Painting to commission is an art school in itself. A client’s brief can challenge my technical skills and concepts. To be admitted to the wondrous world of archetype and metaphor I make the time to explore my website’s 'recent artworks' reveals progress there, becoming archived as the parade of paintings pass with the years. Let’s pick up the trail. Pre 2007 I painted as a freelance artist from 1980, having returned home to NZ after painting in the UK. Painting to commission, portraiture was my mainstay, Auckland’s Titirangi my base. 1996 I escaped the city gridlock, to paint from my bach on a Whangarei Heads bay for 10 years. There I expanded my genre. I had nurtured a dream to live and paint on the road. The right travel partner was crucial.

2007 to 2011 I toured NZ in a mobile studio-home, fulfilling that dream. My partner Laughton King, educator of 35 years, specialising in children’s learning difficulties, recognised the need to bring the inside story of what it is to be dyslexic. Dyslexia being politically unrecognised in NZ, Lort took his self-funded message to the coal-face, to where the teachers and parents were working with children failing our language-based education system. Laughton personally visited every NZ school that he could reach. We visited, and presented at community after community. Laughton became a legend. The website www.dyslexiadismantled.com evolved, as did his insights, further illuminating this confusing arena. Books were written on the road. And illustrated.

For an artist, the varied locations and people were endlessly fascinating. I was able to steadily paint as well as be in full support of the Mission. One of my highlight adventures On Tour was the commission to paint a wild horse muster. I had demonstrated my art at a hired stand at the Mystery Creek Agricultural Field-days (a tent-city phenomenon). A Maori whananga lecturer from Ruatoria, the Maori community near Mt Hikurangi on the East Cape, responded to my offer to paint NZ heritage portraits.

5 years later, with my mobile studio, I took up Jimmy’s challenge. I rode the muster. Amazing experience. I painted the boys who participated, boys posted in the numerous holes in fences supposedly to prevent the thundering mobs from escaping. The canvas was painted over weeks parked up between the pie shop and the dairy, and sometimes in the pie shop. Hoards of boys on horseback (who needs a bike) regularly checked on progress.

We were entertained with invitations to the Marae (a priceless cultural wealth), taken to stay at the local wild beach (crayfish), up Mt Hikurangi then closed to tourists (phenomenal Maori Millenial sculptures up there), and to community christenings and rugby empires. Lort was appointed physio for both sides he happens to have a healing gift, channelled by training in 'authobionomy'. Very handy for an artist to have on hand. So to for the hefty dreadlocked rugby bodies I often found stretched out on the truck floor, Laughton ministering for a sack of kumera or some other treasure.

Maybe our stunning 12 day ride through the Southern Alps two years later superceded the muster. But no. That muster, the community and the painting challenge gave that experience the life stamp of authenticity. The alps ride demanded involvement too, and scenic wonder beyond belief, even riding escapades that would have smarted OSH’s eyes, but it missed the human involvement factor.

Back on my trail, 2012, Lort and I are building on a 26 acre lifestyle block on the Pataua estuary, Whangarei Heads. Lort has nursed this dream for over two decades - the right partner crucial. My temporary studio is a converted shipping container with a clearlite roof; the best studio of my many dozens over the years.

We can share this land with you via Art Retreats.