Out of the black and into the blue

GOODBYE BLUES: Now a Gisborne local Daryn Mcbride has found love and a fresh lease of life in his new home. Picture supplied

For someone who has lived with depression and anxiety all his life, artist-surfer Daryn Mcbride is as happy as a pig in the proverbial during the lockdown.

He had recently embarked on setting up his graphic design business when the Government announced its Alert Level 4 response to the spread of Covid-19. But a colouring-in web page he set up with outlines of his distinctive surfing cartoon-style graphics for people to colour in, and illustrations to fill in and write a linked story for a children’s book that he never got around to writing, has proved far more popular than he could have expected, he says.

“The first week flew by. I post a new picture every day. It gives me something to do and also gives something for people to look forward to.”

He began his project on Instagram but within a couple of days he found so many people were trying to work out how to access and download the pages that he asked a friend to help him set up a website for the project.

“I spent a day creating the site. She tweaked it and now I load a new colouring-in picture at the top, every day. I’m getting sent coloured-in pictures every day. It’s mind-boggling. I feel so lucky.”

An opportunity to sell a colouring-in and storymaking concept to a US publisher for a healthy sum came his way but he turned it down.

“I blew the publishing deal but no amount of money would give me the same amount of satisfaction that I get when I see pictures of smiling kids holding up their their colouring-in pages.”

Meanwhile, he has plenty of material to draw on, to coin a phrase.

“Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve sketched a scene, because film and cameras were expensive then. Then digital technology came along and made it more viable to take a lot of pictures to choose from.”

One of the story book drawings features top surfer Kevin Jarrett at Matakana Island surfing inside a barrelling wave while holding in his hand a bag of apples he had retrieved from a boat beyond the surf break.

After the lockdown started, Daryn began a mural at his home, created arts and science projects for his partner’s children, made paper, made pigments from raw materials such as mud and charcoal and has built a tree house.

“I love the lockdown. I’ve battled with mental health issues including social anxiety all my life. Lockdown is easy for me in some ways. I don’t get bored because I have so many things to do.”

The creative outlet also helps assuage his need to surf, which he has stopped doing since the lockdown was announced.

“I surf mostly on my own but I’m more cautious because I’ve seen and rescued people from chance moments in the water. I’ve dragged blokes out of the water with broken legs. That opens your eyes.

‘I’m lucky in a sense that at times I’ve been able to use my art to get through times like a stint in hospital — so in that sense it’s probably easier for me to stay out of the surf for now. I don’t want to be the guy who has that accident.”

The mural he is working presents a view of the ocean he is staying out of for now.

“I sat on the step yesterday and looked at it and thought ‘that really is our view of the ocean.’”

Daryn, who had long planned to make Gisborne his home, made the move from Tauranga a year ago and is now living with his new partner.

“It’s nice to have the space here. Her property has a little orchard, an acre section, a running track for the girls to run around and plenty of room for us to spread out.”

Daryn had visited Gisborne many times over the years and planned to settle here after he had rehabilitated in Auckland from drug and alcohol addiction. An Auckland GP turned his life around, but it was his therapist who helped him realise that whenever he slipped it was not the end of the world, he says.

“I’ve learned to accept and move on.”

When he learned the prescription antidepressants he had taken for many years put long-term users at risk of suicide he stopped taking them. He ended up in hospital where he was diagnosed with adult attention deficit disorder (ADD). He was prescribed a new medication which he found slowed his mind down enough for him to focus on whatever he was working on.

“On the old medication it would take me a week to get something done.

“I intended to come back to Gisborne once I got my life back. But I met my now ex-wife in Auckland. I’d been getting better but my marriage was a disaster. After she left, within five days I’d loaded up the car and moved to Gisborne. I had a job lined up. I came down and everything was good.”

That upswing in his life included a planned exhibition at Miharo Gallery with screenprinter Tony Ogle whose work also features New Zealand’s coastal and surfing scenes. The lockdown meant the show had to go on hold though.

Daryn had met Tony years earlier at a Nixon Art Mosh exhibition in Auckland.

“I said to people before I went ‘I hope I meet Tony Ogle’. All my life I admired his work. I had greeting cards with pictures of his prints on my wall. I still have them. They’re inspirational.”

At the art show a photographer friend told Daryn someone was there who wanted to meet him.

“I said ‘bro, who wants to meet me?’ He said ‘Tony Ogle.’ I froze, my face flushed, I panicked. Tony shook hands with me and said he had admired my work for a long time.

“I said ‘bro, I’m like a school kid here.’ I’ve met some legends in surfing but I felt more nervous meeting Tony.

“Now we hang out.”

Daryn was born in Palmerston North and was about five years old when his family moved to Tauranga. After his mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness his parents found religion.

“I’m grateful to have been raised in an environment where I was told what is right and wrong, but there are better ways to be taught right and wrong other than fear of fire and brimstone.”

Daryn didn’t discover surfing until he was on a fourth-form school camp and borrowed a surfboard. A few months later he won a surfing contest and was hooked. At about this time he used alcohol as a tool to cope socially, he says.

Then he found the surfing competition scene provided a party-hard environment

“With the notoriety and exposure, I got in surfing . . . it got to the point where I’d be handed something as soon as I arrived at a contest. That escalated. Once I went international with my surfing, I went from drinking and smoking to harder drugs and parties where everything was on. The amount of drugs was mind-boggling. I was open to anything. We were lucky as there was no social-media back then.”

Surfing was always at the forefront, though, and his wave riding talent — long-boarding particularly — took him to world surfing championship events in Hawaii in 1997 and 1998. He later moved to Australia to work for his sponsor and to surf professionally. His access to drugs became out of control, but when he returned to New Zealand his drug and alcohol abuse worsened while his ability to hide it improved.

“When I started to open up about it, people were horrified.”

He got clean and got married. He and his wife had triplets. His wife found work in the finance industry so Daryn took on the role of at-home dad and worked on his art and design in the evenings. When the couple’s children were old enough to go to school Daryn enrolled in a two-year graphic design course at Waikato University. Asked in an interview why he wanted to study there when he was clearly an accomplished artist-designer, Daryn explained he was self-taught and wanted to learn how to do graphic design on computer.

“I went there after about 15 years away from that sort of environment. In case I wanted to get a job in an agency, it was extremely useful.”

Shortly after his marriage fell apart he made his way to Gisborne and took up work as a spray-painter at Sonic Surf Craft. Told by a GP he had serious health condition and that he should get a colonoscopy, Daryn became so anxious about his wellbeing during the wait for an appointment that he left Sonic and lived off his savings while he established his graphic design business.

That is on hold for a little while, but the future looks as bright as one of his depictions of a view through a dark wreath of foliage to curling, sunlit waves and clear blue sky.

“If I can make a living doing my art I’m happy,” he says.

“I’m happy with where I’m at, I’m happy with what I’m doing. I’m so lucky.”