Anna Crichton: Drawing on her talents

Ceramic artist and illustrator Anna Crichton working on a piece in her studio, at her home in Titirangi. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Sometimes you think we are past the tiresome arguments that kick around the art world about the relative merits of fine art versus commercial art. But then along comes new fuel for the fire: London and New York are buzzing about the inability of photographer-star Annie Leibowitz to achieve anything like the hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of dollars that art photographers such as Cindy Sherman command. The earning power of commercial art, it seems, is not that of fine art.

But for Titirangi artist Anna Crichton, who calls herself "an illustrator for hire, working to a brief and a deadline", the satisfaction of getting published is as important to her as critical acclaim.

"When I started designing the lifestyle pages at the Dominion, I made sure there were a few big gaps that I could fill with drawings. I got a taste for the high of getting published and getting a kick out of it. Rarely do we get feedback, and even more rarely do we, as women, do anything satirical."

She laughs that she has never been a shy, retiring type about selling her work. Most recently she's happily sold limited edition reusable shopping bags featuring her own artwork for the late Waitakere City Council's "Bags Not!" campaign. Her fellow designers - Dean Buchanan, Judy Millar and Reuben Paterson - are artists, through and through.

"I sold 81 bags at the market, when usually they sell 20. I have the selling gene. But the creative fuel should supply whatever you do with energy, whether it's selling bags or fruit. As time goes on I might become collectable, but not with dealer galleries. I might even make money out of it."

Crichton's detailed and incisive illustrations are recognisable from her days back at the Dominion and the then-large format Listener in the late 70s and early 80s.

Books, magazines and freelance newspaper illustrating followed (she picked up Qantas Media Awards in 2007 and 2010), and contributions to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Time magazine and work with some of the most respected design studios in New Zealand and overseas.

Regular teaching slots at AUT and Unitec on conceptual thought and lateral thinking were slotted around doing up houses and bringing up children Eva, 14, and Reuben, 11, with her now-ex husband.

More recently, she is recognised for her illustrations for Deborah Hill-Cone's weekly column in the Herald's Business.

She reckons she has never thrown a piece of work out (envelopes stacked on shelves and plan drawers in her studio hold the hundreds of drawings) and about eight years ago she hit upon the idea of selling them in exhibitions. Her first exhibition, at Ponsonby's El Framo, sold out on opening night.

But this self-confessed technical dinosaur ("I have never had the need to earn a living using Photoshop, so I haven't learned. Very few people can draw, they don't teach drawing at art school any more") has worked in other media.

Her design is on the carpet of the civic wing of the Waitakere City council chamber. She spent 18 months travelling in the South Pacific with photographer Victoria Ginn for Ginn's book, The Spirited Earth: Dance, Myth and Ritual from South Asia to the South Pacific, gathering images of almost-lost costume and dance on tiny islands such as Santa Cruz in the Solomons.

This year, with teaching behind her, Crichton set herself a new technical challenge - working in ceramics.

Through her friendship with Chris Harvey of Studio Ceramics, who is sometimes described as the heir to the Crown Lynn throne and is, like herself, proudly of the West - Anna had full use of the staff expertise, kilns and glazing.

She moved from her familiar ground of illustration to working with three dimensional dots created on over-scaled platters and plates. She unconsciously echoed the face paints and artwork of those Santa Cruz islanders she had worked with some 20 years earlier and also drew on the storymaking crafts she was used to, arriving at telling phrases to inform her pictures.

"This is completely different place for me, as I don't have a brief. Thoughts just come out of the blue, but once it's in my head, what I've pictured I always get that down. I can do that quickly. Copy and pictures come at the same time or sometimes the picture determines the title."

Pieces include Are We There Yet, about her dream to one day build a studio, playing on the old architect joke of "how long is a piece of string" when clients demand precision around time or budgets. He's An Excellent Cook mocks the bloke-chef-star who has a woman carrying out all the background work for him.

She admits to exploring her life with "erotica, horseplay, running with wolves, tricky finger play and the joyful curiousness of images that come out of the blue".

The jewel-like 3D glazes invite touching as well as viewing, with details that evoke a little Fornasetti, a little Matisse, a lot of Crichton.

In a relatively short time she has had two successes: a "Henry Moore-ish" fired and decorated bisque piece was just last week accepted from more than 170 entries for the 2010 Portage Ceramic Awards at Lopdell House, and on Thursday she opens her ceramic exhibition.

* The Portage Ceramic Awards Exhibition runs until December 5 at Lopdell House Gallery, cnr Titirangi Rd and South Titirangi Rd. Ph: (09) 817 8087.

* New Ceramic Work by Anna Crichton and New Photographs by Jocelyn Carlin, Satellite Gallery. Exhibition runs November 9 to 27. Cnr St Benedicts St and Newton Rd. Ph: (09) 301 6416.

* The Spirited Earth: Dance, Myth and Ritual from South Asia to the South Pacific, by Victoria Ginn (Rizzoli, New York 1990).