completed in glorious sunshine. The concept, drawing on the artist’s experiences acclimating to life in Aotearoa through the lens of humorously juxtaposed vintage magazine and advertising imagery, provided a reflection of the advertising often found in our urban environment, almost tricking the passing audience into a sense of normality. Upon closer inspection though, the bollard was filled more playful and acerbic content, including a brick wall section packed with a wide range of images. The result was a bold production with electric colours gleaming in the sun, simultaneously covert and unmissable.
But, then the weather changed and the installation was faced with a slew of challenges. As torrential rain hit Christchurch, the paste-ups started to peel and soon, it seemed as though people had pulled the pieces off, leaving the bollard naked in places. Luckily, part of Cape of Storm’s concept was the incorporation of friends’ work to be added over time, and this unfortunate series of events provided the opportunity to refresh the bollard on a large scale.
Cape of Storm’s installation has not only provided a bold burst of colour, but a fascinating narrative that ties into the nature of both paste-up art and the process of making art in the urban environment…
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Kia ora! Would you like to introduce yourself?
I am Cape of Storms, a Christchurch-based collage artist, I collect obscure retro images and phrases and put them together in a fun and quirky way.
What was your initial reaction to the Paste-Up Project proposal?
I was very excited by the concept, and also daunted in equal measure at the sheer size and scale of the bollard surface area. I typically work no larger than A3-sized pieces and often very detailed and refined. It takes hours to hunt out and combine different images together into one cohesive new image. I hand-cut and glue everything with just a pair of scissors or a small craft knife, arrange and overlap, and then carefully glue everything together. Some of my pieces are comprised of 30 or more smaller images and words! So, the challenge of this project was filling in all that open space. In the end my approach was to try to go big, but also fill the space with as much as possible to keep it interesting and provide a piece of art that had several dimensions to it.
With two artists having already contributed to the project, were you primarily interested in doing something different?
Yes, I was keen to do something unique to my style and stay true to that – I think my art style is so significantly different to both Teeth Like Screwdrivers and Bloom n Grow Gal‘s that it wasn’t too hard to be different!
What is the central theme of your installation and how does it relate to your existing work?
The installation is a progression or continuation of a new style I have been working on for about a year now, which I am really enjoying.
I have titled the series covering the bollard Foreign Objects. Being a foreigner living in New Zealand, I am continually getting to grips with my identity and trying to relate to my surroundings, often times feeling like a fish out of water. As a lover of nostalgia, I found myself combining these two themes.
Throughout this series I intentionally tried to create a silly, nonsense, imaginary world that could reawaken nostalgic memories in the viewer. Over a period of months I sourced hundreds of different found images – from old cook books, special interest magazines, newspapers, catalogues and children’s books from bygone eras. Things I remember seeing in my mother and grandmother’s house during my childhood growing up through the 90s. To many younger people, these images might seem totally foreign or out of place in modern times, as they are simply just not in common use any more. So through this use of retro “foreign” objects and arranging them together in weird, silly and fun ways, they all come together and are recognisable and familiar as a whole, something that the viewer can relate to. I tried to select a range of bright candy colours for the background which would stand out on the grey inner-city street-scape around the bollard. The candy-coloured palette also reinforced the nostalgic theme. For me, this ended up being very effective at inviting the viewer in from a distance, to come up closer and look at the bollard in more detail, particularly in the heart of winter!
The brick wall section running along the bottom third of the bollard and the very top section running like a ribbon all around is a collection of my existing collage art that I have been pasting up on the streets of Christchurch over the past two years. It was nice to include these on the bollard as well, alongside the more considered poster series that I created especially for this project.
You decided to remove the spacers on the bollard, making it one consistent 360 degree surface – which makes the experience more continuous, was that the thinking?
I didn’t like the “frames” or physical boundaries the spacing strips created, I wanted each individual poster to look like another part of the imaginary world I was creating. I also wanted to encourage the viewer to walk right around the bollard and see the image as one continuous surface.
You have included some big prints but also some collaborative spaces, what was the intention of the brick wall?
The brick wall section was intended to be a space where the wider Slap City collective group of artists would jump in and slap up various individual pieces, just as we do on our regular paste-up missions around the city.
