What were the top adventures of your youth?
Riding around the South Island in the early '70s with two friends, horses and dogs; 2000km with no cellphones, no helmets, no Facebook, no GPS and not much money.
How did you come to live in France and what did you do there?
I was hitchhiking. I'd just visited Katherine Mansfield's grave at Fontainebleau. My partner stopped for me and never dropped me off. It turned out to be a 30-year lift. In 1990 I got French nationality. I went to university for three years, then became art director in an agency of communication for another 12 years. Later I earned a living as a freelance illustrator, specialising in environment and nature. People think life in France is sitting around on café terraces sipping wine and discussing existentialism. In fact, it's mostly just driving to work and back, deadlines, supermarkets. At least, it was for me. Although I was lucky, I suppose – as an illustrator I worked on projects in Germany, Switzerland, Réunion, Morocco, as well as all over eastern France.
How did you get drawn to Africa and what did you do there?
On a bridge in Besançon I bought a mask. It was only tourist art but there was enough of Africa in its black and deconstructed features for it to whisper: venez. That is how West Africa gets you. Got me. I woke up one morning and thought I'm going to Africa! I was scared, but I kept going back, driven by a need to understand traditional African arts and the belief systems that shaped them. Driven also, perhaps, by a need to escape the tameness and conventionality of Europe, which was beginning to seem just too civilised. Africa reminded me of New Zealand, it was still a bit wild in places.
What was your most amazing experience there?
Perhaps the most magical moment was on one of my first visits, when I found myself invited to funeral celebrations on a dusty hillside in the Cameroon grasslands. There must have been 3000 or 4000 people there, all in fabulous costumes, dancing, firing guns. I was the only white person. The music, the drums were hypnotic. The percussion entered my brain and took up residence for several days. It was the first time I'd seen statues and masks dancing, so that was a big moment. There were mock fights – I found myself on the ground rolling in the dust, staring up a shotgun barrel. I thought: this is what I have come to see. It's alive.
What are the favourite items in your collection of art and objects?
It changes all the time. I suppose the one I like most is a gris-gris, a small wooden charm sewn into a leather pouch, with fierce eyes of red berries. A chief gave it to me. It was under his bed. He said I should keep it on me, it would protect me. Once, in Morocco, border officials began cutting it open to see what was inside. I told them to go ahead but that I could not be held responsible for whatever was unleashed. They handed it back to me untouched.
When and why did you return to Whanganui, and what have you done since?
I came home in 2011. From our house on Bastia Hill I can see across the river to the building I was born in, the Tamara Riverside Lodge. It used to be a small maternity hospital. An old African man once said to me: Que le cercle de ta vie soit bouclé. (That the circle of your life be accomplished.) I didn't want to be old in France. I think New Zealand is a kinder society. Since my return I've worked on illustrations for Bushy Park and a bird trail at Virginia Lake. Also on a book about Tongariro National Park, coming out next year.
What are your favourite Whanganui places?
Bushy Park. I took some French friends there for high tea on the homestead veranda. They were blown away. I also love the riverboats. I never tire of seeing them out on the water, especially on these summer high tides when the awa is blue and bloated. I think the men who restored the Waimarie are heroes. I hope our city is suitably grateful.
If you could have dinner with any three people from history, who would they be and what would you want to talk about?
I'd invite Albert Camus, because he makes me feel that it's OK to be alive. I'd add DH Lawrence. I know he's shrill and impossible and incorrect, but I've been reading his letters; the man has such insight, and such a lovely eye for nature. Also I admire his rage; it seems so contemporary and sane. As a foil to Lawrence's shrillness I'd invite someone quietly intelligent and funny – a woman, perhaps Elizabeth Taylor (the English novelist not the actress). She is so observant and withheld and funny. Though she may not get a word in, with Lawrence piping on during our dinner. On reflection, I'm not sure if such a cocktail of personalities would work. Can I eject Lawrence and bring in Ben Okri? Or Janet Frame? ...
