A visit to the beautiful Janette Cervin....

…resulting in 6 stunning pieces of fantasy transformation.

For years now I have been looking at Janette’s work, and like so many I find myself standing there drooling in admiration and desire to obtain one. Not quite there yet, but I am now proud to be hanging them at Artform. A few visits to Janette and Jake’s beautiful home on the outskirts of Warkworth (yes, she is a true local), and we have selected a colourful dream wall for you to view.

As with many of our guests artists of late, I asked some questions…while gruelling to answer (it takes them away from their art - they prefer an art-board to a computer), it is amazing how it allows them to reflect on their practice as artists. I look at it with utter admiration and pride, and hope you do, too.

So here goes:

What drew you to this craft initially?

My practice had its beginning in a life growing up within the context of a creative family amongst gardens at my parents flower nursery on the banks of the Waitemata Harbour. My parents were creative and keen gardeners and spent years restructuring, renovating, landscaping and decorating the family character filled home. My mother’s interest in colour manifested itself in a fervent involvement in interior décor, gardening, flower arranging and painting. Consequently an interest in the decorated domestic space and floral imagery was an integral part of my early life.

As a young mother I revelled in my first home (an old rundown villa) and the opportunity to create an interior décor and sanctuary of my own making It was in effect like working on a blank canvas. Like many women, I felt it was a place to express my creativity in a traditionally female, domestic environment.

It was within this domestic environment that an art and craft direction was forged. Lessons in many traditional woman’s crafts were embarked upon, all involving the incorporation of the floral motif. The most influential to my current practice were china painting and tole painting (folk art on tin or wood). By combining and adapting aspects from both crafts, transparency and layering of china painting and one stroke blending brush method of tole painting I developed a proficient painting style and technique that I continue to use in my practice today.

The confluence of childhood experiences and tacit knowledge through years of developing a painting technique derived from traditional craftwork formed the foundation for my Masters Degree Flowers in a Contemporary Painting Practice and my art practice today.

What does a typical day at work involve for you?

I generally aim to be in my studio by 9am. I surround myself with a number of works all at different stages of the painting process. This stops me from getting back ache and becoming bored as I move around both working areas, the clean-ish painting studio and the ‘dirty’ studio where we prepare and sand the work. Jake is often around to do studio technician work, eg; framing, resin-ing or cutting the ACM or working on lifestyle property so we will often check in on what the other is doing.

If the weather is nice I will venture outdoors into the garden or the native bush that surrounds us and take photos of flora and fauna, stopping to pick a few weeds out here and there. These images are printed and put into folders. If it’s a wet day I can spend a few hours sourcing imagery through the mountain of old books I have acquired over the years or from the internet.

Around 5.30pm, or thereabouts, its time to take off the painting apron and wash out the brushes.

What is the most rewarding part of the work

I find all the different processes rewarding as the work is very process driven and the pleasure that comes from delightful, unexpected areas that begin to emerge is a pretty good feeling. My favourite would have to be though, blending the colours on the brush and then applying it to the surface. Watching and feeling the blended colours glide effortlessly over the surface in swift, soft strokes forming shapes and textures is enormously therapeutic.

What is the most challenging process for you

I don’t have any preconceived idea about how the painting is going to turn out as it develops at it goes. My process involves sanding certain areas leaving a residue to create depth and interest then layers of paint and resin. This layering process creates the 3 D depth. However, this process can just keep on going and going, so the biggest challenge for me is when to stop!

The best advice I’ve received is …?

These are two quotes I have up on the wall in my studio:

To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable as you see error in what you have done, steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. You cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do, away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reason to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes. (Bayles & Orland 30)

What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. Put simply, your work is your guide, a complete, comprehensive limitless reference book on your work. (Bayles & Orland 35)

Can you give a little insight into your creative process?

My practice is very process driven. I create multiple layers in the paintings by the applications of paint and resin on large sheets of ACM (aluminized composite material). Some areas are intentionally sanded back, resulting in some flower details being suspended throughout the painting at varying depths from the surface. The ghostly hint of flowers amongst the gooey, glazed layers alludes to the pentimento effect achieved by the old masters. These techniques combined draw the viewer into and around the work. This process of layering could be likened to the act of preservation. Images of both native and introduced flora and fauna are being preserved and memorialised in a moment in time, captured within the layers, like ancient butterflies preserved in amber. Given the world we live in now one never knows what will survive over centuries to come.

A quote that resonates by art critic Robert Huges:

A good drawing says; not so fast buster. We have had a guts full of fast art and fast food. What we need more of is slow art; art that holds time as a vase holds water; art that grows out of modes of perception and making whose skill and doggedness make you think and feel; art that isn’t merely sensational, that doesn’t get its message across in 10 seconds, that isnt falsely iconic, that hooks onto something deep runing in our natures.