83 quotes found
"I am interested in the material legacy of photographs by early woman photographers in New Zealand museums and archives (or the lack thereof), and the question of how to rethink curatorial concerns that have been formed by histories that have excluded, not only work relating to New Zealand, but the work of women."
"Traditional historical methods that could be applied to a history of women and photography related to New Zealand are unsuitable and unrealistic tools to analyse types of photographs women tended to make and the circumstances of their production."
"Mitchell, Lissa (November 2015). "Recovering Pieces: Finding an early history of women and photography in New Zealand". Love Feminists. Retrieved 12 April 2025."
"An art historical approach is too concerned with artistic genius, oeuvres, innovation and technical excellence."
"Well, she was not so bad. Her body was long and round and shapely and with a noble squareness of the shoulders; her fair hair curled diffidently about a good brow; her grey eyes, though they were remote, as if anything worth looking at in her life had kept a long way off, were full of tenderness; and though she was slender there was something about her of the wholesome endearing heaviness of the draught-ox or the big trusted dog. Yet she was bad enough. She was repulsively furred with neglect and poverty, as even a good glove that has dropped down behind a bed in a hotel and has lain undisturbed for a day or two is repulsive when the chambermaid retrieves it from the dust and fluff."
"Well, one sounded the bell that hung on a post, and presently Margaret in a white dress would come out of the porch and would walk to the stone steps down to the river. Invariably, as she passed the walnut tree that overhung the path, she would pick a leaf and crush it and sniff the sweet scent; and as she came near the steps she would shade her eyes and peer across the water. “She is a little near-sighted; you can’t imagine how sweet it makes her look.” (I did not say that I had seen her, for indeed this Margaret I had never seen.)"
"She was then just a girl in white who lifted a white face or drooped a dull gold head. And as that she was nearer to him than at any other time. That he loved her, in this twilight which obscured all the physical details which he adored, seemed to him a guarantee that theirs was a changeless love which would persist if she were old or maimed or disfigured. He […] watched the white figure take the punt over the black waters, mount the grey steps and assume their greyness, become a green shade in the green darkness of the foliage-darkened lawn, and he exulted in that guarantee."
"Wealdstone is not, in its way, a bad place; it lies in the lap of open country and at the end of every street rise the green hill of Harrow and the spires of Harrow School. But all the streets are long and red and freely articulated with railway arches, and factories spoil the skyline with red angular chimneys, and in front of the shops stand little women with backs ridged by cheap stays, who tapped their upper lips with their forefingers and made other feeble, doubtful gestures as though they wanted to buy something and knew that if they did they would have to starve some other appetite. When we asked them the way they turned to us faces sour with thrift. It was a town of people who could not do as they liked."
"When she came back into the parlour again she was wearing that yellowish raincoat, that hat whose hearse plumes nodded over its sticky straw, that grey alpaca skirt. I first defensively clutched my hands. It would have been such agony to the finger tips to touch any part of her apparel. And then I thought of Chris, to whom a second before I had hoped to bring a serene comforter. I perceived clearly that that ecstatic woman lifting her eyes and her hands to the benediction of love was Margaret as she existed in eternity; but this was Margaret as she existed in time, as the fifteen years between Monkey Island and this damp day in Ladysmith Road had irreparably made her. Well, I had promised to bring her to him."
"Then, one April afternoon, Chris landed at the island, and by the first clean quick movement of tying up his boat made her his slave. I could imagine that it would be so. He was so wonderful when he was young; he possessed in great measure the loveliness of young men, which is like the loveliness of the spry foal or the sapling, but in him it was vexed into a serious and moving beauty by the inhabiting soul. […] [F]rom his eyes, which though grey were somehow dark with speculation, one perceived that he was distracted by participation in some spiritual drama. To see him was to desire intimacy with him so that one might intervene between this body which was formed for happiness, and this soul which cherished so deep a faith in tragedy."
"As the car swung through the gates of Baldry Court she sat up and dried her eyes. She looked out at the strip of turf, so bright that one would think it wet, and lit here and there with snowdrops and scillas and crocuses, that runs between the drive and the tangle of silver birch and bramble and fern. There is no aesthetic reason for that border; the common outside looks lovelier where it fringes the road with dark gorse and rough amber grasses. Its use is purely philosophic; it proclaims that here we estimate only controlled beauty, that the wild will not have its way within our gates, that it must be made delicate and decorated into felicity. Surely she must see that this was no place for beauty that has been not mellowed but lacerated by time, that no one accustomed to live here could help wincing at such external dinginess as hers."
"...Australia like New Zealand is still very much 'a man's country"
"I find it hard to believe that I do not have to go on somewhere else... but there doesn't seem anywhere else to go, unless to the Antarctic. But one thing I do know: when I travel for a while after this I am going by train or road transport. I have had enough of the air for the time being."
