Housewife Takes Up Oriental Art

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31865, 18 December 1968, Page 2

Housewife Takes Up Oriental Art

If Mrs Margaret Graham, of Avondale, has ati interest, she pursues it. In between her being a housewife and mother of three young children, ballet, Japanese art and language, Zen Buddhism, Oriental music, and rock hounding absorb her energies.

Delicate landscapes, painted in the style of the fifteenthcentury Japanese master, Seeshu, decorate her home.

The bookcase is crammed [with literature ranging from {teach - yourself - Japanese to j ballet journals.

I A modest young woman : who does not regard her extra-mural activities as out i of the ordinary, Mrs Graham I and her husband, Mr Lyell j Graham, came from Glasgow to Christchurch six years ago. They have a son and daugh- ■ ter at school, and a three-year-old boy at home. Mr ! Graham is an engineer and 'the family routine is fitted I round his shift work. Quiet ! evenings alone at home allow : Mrs Graham time to paint, i HeY fascination with Japanese art and culture took a I creative form after she' came to New Zealand. “I decided to take up i French again and got out my ! books. But I couldn’t get into , it France seemed so far away and Japan much | closer,” she said yesterday. I Little Tuition i Although she has had little formal tuition Mrs Graham has been painting as long l as she can remember. When i she decided to take up Japanese art she studied every I book on the subject she could 1 find in the library and de- ! cided to learn from Seeshu. Like the early Japanese ! artists, she copied the works i of the master and now is : evolving her own ideas. ! She paints in oils on sheets

of hardboard which she first colours white. Her aids' are simple—tubes of oils and two brushes. The slim, sable brush is put to most use, inscribing the fine outlines of stone, waterfalls, Japanese maples, and the curving contours of temples. The finished effect—simple and tasteful—is sometimes framed for hanging at home, given to friends, or stacked out of the way. “I would like to sell some, and perhaps spend more time painting, but it’s a matter of finding a market,” she said. Japanese Lessons Learning the language began about a year ago. Mrs Graham has taped radio broadcasts of Japanese lessons which help greatly with pronunciation and now she can manage about a page in Japanese in her letters Jo a pen-friend in Japan. * Next year she and her, husband plan to join the Japan Society and then Mrs Graham may have a chance to practise speaking the language. A trip to Japan is an ambition for the future, like having a well stocked library. Slowly she is building up her collection of Oriental music on record and tape, and is looking forward to receiving some Japanese records from her pen-friend. Ballet is a hobby Mrs Graham took up after leaving school. For three years she learnt in Glasgow and decided to. take it up again after the children were bom. Now she is working towards her elementary examinations and helps her Christchurch teacher with the “baby” classes. Some of the little ones find her Scottish burr hard to understand, and her daughter, Heather, who is also in the class, has to translate. Mrs Graham hopes to teach ballet. Eventually the Grahams will build a large garage-studio on to their home, and she will probably take pupils there.

How do all these absorbing interests fit in with the demands of running a home and caring for three young children? “Well, I’m not domesticated at all. 1 don’t like housework and cooking much. I don’t cook elaborate dishes, and although I keep the house clean and tidy I’m not a slave to it. When I feel like painting or studying I leave the housework and catch up on it later,” she said.