I had a mother who worked with people in need of financial and emotional help - she was the financially literate go-between, between the lay-by shysters and the banks that held these financially uneducated people in shackles. I’d often accompany her, as a young teenager on her rounds to caravan parks, and to her clients who had become indebted to the likes of Harvey Norman, Noel Leeming, JB HiFi, Repco etc because they had a reasonable desire for items they could not afford.
She was my inspiration.
I volunteered to the Auckland City Mission the idea of holding Cartoons Workshops for their clients. I was given a small budget for art materials, a space to work in and a large whiteboard.
Curious lookers started wandering into the allocated space after having a hearty Mission buffet breakfast (National has now cut their food budget!) - so over time I collected a regular bunch of promising artists.
Quickly we invented an interactive, collective way of creating entertaining and often personal cartoons.
The artists would sit in front of their large drawing pads, pencil in hand, I would be alongside the whiteboard drawing their cartoon ideas line by line which they would follow line-by-line on their paper. Finally they would have to their amazement their own cartoon to which they would now add more characters and words in speech and thought balloons to create a storyline which often was reflective of their own life. It was a great opportunity for the artists to express thoughts and feelings otherwise unsaid.
Others might make cards for the children that have been removed from their care, or draw emblems of the community to whom they belong, or once belonged to. The stories, the laughter, the exchange of Whakapapa. I felt privileged to be part of their lives.
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