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Want some non-beige ideas for your interior design? Look no further!
Want some non-beige ideas for your interior design? Look no further!

OPINIONSocietyFebruary 16, 2020

Real-life home decor tips from a real-life creative person

Want some non-beige ideas for your interior design? Look no further!
Want some non-beige ideas for your interior design? Look no further!

Beige and on-trend? Not for this poet. Paula Harris gives some real-life, applicable decor advice.

Last night I was procrastinating and avoiding working on some poem revisions, because being a poet means that when you have other things to do, you write a poem, and when you have a poem to work on, you do other things. Which is how I ended up reading this story, because I do love design.

Holy chocolate, this list is so beige and boring! I mean, it’s just… blancmange. And so I started to look around my house and contemplate all the things I love – which probably all indicate why I’d never be considered an influencer, let alone a style influencer – as well as the realities of living life, let alone living life as a depressed poet, when my key goal every day is to be dressed by 5pm.

My creds in writing this: I’m the daughter of a display artist and started working as his assistant when I was in primary school (if you haven’t obsessed over the exact placement of fake snow for two hours, have you really lived?). I’ve got a certificate in interior design and yes, I know, this would shock anyone who’s seen my house. I’m delightfully opinionated and have watched far too many seasons of The Block (the Australian one, not the NZ one, of course). I hate beige. I’m a depressed poet.

Much loved art (Photo: Richard Love)

Art I choose because I actually love the piece, not because it’s on-trend

I mean, it’s cool if you really like continuous line art, which seems to be everywhere. I struggle to think that that many people have honesty looked at a piece of line art and thought “oh, that moves me!” and bought it for that, rather than because it’s the thing that seems to be everywhere in design media.

I knew a poet whose aunt frequently bollocks-ed her out for foolishly spending any money buying art for her walls. Poet: “But I like it and it makes me happy when I look at it.”

And that’s my requirement for what goes on my walls. That it makes me happy when I look at it. Fuck trends.

The big bits of art (photos and prints, mainly) are mainly in my hallway. In the living room I have a wall of smaller pieces, which requires me to rearrange (and swear quite a bit) whenever I add a new piece.

There’s currently a stack of things that need to be hung, but I get tired thinking about it.

Recycling bin, art (Photo: Richard Love)

Recycling bin directly outside the back door

Why hide it behind some picket fence by the garage? It’s convenient – open the back door, reach over to lift the lid, recycling in bin.

Also note: cat door. I don’t own a cat. Now that’s a design statement. (The cat door is locked; I don’t want my non-existent cat to get inside.)

The glass recycling crate is in the garage. Wildly inconvenient and sometimes leads to a massive collection of glass bottles on the kitchen bench, because I don’t want to leave the house and walk the 14 steps out to the garage.

Stools, functional and stylistic (Photo: Richard Love)

A multi-purpose stool – function and style

This isn’t the latest on-trend stool that everyone else is buying. This is a vintage stool from a Singer factory in France. It’s used as a side table, next to the couch. It has dents in the seat. It has the exact right number of dents in the seat. I have, at times, sat for hours looking at the beauty of the curves of the screw thread mechanism. Well, OK, not for hours, but definitely many minutes, and I think about it a lot.

It can be photographed and styled as super stylish, but the reality is that it’s usually the home to a box of tissues (crying can strike at any time), a stack of CDs I can’t be bothered putting back on the shelves, and random notes to myself which usually includes at least one old shopping list and one poem idea I’ve forgotten about.

Additional note in support of selective purchasing of knock offs: I’ve got a stack of the Ikea Frosta stool, which is a total knock off of Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60. I painted the legs because I thought it was a bit (read: really) boring otherwise. It’s a great stool (although since I don’t have people around anymore, mainly the stools sit around in the garage gathering dust).

Is it art? Or is it wardrobe management? (Photo: Richard Love)

The wardrobe management skills of a teenage girl

I call my bedroom teenage girl chic. I do sleep in charcoal-coloured linen sheets. I also only get my shit together enough every two or three years to manage putting my clothes away.

This is the pile of clothes that lives on top of my dresser. On the floor there’s a pile that peaks at about 30 centimetres deep.

Also on my bedroom floor? Books and scrap bits of paper with poem ideas scribbled on them at 2am.

Lamp art (Photo: Richard Love)

The lamp that I bought not because of trends but because I love it

OK, at the risk of sounding like a complete tosser, I bought this in New York six years ago. It’s called a Stola lamp.

