The world makes me think of this favourite expression describing human behaviour.

My table centre-piece shows the goddess Freya who was so commanding she had cats pulling her chariot and even a tame wild boar for good measure.

From a series illustrating "The Divine Comedy", Dante Alighieri's journey in the Underworld. In the style of a Staffordshire table-piece it tells a story of survival in a world heading for inferno and a human relationship that enabled Dante to navigate the Labyrinth through Hell, Purgatory and to Paradise.

A depiction of a favourite folk tale. A traveller at an Inn tells of witnessing, in the forest, a funeral procession of a whits cat who had a golden crown on his chest. On hearing this the handsome black cat who was resting by the fireside in the Inn jumps up and cries "Now I am King of the Cats" and disappears into the night. I reflect here on leadership and succession.

“From historic paintings; a pair of table centrepieces in the English Staffordshire style. I am playing with convention to tell stories of NZ history. The flamboyant mercenary Von Tempsky fought in the New Zealand Land Wars and died in battle at Te Ngutu o Te Manu, Taranaki, in 1868. Fading cartoon soldiers fighting for the concept of Manifest Destiny.”

Presented in the form of a European porcelain table centrepiece, and to be viewed in the round, is the legend of “the Wild Hunt”, combined with the dream of a soldier at the end of WW2. The white stag and hare are chased by hounds, pursued and never caught.

This diorama references the naive paintings of Arthur Boyd and the softpaste figurative ceramic collections in the Auckland and Sydney Museums. My ‘Paradise Lost” illustrates Milton's message from the Angel Michael to Adam and Eve after their fall. Find "a paradise within thee, happier far", no longer reliant on a God, they must become self-sufficient humans.

This is in a series works using themes from Western Movies to express a conservation message about the threat to our native birds from introduced species. Here the strapline from the movie “The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Bob Ford”, which I am referencing here, states “…But the greatest threat to his life may ultimately come from those he trusts the most”* Universal Pictures.

The Hoxne Hoard – a collection of Roman treasure dating from AD 409 – was unearthed in Suffolk England in 1992. I have emulated this ancient hoard to recreate an archaic context for my story, in ceramic and not silver. A panther, which escaped from our local zoo, and a scapegoat, are jewel boxes. Central to the group is an effigy, the King of the Birds. The stories are about Black Reef, an older and now disused name for my suburb of Westmere.

"Out of step, out of place, and their time was running out FAST"

Inspired by the Martin Brothers in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Four extinct or endangered species of bird native to New Zealand; Huia, Orange Wattle Kokako, Kahu and Kakapo as characters from the 1969 film "The Wild Bunch".

Kupe’s Dog, Joseph Banks’s Greyhound and Captain Cook’s Goat named Folly. All three were visitors to Aotearoa during the earliest days of human settlement and these clay figures celebrate historical events, they are silent and curious witness to extraordinary journeys and explorations.

Inspired by a wooden fetish dog seen in the Pacific Island collection in the Auckland Museum some years ago. I have been back since but could not find it again but the form and the toothy grin remained with me. It was to me an object with great symbolic power.

“Here I depict six soldiers from New Zealand history as a set of traditional Victorian toys. Two Rangers and their leader Von Tempsky are shown as a Magpie, a Rook and a Myna Bird, all birds introduced to New Zealand. Their adversaries are the Hau Hau, Maori guerrilla fighters fighting to regain their land and are shown as a Tui, Huia and a Kokako, all indigenous birds.”

Although toy soldiers are things of childhood, they always represented to me society’s acceptance of something that should be questioned or at least understood.

Colour stains on naive shapes make a bright shiny wood.

When the circus left town, we had a parade,

the band played on and floats were made.

I looked sideways as they passed,

these bits and pieces they were the last.

We beat our chests

and cried out loud,

the Tui’s head looked dead not proud