"How bitter-sweet it all was, I reflected — flying about the world, visiting these great cities, meeting many people, making many friends, then having to fly off again."
"the intoxicating drug of speed, and freedom to roam the earth."
"If I go down in the sea...no one must fly out to look for me."
"But England to Naples in a day is no mean feat for any man, let alone a girl without any previous long-distance experience."
"...my only company the roar of the engine as I winged low over the ocean like a solitary bird... I might have been the only person in the world."
"There have been times when the loneliness has been so intense that I have longed for the sound of a human voice or the sight of a ship, or even a tiny native village, to dispel the feeling of complete isolation that one feels when flying alone over the sparsely inhabited tracts that comprise such a great area of the earth's surface."
"...would not even consider it until I had attained my ambition, for I was determined to try again."
"I was able to fly from England to New Zealand in the fastest time in the history of the world...I think I can say this is the very greatest moment of my life."
"I have experienced the cool, rarefied atmosphere of the Olympic heights where the famous dwell in lonely solitude."
"Ted, if you love me, lend me the lower wings from your Moth."
"...I had served my apprenticeship and was now a cool, ruthless, potential record-breaker."
"In describing a town in Morocco, Tétouan: "The whiteness and pearliness of the town simply defies you-you can't get it pure and brilliant enough and the shadows drive one silly-you race after them , pause one frenzied moment to decide on a blue mauve yellow or green shadow-when up and over the wall and away and the wretched things gone for that day at least and you are gazing at a glaring blank wall and wondering why on earth you ever started to sketch it.""
"But au fond-deep in my work-I am steadfast and steady as a rock... My present work is consistent-I shall sink or swim by it-I think swim-."
"To her mother, 1921: "Don't let N Zealand wait to put up a memorial tablet to my memory—let her help me now whilst I am working at work that I hope will live after me.""
"It is one of the tragedies of leaving Home—New Zealand is too far away—it ceases to be real. New Zealanders like myself cannot help becoming de-nationalized—they have no country—it is sad—but true ... Art is like that—it absorbs your whole life and being. Few women can do it successfully. It requires enormous vitality. That is my conception of genius—vitality.""
"1912: "I was born in Dunedin; we were an English family in a Scottish settlement.""
"1895: "I am slowly settling down to an oldmaidship, and I have only one prominent idea and that is that nothing will interfere between me and my work.""
"To Dorothy Kate Richmond, 1903: "Come to Tetuan. Come—catch the next steamer, cancel all engagements, chuck the studio let everything go to the winds only come without a moment's delay and value for yourself all the dreams of beauty colour and sunshine...""
"Painting reduces me to tears and misery: peaks of ecstasy, depths of disillusion..."
"To her brother, August 1940: "My aspect of the family talent, or curse? has taken the form of a deep intellectual experience, a force which has given me no rest or peace but infinite joy and sometimes even rapture.""
"March 2024: "I had very good teachers, I had very good coaches, teachers, managers, everything. But most of all, I had a singing teacher who was Hungarian, and she went through the war. I remember I brought her a loaf of bread once and she said 'Kiri, I once had only a raw onion and your bread has reminded me of what I went through during those times of trying to escape.' So she had that drive, whether it be the war or me, but that sort of thing was in her along with [Hungarian-British conductor] Sir Georg Solti who once again, was in the war and escaped as well. So I had two people who were survivors and they made sure that I was going to also do this job and make it, not survive it but make it. And they were always driving me, driving me constantly.""
"The saddest thing when I left New Zealand was that Māori was not spoken. My father was never allowed to speak Māori...Now of course it's allowed, and it's absolutely wonderful that all these young people can speak their own language. I'm very sad that I can't speak it because we were blocked at the time...I will do in my own way. I'm not sure that it will go in my 77-year-old head but I certainly will try. I listen a lot to Māori Television to see how it is even, even the sort of greetings and how everyone speaks it."
"Regarding her retirement: "My main focus is to enjoy my life. I'm living in the most beautiful area by the sea.""
"I don't look at myself as being a dame. I just look at myself as my mother and father's adopted daughter that they gave everything to. The chances I've been given have been through my parents who gave and sacrificed everything for the career that I now have."
"I don't want to hear my voice... It is in the past. When I'm teaching young singers and hearing beautiful young fresh voices, I don't want to put my voice next to theirs."
"From her 1923 article, "The first girl graduates": 'It is too soon yet...for a complete answer to be given to this question, but thousands of university women are proving by their lives that it has not unfitted them for home-making, the noblest sphere of women's work.'"
"Well good morning everybody! Here I am back again, home again in New Zealand, which is the very easiest country in the world to live in and work in at the present time. I can assure you of that."