Unfortunately due to the intense winter weather over the last month and the group not being able to meet up so frequently, we weren’t able to get in and fill that area before about 80% of the bollard surface was damaged in the torrential rain.
But the damage to the bollard has now cleared even more space, so if we are able, we will try and cover the empty spaces up again in between now and when Mark Catley inherits the bollard – I’m very excited to see what he’s got planned!!!
Printing the large posters became quite a process, working with the team from Phantom, has that changed your thinking around your work more widely? And what other challenges did the whole process throw up?
I knew I wanted to print everything with Phantom – they are the experts and their prints are of amazing quality and designed to be more durable and last out in the elements (sadly the record-breaking wet weather we’ve experienced over the last month took its toll!). The trickiest part was maintaining resolution when scaling up from original A4 or A3 size to A0 size. I was really worried that the images would look pixelated and poor quality. In the end I put all my scanned images through a free online tool called The Rasterbator which I hadn’t previously used much before, but is very popular among paste-up artists, especially Teeth Like Screwdrivers, who encouraged me to get into using it. Luckily this helped tremendously in keeping the images sharp and looking half-decent. I then asked the assistance of the very talented Tom Horton, the printer at Phantom, and he worked his magic, did some test-prints and the posters came out so much better than I could have ever imagined!
The next trickiest part was the installation itself, which I found very challenging having never done anything of that size or nature before. My design relied upon the posters going up very neatly and level, and the curved surface was seriously difficult to work with, and certainly will not be under-estimated in the future. I was so lucky to have the help of my partner who is a painter, as well as Vez and JZA who were able to help me paste up high (as I embarrassingly have bad vertigo when up on ladders!). This project has again made me appreciate what a special, supportive group of people we have in the Slapcity collective, coming together to do awesome stuff, promoting our many and varied street art mediums and just generally have a cool time together.
What does the Paste-Up Project represent for you as an artist who works in the paper medium? Has it given you ideas for where you might be able to take your work next?
I was totally blown away by the opportunity to prepare a legitimate art installation all in paper-based form. We have a lot of murals and graffiti/paint/spray-based pieces all around the city, so it was really encouraging to receive a project like this especially for paper-based art. For me personally, seeing the sheer scale of the prints, and printing on very high-quality paper has added a whole other dimension to where I think my art could go in the future, and I can see new possibilities for future projects with scaling up and going big. Finding a way to cost-effectively create large prints and in a format that is durable enough to withstand the winter elements and last a little longer out in the streets is a serious challenge for paper-based artists.
Is there anyone you want to thank?
Watch This Space for the support and patience, also for the help cleaning off and preparing the bollard surface ahead of the installation! Phantom Billstickers – Tom, Jake and the team. The Christchurch City Council’s Enliven Places fund for funding and the opportunity. Teeth Like Screwdrivers for the advice, tips and tricks. Vez and JZA for the help pasting up on the day and going high up on ladders when I wasn’t brave enough! Bongo and Neil Swiggs for the donation of some seriously good old books and magazines that I used in a few of the collages. The Slapcity crew for the support & a source of creative inspiration.
And my partner Fernando for allowing the complete take over of my time and helping with the installation!
Stay tuned for our next artist announcement for The Paste-Up Project!
Follow Cape of Storms on Instagram for more collage-y paste-y goodness!
Showtime!
Friday the 4th of March was a busy night, with two events marking the opening of significant urban art events in Ōtautahi, signalling an exploding energy in the local scene. First up was the opening event for the Flare Street Art Festival, held at the pop-up exhibition space on High Street, which is host for all the information you will need about the festival and a collection of work by Flare artists and a number of local stars. Across town at TyanHAUS, Slap City’s International Paste-Up and Sticker Festival was also celebrating it’s opening night, with the interior exhibition of work from across the globe completely taking over the space. We were lucky enough to make it along to both events, with a palpable sense of excitement permeating both spaces…
With both events taking place in the red traffic light setting, it was great to see the organisers ensuring people were masked up (except for a quick photo here and there!) and that group sizes were kept appropriate!
