In the mirror, and dancing – a splendid creative outing

Every so often a chance comes along that is a perfect creative fit. So it was when Wellington’s prodigiously talented O’Brien brothers, Gregory and Brendan, approached Douglas MacDiarmid to ask if he had any line drawings that could illustrate a little volume of poems being hand-printed to celebrate octogenarian CK Stead’s term as New Zealand’s Poet Laureate 2015-2017.

This request was music to a poetry-loving expatriate painter’s ears – a niche fusion of verse and art, a connection to home, two resilient icons of New Zealand creative culture sharing the page. Apart from using his work to embellish various writings for his own purpose, this was the first time Douglas had been asked to illustrate poetry since he was commissioned to paint an image for a reprinting of 19th Century English poet and playwright John Drinkwater’s poem about a tryst between apples and the moon in the attic of a house asleep, way back in 1952. This earned him the grand sum of 4000 francs, about £4 – enough to keep the wolves from the door for another week or two in his struggling years.

Beautifully hand-pressed by Brendan O’Brien, In the mirror, and dancing was a triumph for poet, painter and printer, and a sell-out for the Alexander Turnbull Library – funding its first creative venture in the hands of a conservation staff member temporarily reassigned from his day job. As a signed, limited edition book in its own crafted envelope, it is already a literary collector’s item.

The passion involved in creating a hand-worked book using ancient processes is as fascinating as the rationale behind Gregory O’Brien’s intuition that Stead and MacDiarmid were made for each other as two old fellas who could show people half their age a thing or two. How elating to see the “planets were aligned” to make it the best book launching he has been to for years and years.

These stories of the behind-the-scenes effort of Brendan O’Brien and MC Greg’s book launch remarks from New Zealand’s National Library website speak for themselves.

As Douglas observes: “Creative lives are lives without end, but do not take place on a pink cloud”. Needless to say, he was delighted with discreet accompaniment his small line drawings provided in the book.

“…‘My’ New Zealand poets were that rich harvest of Christchurch in its heyday. They became friends, and admired as a privileged youngster naturally did. CK Stead surfaced after I had settled in France, so I knew nothing of his poetry, which I find has a savour of the light simplicity and depth of Japanese haiku. I’ve read all I could lay hands on, and even wrote one, but in French, and untranslatable.”