PREGNANTISM

In 1982 I gave birth to my biggest creation, the ketch Claes Compaen, after 7 years. 54 feet long, with a 14 foot 6 inch beam, and weighing 17 tons. She was named after a pirate ancestor of mine. Cleas Compaen was a very sea-kindly yacht, with a traditional rig. Reacher, staysail, yankee, main sail, top sail and mizzen. Having so many sails we could just drop one instead of reefing. And of course it was the kind of rig I was familiar with. I did design her to be a cruiser rather than a racer, but even so with just Karen and me sailing her, she did easily 10 knots.


A few days ago our friend Rachael gave birth to a son, David! Not long ago Katie had her second baby, Zoe, Stella's sister. And Louise her first daughter, Liberty. Stella, Zoe and Liberty are our great granddaughters.

So all in all with all those pregnancies our PREGMANTICS exhibition fits in nicely. So far there are four of us. The exhibition will first be shown for three weeks at the Yvonne Rust Gallery, the renewed gallery at the Northland Craft Trust Quarry, Whangarei in October 2013.

The pregnant mother Abbie is the first for the show, and Deirdra will be next. The only artwork I have to finish in between is a painting/sculpture combination. The sculpture part is finished, the painting only needs two more days of work. After that it will be PREGNANTISM.