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Flare Street Art Festival opening event @ Flare Central, Friday, 4th March, 2022
Beginning with a opening address by Mayor Liane Dalziel, the Flare Festival launched on Friday (although artists had been at work on their walls since Wednesday the 2nd) at the Flare Central pop-up. The exhibited works ranged from Flare headline artists to a roster of local talent such as Chile One, Nick Lowry, Jacob Yikes, Ghostcat, Jen Heads and more. A relaxed vibe highlighted the feeling that such festivals bring, with new friendships and old connections re-established. Check out flare.nz for the festival’s full programme
Slap City presents The International Paste-Up and Sticker Festival @ TyanHAUS, Friday, 4th March, 2022
The Slap City collective have been an unmissable presence in the local scene over the last two years, their widespread community ensuring Ōtautahi has a thriving and diverse array of art in the streets. The International Paste-Up and Sticker Festival harnesses that diversity and community into an impressive exhibition and programme. Completely taking over the TyanHAUS space, the challenge proved to be where to start! Diving into the cacophonous selection of paste-ups, examing the sticker bombs or considering the Hello We Are exhibition, there was no shortage of attention grabbing activity! Follow the event on Facebook for more of the festival’s programme…
And That Was… February 2022
February 2022 might prove to be the calm before the storm, with several exciting events set for March. But there were still some great things that happened in those 28 days, even with the weather proving particularly temperamental! The weather has ensured a disjointed sense of summer, and coupled with the ongoing disruptions of Covid (not to mention the protests occurring across the country), it would be fair to say that February was not firing on all cylinders. With a swathe of events cancelled, the visual arts proved somewhat more durable, with projects still forging ahead, albeit under different conditions. With a palpable energy that Ōtautahi is about to reclaim it’s place as Aotearoa’s leading urban art destination, it was good to see momentum building…
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The DTR Crew’s Ernest Rutherford mural
A precursor to the Flare Festival, this impressive mural along the west-facing wall of the Team Hutchinson Ford building on St Asaph Street, was designed by Jacob Yikes and produced alongside crew-mates Dcypher and Ikarus. The image shows the iconic physicist and the old university building (now the Arts Centre) while a crackling energy is depicted in atoms and currents to bring a dynamic quality.
PIM’s This was the year that was… @ The Art Hole
PIM (aka Lost Boy) produced a charming wee show at The Art Hole on St Asaph Street at the end of February. Built around a drawing for every day of 2021, the bright digital drawings (postcard sized) were filled with humour, earnestness, bewilderment, pathos and everything in between, allowing the viewer to construct and reconstruct stories as they scan the large block of images. Definitely a favourite show of 2022!
Bloom takes over The Paste-Up Project…
Bloom n Grow Gal became the second artist to take over the Watch This Space X Phantom Billstickers Paste-Up Project bollard on Manchester Street, working in between downpours to create a fresh blossoming of flowers. Drawing on a range of her familiar images, the work has also allowed for change over its life span, with new aspects added already. Following in the footsteps of teethlikescrewdrivers, Bloom’s addition continues the momentum of The Paste-Up Project…
Xoë Hall @ Te Puna O Waiwhetū
Wellington artist Xoë Hall has taken over the Te Puna O Waiwhetū Christchurch Art Gallery’s famous bunker with Kuīni of the Worlds, a bright, bold and wild mural that celebrates atua wāhine through references to figures such as Hine-tītama, Hine-nui-te-pō, and Mahuika.
Holly Zandbergen on Walker Street
We were on our way to Walker Street’s Ally & Sid cafe a week ago when we were pleasantly surprised to see a new mural work in progress. when we called back past, artist Holly Zandbergen was there, brush-in-hand and happy to chat about her work, a beautiful painterly abstract work that was both energetic and restrained, a breath of fresh air for a mural scene that often favours pristine illusions…
What did we miss? What would you add to our list? Let us know in the comments!