It was a flat pack. I’d seen it online. I loved it as soon as I saw it. I loved it even more when I got it home and unfurled it. It’s made from 100% recycled PET felt. It’s so incredibly not on-trend that the company doesn’t even make it anymore (they’re now making felt bags).

I think it’s sexy. It’s fabulous to have on as the only light while watching a movie. If there was ever someone here watching movies with me, I’m pretty sure I could seduce them simply by having this light on.

Weeds, natural art (Photo: Richard Love)

Weeds, en masse

If your garden isn’t out of control and full of weeds, do you even have depression??

Also, looking at all the weeds will cause you to feel like a terrible person and make your depression even worse. The circle of life/depression, etc etc. Also, I love my blue fence. My blue fence makes me happy. I feel like I’m living in the sea (no, not near the sea, in the sea – but as a human, in a house, not as a mermaid).

My neighbours are varied in their feelings about my blue fence.

Tiny art! Photo: Richard Love.

The tiny thing that delights me but which wouldn’t be visible in any stylish vignette

This. Is. My. World.

Inside this tiny vintage pill box is a tiny little paper forest. Complete with grass and shrubs. The artist – an Italian woman named Sabina, who works restoring frescos – cut out the paper with a surgeon’s scalpel.

I was having a really shitty week when I bought this, because it delighted me. I couldn’t afford it, but it delighted me. I needed the delight. Now I spend chunks of time looking at all the little details inside the pill box and awe at her skill in making this tiny little world. Sometimes I only make it through the day because I have this little wonder to look at.

A plant! Indoors (Photo: Richard Love)

Indoor plants

Look, I’ve got one thing in common with the original Instagrammer style list!!

I mean, I’ve got two plants and they’re both struggling and been struggling for a long time. And isn’t that a metaphor for me?

I’ve had other indoor plants. None of them survived my ‘care’.

The orchid was meant to start flowering over six months ago. It’s not even close. The money plant is… not thriving. It is surviving on its own inner resilience, rather than my attention. It looks surprisingly good in this photo. It’s just a trick of the light.

Frida! On a fridge (Photo: Richard Love)

Frida Kahlo (and her monkey) have a nice life on my fridge

One of my clients gave me this set of Frida Kahlo dress up magnets as a present to cheer me up after my last surgery. Dressing Frida is a delightful distraction on a rough day. Or on a good day.

Frida is surrounded by the highly desirable patina of “what happens when my father decides the smart way to move the fridge between houses is to duct tape it closed, and even when I say that I don’t think that’s a good idea and so no, don’t do that, he does it anyway.”

There are also two hedgehog magnets I got because my psychologist refers to me as being a bit hedgehog-like (less about snuffling around outside in the dark, more about being a bit prickly when I feel threatened). There used to be three hedgehog magnets. I’m pretty sure Frida’s monkey is responsible for the missing hedgehog. What have you done with the third hedgehog, Frida’s monkey!?!?

The writer’s desk

Oh yeah, that beautiful minimalist desk, with a single flower in a bud vase, a laptop awaiting the beautiful flow of words. Perhaps a view out to the ocean. Perhaps a faithful cat or dog who sleeps on next to the writer’s desk while the writer… writes.

Or… this. Poem ideas and essay notes and literary journals I brought over to my computer for some long forgotten reason and So Many To Do Lists and receipts I’m trying to scan for my health insurance and books and flash drives and poem prompts and hard drives and a stapler and cellotape and cables that I can never actually dig out when needed without disrupting the entire ecosystem of my desk and So Many Pens.

In the book Living With A Creative Mind, the authors talk about how creatives tend to function at the extremes of nine qualities. The eighth quality (which they call dimensions) is space. Chaos or order, those are the extremes. My desk – and my floor-based system of wardrobe management – clearly show I’m at the chaos end of things. The chaos is deeply exacerbated by how bad my depression is – things used to be chaotic, but not this chaotic.

What I realised, in walking around my house and figuring out this list, is that as much as my own chaos drives me crazy at times (and, seriously, the chaos weighs me down a lot), I think that my writing comes from somewhere in the mix of beautiful things and chaos. Maybe if I had an organised life and on-trend surroundings – rather than knowing where I was when I found each thing, rather than having back stories for my bookshelves (made from joists from the Farmers’ Santa Cave) and bowls and, well, most things around my home – maybe I’d write a bit blancmange.

