When the waves call me to paint - Artist Profile, Margaret Gibson

A teaching background

In sleep she might hear them, the waves rolling in on Buffalo Beach or even as the day breaks and the tui start to sing in the trees outside her window.

And that feeling will be all encompassing as memory takes her back to idyllic childhood holidays spent at Piha with five brothers and parents who encouraged them to draw and paint. “I remember painting a lady with a big beehive hairdo in the 60s and Mum framing it. I would have been about seven and feeling quite proud.”

Margaret’s parents were both teachers so there was never a shortage of paper and colouring books in their home.

Margaret also became a teacher and then life with its busy cycle of working and raising a family became the priority. “I tried to incorporate art or some sort of artistic expression right throughout the curriculum and always timetabled a set art afternoon with my classes.”

Creative reawakening

In 2012 Margaret’s artistic ability experienced a reawakening when she signed up for a night class in drawing at Te Awamutu College. She has attended workshops and a course at the Waikato Society of Arts. Margaret says she is mostly self-taught through practice.

“I can’t wait to get going,” says Margaret when beginning a new artwork. An idea is there in your head, however as the painting evolves, that can change. You start with one idea and halfway through you’re thinking ‘this is going somewhere else, and you just let it take you.”

“The environment around me is my greatest inspiration. I feel very grateful to be living on the Coromandel. Our scenery and beaches are beautiful.  Through my art I hope to share that with people.”

- Margaret Gibson, Artist

Margaret is a member of the Whitianga Art Group. She also has the privilege of mentoring Mercury Bay Area School Year 13 student Siobhan Cox, who won the Mercury Bay Art Escape Student Scholarship earlier this year.

June Art Expo

Both Margaret and Siobhan have artwork in the Whitianga Lions Art Expo on King’s Birthday Weekend.

The Whitianga Lion's Art Expo is being held in the Whitianga Town Hall from opening night, Friday May 31 until Monday, June 3 with money raised, from a percentage of the art sold and donations all going to Project Mammogram.