Street Treats, Vol. 6
It has been a while since our last Street Treats edition, in part due to the lock-down situation, but even as we all play catch up on the livelihoods that were put on hold, the streets were a fascinating site to explore with the range of expressions and interventions to be found. This volume of Street Treats features a cacophony of diverse forms, and rather than dealing with explicitly political messaging, they are affirmative and declarative and playful, inherently meaningful concepts in a time where it is easy to feel invisible and somewhat powerless. Graffiti is a strong presence, bursts of colourful existential expression, bound by certain conventions but constantly searching for ways to stand out. The examples here run the gamut of styles and modes of production (some are legal, others not so much), but importantly they speak to the game and represent both a here and now and the countless numbers that have come before, a lineage of urban commentary. The repetition of other, non-signature forms lives up to the concept of post-graffiti, like characters, pencils, flowers and rocket ships, these symbols are both as mysterious as calligraphic tags, and yet also familiar and therefore more approachable. They share the idea of proclamation in the public realm, but are perhaps satisfied with intrigue rather than alienation. Why do so many find it more challenging when someone boldly writes their name than the positioning of an iconographic proxy to do the same job? Is a name a more confrontational and confident vessel for expression? Regardless of your take, the effect is the same; the city speaks, quietly, loudly, in whispers or in defiantly boisterous screams…
Stay tuned for more Street Treats soon!
If you have any corrections for the credits above, let us know in the comments!
The Paste-Up Project – ‘Community, Collaboration and Connection’ by teethlikescrewdrivers
The Paste-Up Project is a collaboration between Watch This Space, Phantom Billstickers and a selection of Ōtautahi’s finest paste-up and poster artists. With support from the Christchurch City Council, one of Phantom’s Manchester Street bollards has been transformed into a paste-up art installation space for the next 12 months, with local artists commissioned to push their work in new directions with a three-month takeover. The Paste-Up Project bollard serves as a supported platform for one of urban art’s most enduring forms and for the long historical lineage of urban postering (just ask Phantom!), with artists enabled to grow the scale and material qualities of their work within a setting that will challenge the perceptions of an ephemeral form of art.
First up at bat is teethlikescrewdrivers, an easy choice really as he is the driving force behind SlapCity, the loose collective that has embraced the potential of stickers and paste-ups across Ōtautahi. His instantly familar, yet continually beguiling pencil icon has become a recurring feature of the urban landscape. The simplicity of the image opens up a range of potential readings, and yet requires none, it exists, it is, and that is enough. More notable for the Lyttelton artist, is the sense of collaboration and community that his urban art adventures have instituted – from online mash-ups to weekly meet ups to explore the city, teethlikescrewdrivers constantly strives for connections and in doing so has created an expansive network of disparate, yet kindred spirits who see the urban landscape as one of play.
His installation for The Paste-Up Project embraces these ideas, celebrating each in a segmented yet cohesive production that will be on display for the next three months in central Christchurch. Of course, the pencil is the star, refashioned and re-formed across the circular base, and in doing so speaking to the various personalities who have inspired, influenced and embraced the artist’s signature form. But that’s enough from me, let’s hear from teethlikescrewdrivers as he explains his installation…
For the two people who don’t know you already, introduce yourself…
Hi, I’m teethlikescrewdrivers and I draw pencils.
I will admit that there was really no other choice for the first artist up for this project – what was your take when we first discussed the concept?
Really? Oh man.
Initially I was doubtful, mostly of myself! I couldn’t really think of anything other than doing bigger pencils and I wanted to give the space something it deserved. I’m fine with doing more pencils, but it wasn’t really bringing anything new to the table. After a few discussions with people and reading the brief, I started to think more about the possibilities it offered someone who usually only does one thing.
It is a surprisingly big space, how did you come up with the concept to fill the bollard and what incarnations did you go through?
I was going to just use it as one giant nine metre-squared canvas. After a few visits with a tape measure and some really basic planning, I decided to divide it into small, medium and large ‘panels’. This then made me start thinking about three themes. It kind of rolled on from there.
Your piece is titled Community, Collaboration and Connection, and it reflects the various elements that form such integral components of your experience in the world of urban art, how does each section relate?
After I settled on three panels, the themes were easy. I wanted to highlight paste-ups as a medium and have the chance to play around with that, I wanted to introduce more of the international sticker and paste-up community to Christchurch and I was always going to give our SlapCity family some love. I had to measure up pretty accurately for the community one, just so the pencil slotted in. The collaboration panel used the Vermin poster (Vermin is an artist from Manchester in the UK) as a starting point and then I just filled in the space like a sticker bomb. The big connection wall I had a rough idea for…kinda . I figured if I turned up with all the stuff I had, made and cut pastes on the spot and used posters salvaged from clearing the bollard something would happen. I just started throwing up stuff and discovering gems!