And now I need to go work on my manuscript. Which means what I’m actually going to do is lie down for a while and watch some TV and feel bad for not working on my manuscript…

Keep going!
Abortion-rights demonstrators in Northern Ireland (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Abortion-rights demonstrators in Northern Ireland (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

OPINIONSocietyFebruary 14, 2020

It’s crunch time: Five reasons to hit the streets for abortion rights

Abortion-rights demonstrators in Northern Ireland (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Abortion-rights demonstrators in Northern Ireland (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, people from all across New Zealand will gather to demand the Abortion Legislation Bill be passed and that abortion be removed from the Crimes Act. Jessie Anne Dennis from Fem Force – Feminist Action Aotearoa explains why you should get involved.

At the end of this week, the Abortion Legislation Bill will exit the select committee process and be sent back to parliament. In the coming weeks, it will be voted on twice more by 120 members of parliament who get to decide whether those of us who want to decide what happens to our bodies and lives should be treated as criminals. Dedicated reproductive rights campaigners and health practitioners have been tirelessly campaigning for this historic moment for decades.

On February 18 in centres across the country, people will be taking to the streets for the Our Bodies – Our Choice: National Day of Action for Abortion Law Reform. A wide coalition of groups has organised rallies and gatherings in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin, demanding the Abortion Legislation Bill be passed and that abortion be removed from the Crimes Act. 

With the bill comfortably passing its first reading, some might wonder why it’s so important to come out and demand action now. In the immortal words of abortion rights supporters Rage Against the Machine, what better place than here, what better time than now? Here are just five reasons why you should hit the streets.

We don’t know if the bill will pass. 

The bill passed its first reading 94 votes to 23, but nothing is guaranteed. The 2017 Gender Attitudes Survey reported that 66% of New Zealanders support the right to choose. But the anti-abortion lobby, while small, has always been well-resourced, loud, and able to spark conservative and religious outrage. We know that many members of parliament support these anti-choice views. Now is the time to show mass public support for passing this bill and ensure that our voice (the majority) is louder than those who want to continue that old worn-out tradition of controlling women’s and marginalised genders’ bodies.

The Abortion Legislation Bill needs improvements

The bill, as it currently stands, makes some giant leaps forward for reproductive healthcare. It removes abortion from health providers from the Crimes Act, enables self-referral to abortion services and removes the need for certifying consultants before 20 weeks. These changes remove old hurdles that people needed to jump to access abortion. However, there are important improvements that the bill needs. Currently, it has a cut-off point of 20 weeks after which people must again see what is basically a certifying consultant who has the power to sign-off on the abortion. No medical or scientific reasons have been provided for the 20 week cut-off point. The tiny fraction (less than 1%) of abortions that happen after 20 weeks generally occur in circumstances of medical urgency. In these circumstances, pregnant people shouldn’t be faced with a legal process in addition to the medical process. ALRANZ-Abortion Rights Aotearoa has eloquently laid out why this and other changes should be made to the bill.

The stigma around abortion is still real

This stigma is felt by many who access reproductive healthcare. When we show up and raise our voice in support of abortion rights and share our stories, that stigma breaks down. Anyone who has had an abortion knows the calculations you make when deciding who to share your story with due to fear of judgement. While people of every age, culture and socio-economic status access abortions, prevailing social narratives and gendered ideas about promiscuity and ‘bad decisions’ persist, as any online comments section shows. A recent study in the US concluded that the vast majority of people who consider an abortion experience stigma, and that this stigma was a major contributor to 5% of people who experienced conflicted feelings about their abortion. In fact, many will recognise the experience of walking into a clinic with anti-abortion protestors outside. Having to be escorted out the back entrance of a clinic because of lurking and aggressive anti-abortion protestors is still a reality in New Zealand. Making our support public and sharing our stories is how we start to see abortion for what it is – important, life-saving healthcare. 

It’s a chance to celebrate those who’ve campaigned for change

Now is the moment to appreciate the hard work of countless (mostly) women who have dedicated their lives to this struggle. Feminism isn’t a dirty word anymore. Nowadays, a majority of New Zealanders support abortion rights, but in speaking out on this issue 50+ years ago when this campaign began, people faced real risks and challenges. These have eased due to their hard mahi and perseverance. We know that many of these veteran abortion rights defenders will be attending marches around the country. Let’s show them it was worth it, and that we’re carrying on this struggle, which is part of a broad movement to end gendered violence and respect bodily autonomy of all genders. 

Our rights are never set in stone

Although we’re on track to secure an incredible victory this year, we know that these rights can be reversed. As we see in other parts of the world, abortion rights are challenged vigorously and aggressively as more authoritarian discourse grips societies. By coming out en masse to support this bill we make it clear that the mandate for change, and for reproductive rights, is overwhelming. 

 

You can find more info the rallies happening around the country on February 18 here.

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