Description
Shona McFarlane’s facility with both words and paint created this unusual book-but it is her robust sense of humour which sparked it to life.
‘There’s a funny side to almost any experience if you look for it-and can laugh at yourself a bit, too,’ she asserts, merrily recalling the above outing with a rather tetchy J. B. Priestley.
Mixed Media, in which Mr Priestley’s Dunedin picnic, plus thirty-four other rib-tickling incidents are unabashedly recorded, she herself sums up as ‘a pot-pourri of experiences over a number of years, all relating to the two things which have occupied a big part of my life-art and journalism. Hence the title.’ (‘Mixed media’ is the term an artist would use to describe a work done in more than one medium, e.g. ink-watercolour-pastel.)
The mixture here includes hilarious stories too bawdy to make the ‘Women’s Page’ Shona McFarlane edited for twelve years, plus some surprising postscripts to others which did. She gives affectionate vignettes of newspaper staff along with a glimpse behind the scenes on a New Zealand daily. Unserious meetings with a much-married clairvoyant, a flu-stricken spiritualist and an unrepentant Peeping Tom she contrasts with heartfelt advice on judging a beauty contest, publishing a book and surviving a cancer operation. Wearing her ‘other hat’, she offers some lighthearted observations on being an artist, painting portraits and pumpkins, disasters and dreams.
The paintings are not mere illustrations but rather extensions of the stories; none were done for the book but relate directly to the time, place and persons concerned. ‘Visual journalism’ is how their creator describes these works and, like the events, they cover a period of about ten years, so naturally display a variety of media and styles.
Unlike her popular Dunedin: Portrait of a City (in its third printing since 1971 publication), this book finds Shona McFarlane concentrating more on people than places. Every episode reveals her uncanny ear for the comic and ridiculous as well as appreciative eye for the colourful and offbeat. Readers will find her masterful blend of anecdote and art irresistible.
Hardcover. 72 pages.
In good to very good preloved condition, with the exception of several creases and small. minor tears to the dust cover, and a crossed out name written on the first page.
