non fiction – Bice Grace Lapin

Weaving a life horizontally

Here is an extended version of my contribution to the book Otherhood – Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent, edited by Alie Benge, Lil O’Brien and Kathryn Van Beek and published May 2024 by Massey University Press. This version has the addition of my interrogation into the concept of ‘the Other’ both from my art theory background and in light of the topic of the book.

“My life is not enhanced by little wriggling ‘bundles of joy’, that are emblems of hope and a future, yet it most definitely is not defined, or lacking, by being without them.“

Read on

⏰ 17-25 minutes

The Weird Fiction of Robert Scott

Or should I say, ‘that is Robert Scott’

Weird Fiction in Art: Robert M. Scott’s Unique Expression

Who is Robert Scott? Well, a famous Robert Scott is, of course, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the doomed Antarctic explorer. A personality so steeped in legend that the man himself is buried somewhere within mysterious tales of adventure, heroism, and madness.

The Robert M. Scott of Dunedin, (Ōtepoti, Aotearoa), who came to my partner’s David Lynch themed 40th as a convincing Twin Peaks character – the FBI Gordon Cole, carrying a selection of Lynch soundtracks on cassette tapes, is, among certain circles, also steeped in legend.

Weird fiction is usually associated with literature and more recently, video games. Here however, I lay the term over Robert M Scott’s paintings and visual art. Keeping it local, lets reference Chris Lam’s 2024 University of Otago’s Master of Arts thesis titled The Simulated Weird, Video Games, Weird Fiction, and Gothic Horror.

My essay is written in celebration of Robert’s exhibition.

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⏰ 6 minutes

Potion

Essay on the occasion of the Anita DeSoto exhibition, Potion at Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore, Aotearoa-New Zealand, 30 March – 12 May 2024

“The work of artists who insist that this earthly realm is not all there is embodies the idea of possibility – surely, an offshoot of joy.” – Jennifer Higgie from The Other Side, A Journey into Women, Art and the Spiritual World

In both history and narrative, women, and their knowledge have been murdered, silenced, forgotten, their stories minimised, even romanticised. Anita’s Potion seeks to aid in redressing this injustice and draw attention to patriarchal threats that still loom, that frighteningly in some spheres are presently gaining force.

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⏰ 5-6 minutes

Anita DeSoto

Summer Reading

Fiction and non-fiction books by Clementine Ford, Carmen Machado, Rachel Cusk, Debra Levy, Nadine Burke Harris, Katy Hessel, Jennifer Higgie. Auto-art & trauma.

“I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.” ― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

It is often interesting to hear what people are reading, giving an insight into books that we ourselves, may like. That which calls our attention, and then our reflections upon, can only come from the individual lens from which we look out. For each of us this is intimately personal. Mostly I read to interrogate my own depths, looking to the vision of others to shine light into hidden, unknown or unexpected corners. Thus, the pleasure in reading.

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⏰ 10 minutes

The Burke Foundation – Adverse Childhood Experiences

FIGHTINGFIT

New Lands. exhibition 20 October – 17 November 2023

_{Yay for ARIs! What? Artist Run Initiatives. Oh, cool 🙂}

_{Haere mai ‘New Lands.’ gallery and project space Grown out of ‘The Heat’ in Tāmaki Makaurau, now in the historic Carnegie Center in Ōtepoti, and extra special as a registered Safe Space, being safe spaces for LGBTQI+ communities worldwide.}

We’ve survived and are living life. This is how I face the world, some days Stretched Thin, some days Jaded. I write ‘living life’ because Brighton draws with paint, stick figures into being. This is not casual mark making, there is manipulated intention. Each figure is animatedly on the move, we have to catch their voice before they move off frame. They’re us, they’re our friends. I want to take them home.

FIGHTINGFIT exhibition by Gareth Brighton

On the floor space and leaning on walls are sculptures of found materials, given a new life with shape, form and connection – including the space they occupy. We are unable to resist taking time to question these sculptures, to make our own narratives around them from serious to whimsical.

Materialism laid bare but as people we are FIGHTINGFIT.

REad on

New Lands. gallery and project space

Working with stone

Oamaru stone relief sculptures with soul – or rather the Māori word m auri is a closer characterisation.

Traditional tā moko or tattooing involves dialogue between the artist and the person. In short, artists should have some knowledge of the person before making marks.

Each of my stones are unique – designed and carved for the individual, family or place where it will be situated. At times with care and forethought I use these marks on my stonework breathing mauri into the stone giving it life, vitality, essence and emotion. The stone will then work with me, interacting with every touch while I remain constantly mindful of the person or people or place the stone is destined for.