A house, a garage, an income

By LINDA HERRICK


As we head into the silly season, this year's five Arts Laureates each have 30,000 reasons to feel slightly more confident about the near-future.

The only privately funded art award in the country - the money comes from sponsors and endowments - the Arts Foundation of New Zealand laureates are career-based, and the five $30,000 winners are free to do what they want with the cash. Sounds like a lot of money? You'd be surprised ...


Shona McCullagh, dancer and choreographer:


Pondering what to do with the money is to gaze into a pool of possibility. I have never had the luxury of being able to think, what would I really like to do that I can't afford?


I have hired a part-time administrator to help me to wade through the rising tide of paper and email. In recent years I have begun to subside beneath the day-to-day weight of the running of an arts business for myself and my partner, composer John Gibson.

There is often little time to be inspired about anything except getting the GST return done in time to avoid penalties. Why is it that the IRD is the only bill where the punter has to pay for the stamp?


This week I'm going to hire a bach for three days of solitude to work on my next film [after Hurtle and fly], something I haven't done for a decade. The rest of the money I hope to use to do my masters in dance and film in Sydney. There isn't a suitable course of study here for me but this award will mean I can afford to relocate the family and have an income while I study.


Don McGlashan, musician:


I toyed with the idea of using the money to soundproof my home studio. Police sirens from Dominion Rd often find their way into my score for Street Legal, but the sound effects people at Street Legal like to throw in dozens more police sirens - even over the quiet bedroom scenes - so mine don't get noticed.


I've already spent my laureate money. It sank into the mortgage, leaving no ripple on the surface of that vast lake.

One day we'll pay the house off and I'll be able to write more songs. That's the plan anyway. Meanwhile, I'm working on my first solo album, which should be out in the middle of next year.


Helen Medlyn, opera singer:


I live out of a suitcase, literally. I haven't had a permanent address for years. For the past 10 years, since becoming a fulltime performer, I have only rented once, and that for only a few months.


Because of having to be away from Auckland for sometimes months on end, renting a room or a flat but not living there has not been an option. Instead, I've housesat for friends, bunked down for a few days here and there, and I have been a long-term, part-time house guest in the spare rooms of Nola Turner, sister to composer Ron Tremain, and my singing teacher Janice Webb.


Now, only months away from turning 45, I'm thinking how nice it would be to have a place to have a "life".

So, next year, after I've been in Wellington with NBR NZ Opera's Boris Godunov, and in London with the English National Opera's Tristan and Isolde, and if I can find the belief in my ability to pay a mortgage, I'm going to use this gift as a deposit on a wee patch of Auckland I can call home.


Warwick Freeman, jeweller:


I don't think it's very interesting to ask what we're going to do with the money - in my case the answer is bloody boring. To date it seems to have disappeared down that bottomless great black hole called the "self-employed artist's personal economy".


Jacob Rajan, actor and writer:


I'm going to build a garage with an attached study. At the moment the sets from Krishnan's Dairy and The Pickle King are stored in my mum's garage.

Actually, for the past six years I don't think there's been a time when mum's garage has been able to have her car in it. Now that I've got the means I'm going to build my own garage and put my stuff in it, and there'll be a little room off the side where I can write plays and hide from the children.