You got to play around with some cool material concepts, from large scale pastes to smaller overlapped pieces and of course the tearing away of layers, tell me more about each of these ideas…
Firstly the bollard is bloody ginormous, so I knew making three-metre tall pencil was going to be a struggle and would basically cover a whole panel. By splitting it I was able to physically manage it and still give a chance for the stuff behind to be seen. On the connection wall I really got to play with all the layers; negative spaces and using cool materials such as the old posters and wallpaper. On the second day I came back and started tearing into the layers from the day before, I really enjoyed that element of the process. I also really liked making my own wallpaper and giving the whole thing depth.
You spent a sunny weekend on the bollard, what was it like to have the time to explore the ideas you had developed – it must have been a new experience compared to the missions with friends. Did you find it still quite communal? I imagine it was like a mural painter – do you have any interesting stories of people stopping to chat or asking questions about what you were doing?
I kind of set up camp for the weekend, it was ace. I had a picnic table for drawing and cutting paste-ups, a speaker playing music, my car right there and my shit spread out all over the place. It was ideal! I had lots of good chats with passers-by about the bollard and my car; both great conversation starters. Having the time to step back really helped the big panel come together. That one is more artistic, I guess, it’s less about one piece and more about layers and how they fit together so time helped.
Oh, I almost got signed up to the Peninsula Trampers Club by one old fella who I had a good chat with! Did you know there are a whole bunch of boulders like the ones at Moeraki, but in the streams inland!? You do now!
My whanau popped by and I had a lunchtime beer with a bunch of mates and lots of people came and hung out. It was like a paste-up Glastonbury!
What were some of the challenges you faced? It is obviously not a traditional flat surface…
The wind and the physical size of the paste-ups were the big ones. But because I had time I was able to leave stuff and come back to it, or think my way around it.
What are your hopes for The Paste-Up Project, not just in terms of your own installation but as a concept? Do you see it as a way to change perceptions, or at least the visibility of paper art in Ōtautahi?
I hope it opens the door for more artists to get their stuff up. There is a real delight in putting your work up in the streets rather than in a frame or on Instagram. Having a dedicated paste-up ‘show’ really lets people see some of the more established artists’ work and hopefully inspires others to get out there into the streets with a bucket and brush or just a pocket full of homemade stickers. Down the line I would love to see this kind of collaboration move into different towns and cities.
You have developed a web of connections around the world with artists through collabs and trades, and many are featured on the bollard, have you had any responses from those people overseas yet? What have the responses been like from the local scene?
Instantly! The collab wall was really just a huge collab and mash-up sticker bomb and everyone is always stoked to see a bit of their work in one, especially way down here in Christchurch. I think there are mash-ups and collabs with over 50 artists on that panel; everywhere from Brazil, Russia, most of Europe and even just down the road.
I’ve had comments from people about how well my pencil scales up, this was a good test for that! I was really stoked with the Vermin collab, it looks epic as a huge poster and you can really appreciate all the details. I was also really pleased to get work up in New Zealand from good friends from overseas.
Do you hope this is just the start of more opportunities like this, and if so, do you have any ideas of how it might be harnessed?
I really hope so. I would love to see sticker and paste-up walls as part of the ‘street art’ scene alongside graffiti and murals here in New Zealand. Maybe down the road a sticker and paste-up show? It would be amazing to see some dedicated paste-up walls or permissioned spaces in the city. Personally, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and see where it leads me.
While the weather was perfect for installation, it rained heavily just a day later, what impact did that have and were you philosophical about it?
I think putting a layer of straight-up PVA onto wet paste last thing was a double-edged sword. The next day the whole thing was covered in white streaks and all the paper was still really wet, I thought I’d knackered it! But after a while it dried clear and I think will add a bit more protection in the long run. The good thing about all paste-ups is you can always add more layers. If it all falls to bits over the next few months I will just go and tear a bunch off and add more.
Who do you want to shout out?
Watch This Space, Phantom, the Christchurch City Council, the SlapCity family and all the amazing venues that have let us use their spaces over the past two years. All the artists here in Christchurch who paved the way and have got us to a point where a project like this can even happen. My whanau and all the rad artists who have let me use their art for mashups or who have taken my pencils and messed with them.
