Emily Jackson Journal Extracts 1986-1991

For more of Emily's writings from her journals, reviews, critical essays, and letters see: Emily Jackson - A Painter's Landscape, edited by Bronwen Nicholson, published by Atuanui Press Ltd.

Walter Tempest’s painting of Yorkshire moors

June 1986

Almost the only paintings I saw when a child and adolescent were my Uncle Walter’s, hanging in the Police Station, & in the Sutherland’s house. In there I looked for the mist on the hills described by my mother, and the autumn tints on the trees, the water near the castles, and the wildness of the moors in a painting I still love. ... We never saw art books or anything except prints of “The Stag at Bay”.

July 1986

I had been out painting ½ a dozen times with Laddin Grant, doing landscapes as we saw them & getting much pleasure from them. So I became a summer painter, and also a week-end painter for many years.

When we came to Auckland, we had no car for many years and would walk to near-by places with the painting gear on a cart or wheelbarrow. When I drove our Vauxhall I was able to go further afield, eg. One Tree Hill, and park on Mt Eden Road, painting in the front of the car.

Emily painting at Joe Gibbs Reserve, Inglewood, 1950s.

Manukau Harbour from One Tree Hill, 1960s, nfs

July 1986

I joined the Society of Arts when I was 50 & a new world opened to me. I was very shy, venturing among strangers & doing something apart & away from the family. Arthur Hipwell talked to us for 2 hours, and every moment was spell-binding for me – he rambled on in the most fascinating way from art to other subjects & I listened for the pearls of knowledge which he kept dropping. ... I learnt the first rules as he rambled on – “never have your focal point in the middle, no triangles in the corners, the golden medium, warm against cold, dark v light, grey between, etc. etc. – but there was no rigid training & no painting in class – each week we painted at home, I on the dining room table while the children were at school, scurrying to have it all cleaned away before they came home. Then we took our work to the master.

July 1986

Arthur used to say “You are there, not to paint a picture, but to create a scene!” He said that painting was 99% seeing (I add feeling) and 1% technique. He was critical of Art schools with their rigid rules – he told us to watch young people like Don Binney and Pauline Thompson who he thought had great talent. He spoke of getting the right colour for flesh – too many put in too much pink & yellow – there must always be some green, - and spoke in admiration of Vermeer. In reverse of course, the green of landscape always has some pink tone in it.

I have always remembered Arthur Hipwell saying that shadows are warm in colour, never cold. So many shadows are painted dark blue, a cold blue – they are purple, even black, but warm in tone always. Never having heard these tips, I gathered them into my mind like jewels, always seeing the reason for them & so remembering.

Autumn trees, 1960s

July 1986
Sometimes there is a good corner or little part – I try to keep it in the picture and work on all the bad bits. As so happens, often the good bit then becomes the weakest, and the painting is lost – Colin McCahon told me this happened often to him. When Betty Curnow advised me to show my work to Colin & ask if he took classes, I, after a long delay, rang him & asked him. He was very nice & kind & told me to bring several paintings for him to see at his home in Newton (he didn’t do any teaching at present, he said). D’Arcy and I went to his little brown house with its big glowing paintings hanging all about the small room, even above the door-tops and the windows open to flowers & greenery & light. I showed him my 5 small paintings, the very best I could muster. He looked & called a woman in from the kitchen, who looked also & then vanished. There was no introduction but I realised after that is was his wife, Ann. Colin then said that there was one painting, which I could keep for 6 months – the others not at all. He pointed out the good bits more than the bad ones, & was very encouraging. I was pleased but went away thinking “Only for 6 months! More like Forever!” As it was I painted it out in about 6 weeks. Colin told me to do 6 more paintings then ring him & he would come to our place, which he did several times & was always right to the point in his criticisms & most helpful & inspiring. He wouldn’t take any payment, but D’Arcy made him some canvases with which he was pleased. He was a lovely man. He asked me to join a criticism class at a place in Mt. Eden, where a group of women met at a large house with a studio basement. I enjoyed these visits so much & gained knowledge & understanding from them.

