June Grant
June Grant, internationally recognised contemporary Maori artist, visionary and award-winning businesswoman.
June Grant is also a mother of four, grandmother of six, TV front person for the breast cancer awareness campaign, is a woman who lives her life to the full.
Now through the powerful medium of her art, she is telling her stories in a way that she could never verbally articulate.
“My paintings can sometimes visually express the words that I dare not say out loud. They project the image that talks about how I am feeling. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do – tell the story?’
Her work will be on display along with over 200 other leading and emerging contemporary Maori artists, who have been invited to the biennial MAORI ART MARKet, held this year at Porirua City’s Te Rauparaha Arena on October 9, 10 and 11.
It will be the largest collection of contemporary Maori artwork ever assembled. More than 2000 items including paintings, jewellery, clay work, sculpture, carving, weaving, fashion, worth more than $3 million will be on sale direct from the artists and invited galleries.
June was in New York in 2002, enjoying the fun of being a tourist, when she noticed a lump in her breast. She continued her holiday in the bliss of denial; there was no family history – it was nothing.
But on her return home, her worst fears were confirmed. She had cancer.
“It was a living nightmare! Every aspect of breast cancer treatment is a shock; surgery removing the cancer and part of a breast, lymph nodes removed from under the arm, recovery with tubes to remove accumulated fluids. Then when that healed, a chemotherapy regime to blast any residual cancer still in residence, and finally, when all your hair and self-esteem have gone, six weeks of radiotherapy…”
“Having cancer really stuffed up my life. Everything just went into a down spiral.
When our waka came to Aotearoa, it got caught in a whirlpool and was pulled down (to Te Korokoro a te Parata). That is how I felt when I got cancer. I was trying to make sense of everything. Looking at my diary of that year (2003), I realize how close I was to going right down into a black, bottomless hole”.
Emerging from the black hole would take longer than she had imagined.
“When you have surgery, chemo, radiation, the physical body heals; but the mind takes longer to get better.”
The cancer journey was physically and emotionally traumatic; but it also became something else. It became an invitation to enter into a deeper spiritual awareness of life.
“I had had all the treatment – and then I moved into a surreal existence. Not knowing whether you are going to survive or not.
The surreal space brought June into contact with questions about the meaning of existence, of spirit, of the essence of being. She questioned life, religion, what was important and what was not.
“Life seemed to take on an extraordinary dimension; the importance of family, the people who mattered in my life. But it was also the after life that became particularly pertinent: where am I going and what do I truly believe?
“You ask ‘why me?’ – there was no family history, there is no rhyme or reason.
I have had friends, other women I knew, who haven’t survived. I feel very privileged to be here.”
Her journey has taken her to many new places. One of them, being a completely new career. June began working with the Breast and Cervical Screening as a Health Promoter for Health Rotorua in March this year.
“I decided that if I really wanted to put my money where my mouth is, I needed to start helping women make good decisions about screening so that they could avoid the cancer journey altogether.
“I think I bring authenticity to my work, as I have unfortunately walked the walk. The women I speak to know immediately that there is sincerity in my role as Health Promoter.
“In my role here, I have to try to fathom why woman will avoid having a mammogram. It is the ‘fear of knowing’ rather than the ‘fear of dying’.
There is, in a lot of women, a fatalism, a feeling that ‘it’s God’s will’. Particularly in older Pacific Island women, they think, ‘if it is my time, then it is my time – and they would handle it all with dignity….
“But I think – hell no! This disease is survivable, if it is detected early enough.
I want to be around to see my new grandson – he’s nine months old – turn 21. I hope I can hang in.”
June’s healing journey, naturally enough for a woman who had always expressed herself through her art, began to filter into her painting. While she was having radiotherapy treatment at the Lions Cancer Lodge in Hamilton, she started a series of paintings depicting her cancer story: ‘Te Haerenga – the journey’ series.
“The cancer series is a visual reminder of my journey and a legacy for my family to keep, had I not survived.”