Follow teethlikescrewdrivers to see what he gets up to next, and keep your eyes and ears peeled for more about The Paste-Up Project on our channels!
Oh, and get down to the site on Manchester Street to see this amazing installation in the flesh!
And That Was… September 2021 – with Cape of Storms
To recap September we caught up with Cape of Storms, our favourite street collage paster-upperer! You will know Cape’s paste-ups, even if you don’t realise it, they utilise vintage cooking books, kitsch knitting images and more retro finds to create whimsical juxtapositions that are at once funny and mysterious, adding that sense of wondrous inquisition as they appear across the city, revealing the absurdity of life. As I suspect it was for many of us, Cape of Storms’ September was hectic, catching up on a life that was put on pause… So, what was keeping Cape of Storms busy? Read on and find out…
September was a blur. My recollection of how the month passed by is somehow not linear. I remember key events, like feeding my best friend’s new baby girl for the first time, dressing up and going out for a special meal with my partner at Soul Quarter just after we passed into level 2. Going back to the gym, the stress and irritation around how and when to mask up. But most of all, I remember the build-up and anticipation, coordination, ultimate execution of of MOVING HOUSE.
Moving house is awful. It confronts you with all your life decisions and lifestyle choices and forces you to judge yourself as you pack up your life, box by box (well, at least for me anyway!).
I arrived in New Zealand just under three years ago with two suitcases full of clothes, a racing heart and a head full of dreams for my new future. For the first few weeks I muddled by sleeping on the floor on a blow-up mattress, eating at a rusty camping table and managing the delicate balance of ice-to-water ratio in a chilly bin.
Slowly and steadily I started to accumulate stuff. Four months after relocating from Cape Town, four modest boxes arrived by sea, filled with precious kitchen and household items from my previous home.
Fast-forward to September 2021 and van- load upon van-load of stuff needs to be ferried from the old house to the new house, multiple trips to Ecodrop required, $850 raised in Facebook marketplace sales and days and days of sorting, cleaning and reorganising.
And what did I learn about myself during this process? Well, a quite a few important things actually.
Friends, and friends who have become like family are my “home” in this new country. The physical objects I own only carry meaning for me if they are linked to how I can interact with the important people in my life, or bring me comfort and act as reminders of special memories shared with the people who are no longer physically present due to distance and time zones. Being a bit of a clutter-bug, I was amazed at how easily I was able to get rid of things that did not meet these requirements, and how important the objects that remind me of my home country and family actually are.
My home environment has become very important to me. This space has become my nest, my anchor which I can categorically call “my own”. Where I can express my personality and recharge. Taking the time to curate my space a bit better and only surround myself with things I truly need has been wonderful. Also, realising that my space is now shared with my partner makes this even more special as we create a life together.
When my life was in limbo for a few weeks, I really craved my routine and the activities that mean the most to me, the things that create balance in my day. For me, that was “studio”/workspace area back in order. This move has been really great as I have now seriously upgraded my work space and I really look forward to a lot of productive time being creative on a day-to-day basis, as I’m trying to incorporate making/creating into my daily routine. Another big one was realising how important regularly connecting with my fellow artist friends at weekly Slapcity meetups are to me. Slapcity is a group (I won’t use the dreaded word “collective”) of like-minded artist friends with a passion for street art. Some artists focus on sticker making, some on paper paste-ups, some on graffiti writing, some on drawing – but honestly any medium is welcomed. We get together every Wednesday evening to chat and do a little bit of work on whatever we feel like really, usually with a beer or cold beverage in hand.
So September was for the most part spent preoccupied with the move, but by no means all that I got up to…
Danny Knight-Baré at PB & JAM
Something that’s been preoccupying me throughout September is Slapcity member Danny Knight-Baré’s stunningly intricate multi-layered screen-printed pieces I saw at the PB & Jam show in mid-August. At first glance you would mistake the abstract colour-blocked pieces for digital prints, but once you realise that each line and dot have actually been screen-printed onto the surface, sometimes in up to 23 layers you truly realise their genius. I could stare at those textures and colours for hours. PB & Jam was an awesome group art and music show put together by the gorgeous Lydia Thomas (another Slapcity member!).
The return of Slapcity Wednesday nights!
