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dear ones

it’s been a second.

i have no time to write anything big. i have had no time to work. i am with ash, holding it down solo in lockdown, and finding childcare has been really unexpectedly hard. i’m figuring it out.

but -

i just wanted to take 3 minutes to remind you all that i love you, and that i’m taking care of myself and my child, and that this - the hardest chapter of my life so far by a long mile - will probably produce some of the best art i will have ever created.

i will have to be patient. i have had to be patient. we all have. this is the most patient i have ever been.

i am proud of myself.

i am so grateful to all of you, for hanging in there while i think of art all day, but cannot take time to create.

this is the apex of patronage. it’s real support for an artist who’s worked hard - almost non-stop - for twenty years without a pause. the pause has come. i still have a job, a salary, a way to cover my rent and staff and not go under. it’s a massive miracle.

i hope you all understand how massive.

…..

more soon, i hope.

for now, here’s a random dump of this week’s lockdown photos from my phone, barely curated. i hope you all appreciate the very Jean-paul Satre “Huis Clos” reference at the end.

it’s pothole season.

…..

ash is going back to school.

i’m fucking relieved and i’m exhausted and i’m so, so, so behind. on everything.

i have so much i want to make, say to you, affirm, reply to, give back.

everything can wait.

everything has to wait.

everything has waited.

it’s the season of extreme submission, slowness.

it is all a me understanding of life, parenthood, friends, family, hardship, community, love, time, values and priorities that i never, ever, ever would have fully understood - for better and worse - without this pandemic.

i just didn’t understand so much. now i do.

thank you, strange pandemic.

thank you, all my patrons.

you’ve both unexpectedly saved me.

x

a

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Comments

JessTCreate

The cycle of giving turns forward! 💜 so happy to be in this journey on this strange blue ball with you.

Raven

Love this. And those are beautiful snapshots of Ash exploring.

Tracey Stokes

Sending all the goodly stuff. Be well hey. Bizarre Weather today. Find moments of happy as I do today. Started the day in a shitty mood. I feel better now. Be well hey🦋💜🦋💜🌻 Divine tree. Adore.

Lynn Parlett

Woo hoo hardly ever online when you first post. Fun. I've finally had a day off myself and trying to get some cooking done for the week... every time I sit down, I fall asleep. Darn movie plots just jump all over the place. Maybe my body is trying to tell me something. Thank goodness I'm using a slow cooker and things don't burn. :) Stay well dear one. Just do what you can and that'll be enough.

Bri Mills

It's so wonderful. I felt a hopeful lovecry as I was reading this. Ash is getting so big, too. All the joy, even in a pandemic.

Rob Harbers

As I've said before, you do what you gotta mareikura!

Rebecca Ryan

Gosh..I so HEAR you….it is so hard. And we are all still learning..adjusting. mine miss lockdown time occasionally now. Who would of thought.. It was slowww and long. But we were together. All day. It’s funny. Lots of love Amanda xx

Josephine Kneipp

What a lovely post. It is so wonderful to know that all the small offerings (and large) can keep paying you and your team throughout this. In my ideal community, we can achieve that for everyone.

DebbieG

Where you live is so beautiful, I hope you do take some comfort and peace from that. Thanks for sharing the pix. This weekend I was lucky to have some of my old life return. Had a musical reunion with a group of friends I have known for nearly 20 years. So good to see and hug them and laugh with them again. We had planned this for March of 2020. Patience and waiting for us all. Be good.

Sally

I'm so proud, and in awe, of you and the way you have coped with the vagaries of the last almost two years.

Leyna Saultz

Love you, Amanda. Thank you for sharing. Love to Ash as well. ❤️ Both my daughters got their first Pfizer dose on Tuesday. We're all looking forward to a normal world again, and we'll get there soon.

Lisa

The pandemic has been an unexpected blessing to a lot of us. It’s shown us that there is another way to live. It’s shown is that life is possible even when everything has been turned on it’s head and even though we were all father away from our loved ones than ever before, we found new ways to connect and we can never go back now. Thank you for sharing Amanda, such great photos.I’m pleased Ash is back to school you will both be in need of head space.

Francine Hibiscus

What an amazing paradise by the sea you live in. We got our first snowfall last night, enough to make the trees pretty. Ash is growing up! It's good to see him pushing ahead (with help from mom!)