"Good morning everybody! Good morning everybody! I think the secret, if you want to be successful in anything, and you all do, and I think the only way is to mean it, to want to do it, to be sincere and not be mediocre. Don't - never be mediocre! Always want to do the very best and and certainly - that you couldn't care more!"
"...in a better sanitary condition than any in the North Island."
"I think women are quite as well able to legislate as men..."
"I am most anxious to make a change in the way business is carried on. There is in both borough councils and in Parliament too, a great deal too much talk...Men often get up and talk at these meetings just to waste time..."
"No woman, however degraded, but should have women to look after them."
"Most emphatically I am not a prohibitionist."
"I would like to warn honourable members, however, that women are never satisfied unless they have their own way. It happens in this case that the woman’s way is the right way."
"Let us prove ourselves as good as any man, and better than some."
"There is no reason why a woman should not receive the same pay for the same work as a man. To argue otherwise is to argue against justice."
"Poverty is not the fault of the poor. It is the fault of a system that allows idleness at the top and starvation at the bottom."
"Forget I am a member of the Labour Party and remember that I am a woman"
"I do hope that the women of New Zealand will realise...I will be their representative first."
"I move this motion before the principle member and all honourable members so that a law may emerge from this parliament allowing women to vote and women to be accepted as members of the parliament."
"There are many intelligent women in New Zealand who marry men who do not know how to run their land."
"If we are to discuss the importance of wāhine, we are also discussing the importance of whenua."
"Perhaps the Queen may listen to the petitions if they are presented by her Māori sisters, since she is a woman as well."
"[A] hui where wāhine Māori were able to discuss issues including the cessation of land sales, prohibition, and women's right to vote."
"I haven't any desire for success or the limelight, and no further wish to explain myself. Neither do I wish to play, any more than I can help, a part in the world of petty tyranny, greed and murder, and war ... My pacifism and my paintings are now closely linked."
"I live alone to work ... My friends are very few now, but more quality. Friends, family and works of art are the only reasons why I live."
"It's all there, the strangeness, colour, exhilaration."
"I've tried through the medium of paint to express ... how simple and wonderful living is ..."
"I have been able to devote my energies to what I really am, a woman painter. It is my life."
"I have never lost my faith in my painting, my work, as a child or an adult, in sickness or health, success or failure, peace or war ..."
"I am still trying to express ... the vast variations & endless possibilities in paint."
"I, as other painters do, live to paint and paint to live."
"I paint colour as a woman sees and hears..."
"I used concrete blocks and sandbags for weights. I'd do an hour of weight training at home in the morning. My uncle, in whose house I was living in Auckland, had built a sort of gym in the spare room, so I'd spend an hour doing callisthenics before I went to work."
"At lunchtime I'd train at the Domain. I ran in army boots for 30-45 minutes. The theory was that when I didn't have the boots on, I'd feel like I was flying. It certainly did feel good without them!"
"Then after work I'd be back at the Domain, or at one of the other parks. I'd be watched by Jim Bellwood, my coach. He'd supervise my jumping technique, or my throwing. This session would last a couple of hours."
"When you're painting you feel quite attune with everything... it's a great pleasure, quite addictive."
"I felt very strongly about feminism and photography better expressed my political ideals."
"They become a body not a person, then just an image not an image of a person."
"I think I would have been more successful, but less interesting."
"It was too hard to be a feminist artist on your own; the criticism was too great to bear."
"Art is a structure of symbols, and those people who do not comprehend that language will pass it by."
"I don't want to work unless there is some meaning that by painting I can communicate something personal and political. A painting is ambiguous, very sensuous and has to come from your core."
"I might refer to the female now, but she is always active, symbolic of female action and although painted in a sensual style, she is not up for sale, not offered to the viewer. This is one of the reasons I started using animals."
"More and more, we are being required to know what are the implications of living in a society that is increasingly diverse through the arrival of immigrants from all walks of life and very different parts of the planet. I would like to think that our work is a tangible example of what people can achieve when they work together."
"[A] painting presents its own battle, its own requirements. And a print is never a reproduction of a painting. It makes its own demands, it has its own life, its own thing going for it."
"When you're painting, nobody else knows what you're doing and you're the only one who understands it. You've got to have faith in what you're doing and in humanity."
"I couldn't imagine painting anyone I didn't like. When people do appear in my paintings, they're always people for whom I have a special feeling."
"Being an artist is submitting to the learning that comes from being a mother. It's all the better for the work in the end. It enriches your field of understanding of human nature, all the hards bits and the good bits, the whole thing...Ultimately, the way forward is to be grateful for the blessings that come from accepting those challenges."
"A consistent thread in my work is that it’s made in response to place, and what’s happening around me – physical and social environments provide the raw material, the inspiration, the starting point."