Level 3 saw us getting together via Zoom calls, but a return to Level 2 meant face to face meet-ups again! The pleasant sound of scissors snipping, vinyl cutting, the heavy smell of marker pen ink hanging in the air, good tunes playing in the background and our inane and random chatter is the definition of my happy place. It’s a totally relaxed and free environment, and I just feel so recharged and energised after every session. We alternate between the workspace at Fiksate Gallery and a few other locations around Christchurch central. New members are always welcome. Check out the Insta page for more info.
Lazy weekend brunch/lunch at Unknown Chapter
Mine and my partner’s favourite brunch spot on St Asaph Street in the central city. Excellent coffee and yummy fresh food (especially in the cabinet), all in all a beautifully decorated hanging plant-filled space. The hanging plant jungle that covers the entire ceiling of the café has Millenials and Gen Zs frothing at the mouth, but looking beyond this #hashtag nirvana, the food, coffee and service is really amazing. Our favourites are the Eggs Benedict, the Salad bowl with halloumi and the Florentines from the cabinet.
Aussie art rock and my trusty Blundies
I’ve had Twilight Driving by Methyl Ethel on repeat on a daily basis. I just can’t get enough of Jake Well’s gender-bendingly unique voice and the haunting lyrics. I’ve been listening to a lot of Holy Holy as well. Coupled with the fact that I have been wearing my beloved brown Blundstone boots so much that I’ve had to introduce “rest days” for them is making me question my loyalty to this Antipodean island in favour of the other, larger, hotter one. But then I think of those poor sods in Melbourne and happily return to sipping my flat white and dunking my ginger slice. Also, Blundstones are actually made in Vietnam now…
Preparation for EVEN MORE THE SHOW (15-16 October)
Trawling op shops for old textiles. Saturday morning hours lost inside the labyrinth of Creative Junk. Clandestine printing missions at my office photocopier. Gluing things to other things. Figuring out how to paint and paste onto old biscuit tins and suit cases. All in preparation for Even More The Show, opening Thursday, 14th October (and running through the 15th and 16th) at Club House Creative on Southwark Street. Even More The Show is yet another group show organised by the charming Irish creative dynamo Lydia Thomas. I was so stoked to be invited to take part, and it is made all the more special by the fact that proceeds made from the show will go to Youthline. Quite a few of my local female artist friends will also be taking part, its going to be a hell of a lot of fun!
Follow Cape of Storms on Instagram and check out her work with a heap of talented local creatives in Even More The Show this week!
The Paste-Up Project
Watch This Space and Phantom Billstickers are excited to present The Paste-Up Project – a celebration of one of urban art’s most enduring, popular and accessible forms!
The Paste-Up Project will see one of Phantom’s inner city bollards (on Manchester Street to be exact) transformed into a poster art installation space – with four local paste-up artists taking turns to install their work on the circular form. Each artist will take on the challenge of pushing their work in new directions, increasing in scale and employing new techniques to create pieces that will suggest the potential of paste-up art.
While large-scale muralism has become the most visible form of urban art’s contemporary profile, street art in particular is marked by its diversity of material approaches. From Blek Le Rat’s pasted stencils and Swoon’s delicate woodblock prints, paper-based techniques have been a fixture in post-graffiti across the globe. In Ōtautahi Christchurch, paste-ups and posters have become a visible component of the art found in our streets, unleashing a range of creative concepts while also evoking the long lineage of urban communication found in the likes of fly-posters and urban posters. From Icelandic pop stars to analogue memes, giant toys and collaged surrealism, the city has become a popular landscape for artists welding rolls of paper and buckets of glue.
The Paste-Up Project provides a supported platform to further investigate these techniques and a chance for some of our favourite artists to explore their work. First up to bat is Slap City founder and perfect pencil purveyor Teeth Like Screwdrivers – an undeniable choice to kick start this project! Stay tuned as we dive deeper into his concept, inspiration and hopes for his installation in the coming days (not to mention the following artists as they are announced!)
Keep up to date with The Paste-Up Project here at our blog or by following us on Instagram and Facebook and join the fun by using the hashtag #pasteupprojectchch!
We can’t wait to get started!
The Paste-Up Project is gratefully supported by the Christchurch City Council’s Enliven Places fund!