On the first day of Christmas

Sarah Hillary with her series of painted shells, the V&As. Picture / Carolyn Elliott

Christmas shows have become an instant tradition at the Anna Miles Gallery hidden above High St. The gallery opened last year, and her second show was also her Christmas show, Love Tokens.

"There is this perception Christmas shows are unimportant - it's just people emptying their stockrooms," Miles says. "I thought it could be made interesting, because people don't buy art as a corporate gift, they buy it for people they love.

"I had all these small objects by artists I represent, which I thought seemed to be love tokens."

This year, Miles has assigned her artists a number to work to for Twelve Days of Christmas, which opens tomorrow night. Some extraordinary work eventuated.

Twelfth spot goes to Sarah Hillary, who painted patterns from the Victoria & Albert Museum's collection of 18th-century textiles on 12 sets of shells.

Hillary, conservator of paintings at Auckland City Art Gallery, started painting on shells several years ago while doing research on the painter Frances Hodgkins, who shifted from New Zealand to England early last century and became one of the leading artists of the British modern movement.

"A good way to look at paintings is to copy bits of them," Hillary says.

"I found shells are not as frightening to approach as flat sheets of paper and they have a lovely surface, almost like gesso - matt and absorbent. I also like little precious things, like knick-knacks, things that are small and delicate."

The Twelfth Day work was inspired by a Hodgkins-related research trip to London this year which gave Hillary time to explore the city's museums.

"I was fascinated by the wonderful textile designs in the V&A, particularly the 18th-century designs by designers like Anna Maria Garthwaite," she says.

"Most were machine-made in silk and other materials, and there was an interesting taking of patterns from other cultures - Chinese and Indian designs - and also taking back older English designs."

When she returned, Hillary and Miles went to Whangarei Heads to collect the right shells, old pipi, their surfaces bleached by the sun and softened by the seas pounding the beaches. They come in sets of four, so the sense of pattern is retained. "They seemed better in groups. There is more variety in the pattern and a sense of the whole design."

Hillary has called the series the V&As: "No apostrophe, because they are not the museum's, they are clones."

There is another Hodgkins connection. "She was fascinated by fabric. She did fabric design briefly in Manchester, and people who knew her always talked about the outlandish fabrics and bright colours she wore."

The show's No 11 spot goes to Yasmin Dubrau, who offers Eleven Accessories, painstakingly made objects that include a crown, cuffs and a door-snake which can be worn as a scarf.

Ilsa-Marie Erl's contribution is a set of 10 gun-toting nativity figures made by peasants in the Mexican state of Chiapas in support of Zapatista rebels. They are credited to "Anonymous Mayans". Nine Ladies Dancing requires some mathematics, involving looping a video by Kah Bee Chow performing three dances around the Britomart centre.

Chow, photographer Edith Sagapolu (No 5) and Sriwhana Spong (No 1) are also in an exhibition during the summer at the Govett-Brewster in New Plymouth of artists who are immigrants or first generation New Zealanders.

Spong's work for Miles is Self-Portrait of the Artist as the Eiffel Tower, showing her legs sticking out of a pool in Bali designed by her father.

Other artists include Octavia Cook, Pauline Bern, Eve Armstrong, Gina Matchitt, Janet Green, and two cupids by Kirstin Carlin.

Exhibition

* What: Twelve Days of Christmas, by various artists

* Where and when: Anna Miles Gallery, suite 4J, 47 High St, Dec 2 (from 6pm) to Dec 18