Lisa Bristow

Thanks for sharing. It's not easy being a sole parent and trying to create but it does bring forth the most incredible art. You will endure and grow and Ash will grow with you, because of you. Everyone else will get their piece of you thru your art later but he needs you right now and you've done the right thing by him and you. Labor isn't the only pain that brings forth new life. Look forward to some spectacular art!

Stephanie Thomas

Kia ora Amanda! I love this post, thanks for sharing. I feel like it’s just so positive. I love the photos, such beauty Ash has and in everything around him. Go you! ❤️❤️❤️

EmVT

my seventy-something mother-of-two zen teacher says being a parent is equivalent to being in a zen training program. i have a lot of respect for what you're going through. :) you are a great photographer amanda, i love seeing your work! still waters run deep, the day will come. you will be in huge great cities with fewer potholes. i'm sitting here in my AFP t-shirt thinking of drawing that awesome tree at the top of this post, and i don't know how to draw yet. grateful to be here! you are the best, sending love and patience :)

Steffanie

Those pictures tho... the Waiheke tourism board should hire you. I'm wanting to get on a 30h plane trip to see these sights, that magical cove. Bon courage ! There is light.

Thomas Herlofsen

Love you. Being a busy little bee at the moment, wife still working lotsa overtime so full making dinner/doing stuff around the house duty instead of our usual half and half, full job, 38k words into my novel (I will make it now! I will make it now!), recorded weird audio thingie for local podcast, might have to make a poetry collection before the novel since I just got the framing idea I had been waiting for - the crux of it will be a series of (auto)biographical poems about women in my life (including you and several shadowboxers) and each of those (30ish) poems will start with the line I SPOKE WITH A WOMAN, so it will be about me, but also about womanhood in general as mirrored through my privileged-whiteass poet perspective. It's in Norwegian but when it's translated I'll be sure to share. Enjoy your beautiful summer and glimpses of freedom! Here in Norway we have been dancing for a while and the hammer is about to come down. We are dark and cold and pretty chipper. My son just turned 18.

Laura Morland

Dear Amanda, You mentioned "school" in the last post, too, and my heart lept for both of you!!!

Lynn Robinson

What an amazing life and wonderful opportunities you’ve created for Ash - indoor & outdoor ones! X

Anayte Delahay

Hi Amanda! Thank you for posting so many photos of Ash, they’re lovely, you take good photos. It’s November so it’s getting dark and gloomy here in Finland. The covid numbers have been going up for a while now and I’m already romanticizing the lockdown times when at least it felt like we were all together in trying to get through it, whereas now it’s so many people pretending (or really imagining?) that we can just go on as before the pandemic, and so many others getting justifiably angry at them for ruining it for everyone else. We try to cope with the duality of really wanting to participate in society and not wanting to endanger ourselves and others. It looks like Aotearoa is doing way better, and I hope this continues. Stay well, much love.

Vanessa Black

You're doing great. I recognise the art in your head feeling... It might get a bit a tangled but I find it never goes away. PS. I went for a slow, plodding walk yesterday for about an hour and a half listening to Astronaut on repeat for the duration. Thanks for you and your art.

Len Tower Jr.

A hint at a stories (at least two "real") & songs in each. (A few of the stories shared on IG.) He'd such a fine real, complex (not imaginary {a math joke ;-}}}) person. Thanks & Love, Len

Amber Dawn

You’re creating a beautiful life for Ash. That’s wonderful to see. Also quite challenging given the circumstances. You’re an amazing mom. I’m definitely looking forward to the art you’ll create, but you’ve given us so much over the years! I hope you know how loved you and Ash are 💜💜💜

Jake Marcus

I wish I could post a photo here. I found one of me sitting on the driveway with a beautiful five year in a sponge bob bicycle helmet with his arms on my shoulder and sitting in my lap facing forward is a massive blond three year old latched on my breast. /end scene Another period of my life. Photo is on my insta to get the whole effect. @kate_warp_and_weft

Philippa

Unexpected stabs in the heart. I’m an expat kiwi who left a tad over 40 years ago, and yet a couple of those images have floored me. Those horrible spiky plants - it was my job to mow the lawns, I had to push past one of those, and every.time.it.would.stab.me! Sandbar. Kina (sea urchin). Pohutukawa (kiwi Christmas tree). No exit (oh the blessing and curse of being in the last place on earth before Antarctica). It’s weird, eh!

