The Sea Question
The sea asks ‘How is your life now?’
It does so obliquely, changing colour.
It is never the same on any two visits.
It is never the same in any particular
Only in generalities: tide and such matters
Wave height and suction, pebbles that rattle.
It doesn’t presume to wear a white coat
But it questions you like a psychologist
As you walk beside it on its long couch.
~ Elizabeth Smither; from ‘the nature of things: poems from the New Zealand Landscape’
My latest painting: of the Petone foreshore, looking towards Matiu-Somes Island and the Baring Heads of Wellington Harbour. This is the same long couch where the first of my ancestors landed around 150 years ago, to an unknown wild land on the other side of the earth…. And the sea is still asking ‘how is your life now?’
Life and Light 
Great art. I visited NZ for a month recently. Stunning place. Will be posting photos of that road trip soon.
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I look forward to seeing them, and how the land spoke to you. Cheers
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What an amazing question the ocean asks, paired with your work. Really great!
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So elegant, perfectly harmonious.
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I love the way the sky is laid down upon brisk, thick strokes. It’s like the clouds are the shimmer cast off sunlit rough seas, as seen from high cliffs at a distance. It is a beautiful image, an adept companion for the poetry.
I am on close terms with the sea, like the friend you haven’t seen in years, but take up immediately where you left off at every meeting. The sea no longer needs to ask. I always begin with what it wishes to know.
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That’s such a beautiful response to my painting and Elizabeth’s poem! It was a piece of magic to link the two and I love the journey it can take us on, to the sea!
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I love the scale of this piece and the generous sky. Smither’s “long couch” and “white coat” a poetic delight.
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beautiful artwork!
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Thank you.
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