Frank Film: Finding the Light; Canterbury artist Sheelagh McHaffie

Raised in the shadows – Canterbury artist Sheelagh McHaffie draws the light she’s fought to find.

When Sheelagh McHaffie draws, she uses white pastel on black paper.

“I’m drawing the light,” says the Canterbury artist, from her studio in the Christchurch Art Centre, “instead of the shadows”.

Over the past three years, McHaffie’s work has featured in exhibitions, magazine articles, and the World Art Awards, garnering attention for its moody, largely black and white figurative illustrations.

But the light McHaffie draws is born out of darkness.

The 43-year-old says her childhood was “adult-centric and pretty tough at times”.

“Everybody else’s needs were my priority and they kind of had to be,” she tells Frank Film.

McHaffie grew up as the only child of a solo parent. Her mother, Julia, struggled with mental illness.

Sheelagh McHaffie drawing. Photo / Frank Film

“[Mum] was diagnosed correctly when I was about 15, with bipolar, and finally got the help she needed. But the road in-between was very, very hard.”

McHaffie says her mother was “amazing” when her condition was stable. Julia was a motorcyclist, wrote poetry, spoke three languages fluently, and was incredibly social. “She was a girl boss,” says McHaffie. But her mother’s “highs” were often met with intense lows.

“Some of her lows would go on for a long, long time, and she didn‘t even feel well enough to get out of bed, or have a visitor, or eat,” says Sheelagh. “Sometimes it got so bad that she didn‘t even know who I was, but I would look after her and make her food, and pay the bills.”

How does a child cope when faced with raising a parent?

McHaffie had three jobs by the time she was 15 – working at a dairy, a hair salon, and washing dishes at an Irish pub. Most mornings, she got up and made her mother tea before getting herself ready for school, where she says she was “horrifically bullied”.

McHaffie was sent to Cholmondeley Children‘s Centre in Governor’s Bay for respite care. It was here, every second weekend for five years, that she could simply be a kid.

“I was able to play, and I found my childhood here,” she says. “It was always safe.”

On turning 12, McHaffie was no longer eligible for the respite care service but she returned to Cholmondeley for an extended period when she found herself homeless at the age of 14. She was allowed to stay there, in the staff quarters, until she found somewhere else to go.

Julia with baby Sheelagh. Photo / Frank Film

When she was 18, Sheelagh had her daughter, Maxine. Her mother died just four years later.

It wasn‘t until her daughter started school, and was clearly struggling in the new environment, that McHaffie realised her daughter had autism.

“She needed me to interpret the world for her... I provided continuity and consistency and pace and security,” says Sheelagh.

Still living with her two children – Maxine, now 24, and Boston, age 12 – McHaffie remains passionate about learning and advocating for the needs of children with autism.

Still, she says, it is “quite terrifying to be that powerless in your own life, and especially when you’re doing it on your own”. She credits herself for having a lot of hope for the future, and an ability to always see circumstances as temporary, but at times she felt her efforts weren‘t enough.

There have been moments, she says, when she thought “it doesn‘t matter how hard I try or what I do, things are still really, really tough”.

When she has felt helpless in her own life, helping others has certainly helped McHaffie.

Helping others has helped Sheelagh McHaffie. Photo / Frank Film

Over the years, she has run school programmes and puppetry groups. She’s door-knocked for various charities, sometimes carrying Maxine on her hip. She’s spent five years working for the Salvation Army, and almost 10 years for World Vision as a regional representative. She worked with the Red Cross, providing social support to those in elderly homes, and was a team leader for Tony’s in Australia, feeding the homeless.

Three years ago, Sheelagh decided to try her hand as an artist. Although she loved drawing from a young age, her life had afforded little time to chase her passion.

With enough extra time now to explore her art, Sheelagh says her world is opening up again.

“Through all the darkness, there’s always that light,” she says.

Sheelagh McHaffie draws using white pastel on black paper to “draw the light”. Photo / Frank Film

“That’s part of the reason I celebrate my art to the degree that I do... I’m not ashamed to enjoy it and appreciate it, and I don‘t take it for granted. And it might seem arrogant, but I’ll shout it from the rooftops. Because I’m so bloody happy with where I’m at.”

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