Robin Goodfellow

I see I'm not the only one enjoying the photos of Ash and NZ. I'm perfectly happy to accept being a mum as your new art ❤️

Holly Adams

Oh, dear wonderful soul. We Americans know that absolute shoulder-lifting RELIEF of our kids going back to school FINALLY. Followed by the terror of knowing they will be surrounded by germy kids with unvaxxed parents in close quarters and winter is coming. But still - it feels so good. Freeing. You know in theory about that massive boulder on your back that you have been carrying for miles and miles but once it is taken from you it just feels so good. Expect to feel a loss though, where you have to Take a Minute and Figure Shit Out - where was I going, before this? Why? How do I find the road again? You got this. Those plants look like tribbles.

David Faux

Hang in there, Amanda! I love you, your family, and our family that we have created here. It has always seemed surreal to live through massive moments. The kind of moments that effect the world in massive ways. The kind of moments that chapters in future history books will be devoted to. I have come to appreciate that those momentous points in time all share similarities. Whether it's world wars, epic disasters, or a world infecting plague, it is still simply moments lived, doing mostly mundane things, trying to survive, and trying to adjust to a disruption in our routines. I am incredibly curious how historians define and distill this moment in time, when we are all through it, and we can take a collective moment to reflect. Until that time comes I continue to do my best to use this universal time of disruption to channel my uncertainty, frustration, and personal upheaval to refine my own journey through life. Taking advantage of this singular moment of pause to plot a course that may have gone unnoticed before a time we were all forced to stop. I have only recently come to this mindset. I spent the first 18 months of this pandemic simply reacting to whatever came my way. The last 3 to 6 months, I have found the clarity to assess and the will to enact some of the changes in my life that this moment of pause has allowed me to recognize needed to be made. I desperately hope that my post pandemic mindset and inner will can cement these changes into my life. I feel like they will, and am eager to find out. I won't go so far as to say that I am thankful for this pandemic, I am thankful that my response to this time of pause has eventually come to a point that I have been able to construct some positive change in my life. I look forward to hearing/seeing/supporting what this pandemic has fermented within you. I am also excited for when I finally get to witness the products of your experience, live, in-person and among the legion of fans that will be there with me, that it will be a product if our experiences too. Be well. Take care. Continue to do what you must to stay healthy and happy during this pause. We'll be able to press play again soon, and it will be glorious! <3

Brent

Nice pictures! It's so beautiful there... Wes active cases Students: 9, Employees: 2 (that's down a bit!)

Amber LaParne

Looks like you are doing a great job taking care of him-and taking care of you!

Alex Manion

We have all the time in the world. Breathe, take care, we've got you.

Dorit

Great road sign! Hang in there!

Sarah Petersen

Lovely pictures! I hope that you get some time to breathe soon. And don't push yourself to immediately fill all your time with work when Ash goes back to school. If school means you can play the piano all day if you want to and that happens to also be work, great... but give yourself a break if you can, too. (I took the first three days of school off from work when my kids finally went back this fall, and it was awesome but also not enough. Your work is different since you don't have an outside employer and vacation days like some of us do... but give yourself a break if you possibly can.)

Megan

Sending so much love!!! You got this! I can relate!! Stuff has to get done, but there is a kiddo who needs me and my attention and finding that balance is tough. Sometimes just putting on some good dance music and dancing the stress out has been a great help to us. Thinking of you all and sending great big hugs

amandapalmer

this sounds AMAZING…can you make sure to hit up me and alex so we can add it to the althing when it’s out ???

Prunella Persica

Greetings from Phoenix! We're on the front end of our beautiful winter weather and life felt like we might be teetering on back-to-normal, but the number of breakthrough cases among the vaccinated are disheartening. Great photos of Ash - my boys are older so your pics took me back to Nerf guns and monster stickers and bicycles. Thank you for that. Isn't it interesting that when we know we need a break to recharge and restore ourselves and return better than ever, we seek out time off, and call it a vacation or a sabbatical and it's fun. When time off is forced upon you, it's stressful. My friends who have lost jobs and had a few months off before a new one is found talk about much they would have enjoyed the time off if only they had known it was temporary, and they would be fine. I'm glad you are being patient, since all there is right now is being in the moment. ALSO - while you have a zillion Things in your head and no time to Make, please remember that YOU have produced some AMAZING Things during the pandemic. Give yourself some credit, please. Proud to be your Patron <3

mary b merryman

O Baby, stay there in NZ as long as you can!! I know you miss friends here in North America and Europe, etc, but so many of us can’t pay rent right now. Or we have to wear masks everywhere, or we can’t travel anywhere. Just my ideas, as usual. I know single parenting is

mary b merryman

Hard, I helped friends doing it for years. But we all see your life would be different (no beach, Mega expensive childcare, etc in the States) elsewhere