In 2008 she took up a residency for three months at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington State. The residency (Toi Sgwigwialtxw) was set up by Te Waka Toi, the Maori arts board of Creative New Zealand, as an exchange program for indigenous artists.
“It was a great opportunity for me. It was time to think, and to heal. It was a very reflective time. Writers and painters have a clearer vision when they are off-shore.
You can start exploring anything you want to and that is what I did. There was a feeling of freedom – and I’ve been married 42 years, this was the first time I had been away from my family.
“I had come out of having cancer, it was ending – and I got to know there was something else out there; it motivated me to do something positive.
“I had lots of stimulating imagery around me. Evergreen is close to native reservations and tribal areas and I was able to meet many of the local Tribal people. I found what they were doing, in their lives and especially with their art, was very similar to what we were doing here in Aotearoa; telling stories through our art forms. It really was an inspirational time.
“My work as an artist continues, though the kaupapa (philosophy/themes) to my work has altered. The longer I survive; as opposed to the urgency I felt initially when my future was unknown.
“I think I am a little more relaxed, but the themes of my work are still about telling stories that I consider important, to leave behind for my children and mokopuna (grandchildren).
“The paintings simply helped me fathom my own personal and spiritual journey.”
June uses images from her ancestral heritage; (her tribal group is Te Arawa, in the central North Island), to describe important symbols. Petroglyphs (rock drawings), spiritual guardian figures (manaia) and personal family symbols visually tell the story of a journey through discovery, surgery, feelings of spirituality and fighting the ‘enemy’ through chemo, and radiation.
Her latest work is a compilation of 13 pieces, called Whaea. 13 is a sacred number of womanhood and represents the original lunar calendar cycle. The 13 Moon lunar cycles are known in all indigenous cultures and the Whaea, Mother image, is central. It represents the guardian of the gifts and abilities for that particular Moon cycle.
June has painted the associated symbols of the designated gifts and abilities peculiar to each Whaea.
This series of 13 paintings will be exhibited next year at the Spirit Wrestler Gallery, in Vancouver, Canada.
June uses the circle in her paintings as a metaphor, a protector, a shield. It describes the rhythm of life, a beginning and an end, all encompassing, so that the central image is quite imposing.
She has also been working on a series of more ‘controversial’ paintings around topical issues. In this case it is the issue: ‘least we forget’; a tribute to the children murdered in this country in recent times.
“I don’t want anyone to forget those children. I visually recreate something that is important to me; I can get my message out through my art. It is the vehicle of my social conscience. Things that affect me I put in visual form. This is why it is essential to have artists – they are conveying a valuable message.
“Throughout history art has been important for this reason. All indigenous peoples recorded tribal life, whether it be cared in hieroglyphics like the Egyptians or drawn in the sands of the deserts like our Melanesian cousins.
“Like many other tribal and itinerant groups we would record our daily activities on the walls of our dwellings, known as petroglyphs. Art became an important functional process, visually narrating tribal stories. Like the leadlights in church windows, created to illustrate parables of the Bible so that illiterate people could understand, through visual re-creation.
“This is why Maori Art Market is so important – it is putting our art, our stories, ‘out there’ – out of the customary domain of the Wharenui onto the walls of our homes, buildings and art galleries.”
A collection of June’s paintings will be available for viewing and purchase, at Maori Art Market, to be held at Te Rauparaha Centre and Pataka, Porirua, from October 9-11.
“I am glad we are profiling our artists – in this economy there could be good reason not to – but we need to put our work out there.
“Maori Art Market is fantastically put together. They have a great team of people who do brilliant work together. The curatorial team is hugely experienced, both nationally and internationally – and has a great leader in Darcy (Nicholas) – and they know how to do it really well.
Written by Freelance writer Linda George for immediate use, Tel 027 251 2622, (04) 976 9927. Supplied by Toi Maori on behalf of the MAORI ART MARKet or contact Iain Morrison Tel 04 473 7980 or 021 688 668.