The Swamp, 1964, nfs

When the Bledisloe Medal ex. came along, I entered two paintings – large ones in gouache on cardboard. I was working in Jan Nigro’s class at the time, or just before & had just joined Louise Henderson’s. In both of these, which I belonged to for about 2 terms each, we painted in class, taking all our gear, pots of oil, turps & oil & boards etc. By then I had the car & parked in the Intercontinental across the road, carrying the gear across. Before that I used two buses & had to walk up the steep hill from Anzac Ave, carrying all the heavy equipment. No-one told me that I had won the Bledisloe Medal. I went into class as usual, & the women were there in groups, talking about refrigerators and washing machines etc. & we all settled down with our paints, until suddenly Louise said, “Come all of you – we will look at the exhibition.” There on the wall was my painting, the winner.

White Cliffs, Pukearuhe 1976, nfs

Blue Abstract, 1987, nfs

Early 1987

The latest inspiration comes from the knitter, [K]affe Fassett, with his use of greys & close tones in colour, absolutely beautiful — stone walls, countless tones —

But it's all too much — I can’t paint myself & am in despair. Luckily I know I won’t forget, or push all these things to the back of my mind & follow my own way, barren & unwieldy though it may be. My inspiration must come from myself, with the knowledge of the beauty I have seen in the background and not at the end of my brush. I long to go to the Desert Road — (after one traverse of it many years ago) but it will have to wait for warmer weather.

March 1987
Then at last, this month, the Desert Road again. We watched the long weather forecasts & chose our week as it happened, the only good one this month. it was an arduous, exhausting trip, but worth the effort. Our two nights at Turangi were peaceful & lovely quiet, in a lovely motel with the air so clear & pure. The Desert Road was not so breathtaking as I had dreamt of it for years, but gradually grew on me again especially on the way back from Waiouru, & I feel I got a much wider & deeper understanding of it. Now I am trying to paint my impressions and finding it as hard as ever, especially with these painful arms. But I’m getting a glimmer of what I want & must just persevere — its all hard work — but good to be painting again.

The Desert Rd, 1987

The Desert Rd, 1987

May 1987

I’ve never had such a long non-stop non-barrier period in my painting, and its been wonderful, a giant tonic for the mind & body — sometimes only a few hours, but getting to a day at a stretch, in spite of this wretched arm which is getting better very slowly. It is harder to write than paint in a way with the shoulder pain. Sometimes I use both hands to hold the brush, and although very difficult in every way, I don’t think the quality of the painting is affected. The magic of the Desert Road is there in full force & I am quite absorbed with it, doing all kinds of approaches, some more realistic than others.

September 1988

My year free from exhibiting has been worth while, but rather difficult — I’m just keeping on doing the same thing, Middlemarch, trying to improve on what I’ve already done, with more than enough for an exhibition — but I want to keep on until I get something much better, although it’s not at all easy just going on alone with no apparent end in view, till next May. The feeling of breaking away into abstract is not enticing me now & I am settling for the old landscape routines with differences & not getting tired of it.

October 1988

I am longing again to paint abstract things, but am lost as usual, whatever wonderful ideas come to me in the night, are gone by morning, as dead as a muddy palette and as infertile as an empty canvas. I read of a well-know painter saying that an empty canvas fills him with terror & know just what he means. Sitting in the kitchen yesterday, I looked at the sunlight shining on my abstract picture “End of Summer” (I think) & fell in love with it again, wondering how I ever managed to paint it – this is so rare a thing to experience that it is quite wonderful, inspired by one’s own meagre work – but leaving one with that lost feeling of going nowhere.

Summer Ending, 1985

October 1988

I have now abandoned my attempts at abstract, & as always gone back to landscape, the ones I know so well in memory & reality, King Country, Coromandel, Desert Rd, Central Otago, etc., trying to make something ‘better’ than before of them. I am fascinated with the hills, the horizons, the mountains, cracks & gullies & streams, the light & shade, the atmosphere – it’s all still waiting for me to do justice to, and perhaps I will someday.

November 1990

The last months I’ve been painting panels, landscapes, trying to simplify and yet get the feeling, but I’ve suddenly run out of enthusiasm & am waiting for something new. I am 81 – I realize my days are numbered now, & life no longer stretches out into the distance, as a good painting should – there is no longer that feeling of space, which may be is why I am trying to get it into my pictures, at least.

It is a strange feeling, rather sad, but very very happy too, and I feel so lucky to have had and have such a wonderful life, despite all the sadness & upsets & violence in the world at large.

Four Panels 5, 1990-91