Teresa Toro

I'm so happy for you both, that Ash is going back to school! We all need to be with kids our own age. And I just had a random weird realization: Ash goes to school in New Zealand which means winter there is like summer here in the States. How strange to sit in class in a t-shirt and maybe go swimming after school. Regardless, I bet he's just delighted to see friends again, as you're delighted to have some time alone with your own thoughts, and able to see to your own needs a little bit.

Jenna Tomlin

I only visited Waiheke once for about 5 hours, but I loved it so much. Most of that time being spent walking though Onetangi Reserve. I love the photo you are posting!

Melinda M Kearney

I love these pictures so much! Thank you for sharing.

Laura Wellner

I can think of one place where this sign should go... there is a guard rail, but I know there are some people who might try to go around it and end up in Lake Ontario... Hang in there! We're getting some official snow here on Irish Hill tonight...the kind that using a lantern to walk to the barn makes no sense. My wee donkey and tinier goat filed official complaints regarding the weather, it is hard to explain to them that I can do nothing about it...I gave them more hay and they ate in peace, all tucked in for the night...the little wee hay-burners! I think the feral kitty seriously considered following me inside when I held the door open for her...but she declined the invitation, she requires more than one open exit at all times... Honestly, you will be making some mighty awesome new art, it's been simmering for quite a long spell...I have complete faith in your ability to make a lot of cool shit! Love & hugs

John Sea Wind

Amanda, thank you for sharing your life. You are an inspiration to so many people. I love you!

Ria

I love you. I know it’s hard but I’m seeing you enjoy the break - and the child - too which is the best ever. And I’m grateful really really grateful you obviously didn’t have to experience online schooling on top of everything else. Online schooling of a child who hardly knows school is so miserable. I love you ❤️

Tanya Miller

I just want to say that I don’t know you and I support you with gratitude for gifting the art of asking along with some beautiful woodfordia moments. From what I see, I am so glad that Ash has this unique time with his wonderful, energetic, creative force of a mother. In dIfferent circumstances he may only have experienced this from the wings as an observer of your life show but in beautiful Aotearoa he has had the opportunity of intimacy and slow time. Stay sane - parenting is a crazy gig but you are raising the future and we need our future to be guided by awesomeness. Kia kaha AFP xx

Leigh Ann Crimmings

These pictures are breathtakingly beautiful! I'm sure this long slow pause is benefiting you and your art almost as much as its benefitting Ash. I'm really happy you have the freedom to pause and to be okay 💜

Kati Loux

We'll always wait to see, thanks for always waiting for us and understanding things <3

Catherine Hannah

Holding you, holding Ash in the tiny way I have available: patronage and these paper airplanes of care, these messages without a bottle...we are still here, we are here...take all the time you need. We are still here.

Laura Keenados

Man I feel it. I been feeling it hard.... and compounding it is that heart in a blender of interpersonal struggles. I wish we could all get into a cuddle pile and have some good long deep breaths all together. Remember the cuddle shop in PDX? so rad. I LOVE THOSE URCHINS AHHHHH so so cute. I have a wild good chase for you if you're into it/have capacity. Where did the Making of Do It With A Rockstar video go?? I cannot find it anywhere, and really want to show someone, cuz it really does give the video so much more deeper meaning. Love it And love you. <3

Kirsten Sogge

Oh dang, lost my writing. Much love to you from rainy Washington state, from full time grannying and renewed creativity.

Caren Helms

Amanda, I imagine being patient and waiting for things to happen is the hardest thing for someone as "now" as you are! We are happy to wait for anything you produce. Please don't feel pressured to do anything. You are doing the hard work and exactly what you need to do. Do that and be at peace!

Marguerita Tajibnapis

wow yes No Exit. So glad to be able to be here for you. This is a good thing to spend money on. I believe you. Incredible art will come from this. Maybe it’s like going through that long pregnancy and then having a new life. I think you will birth incredible art after this long incubation period. ❤️ ☮️ and 🕉