When Life Meets Art
HOMESTEAD
WRITER: GRACE PETIT / PHOTOGRAPHER: ABBE HOARE
There is passion in every corner of Jeanie Simpson’s farm cottage in the Tararua. With her devotion to breathing new life into old objects, this artist turns unloved home items into one-of-a-kind masterpieces.
Jeanie Simpson sits for the camera in her lovingly curated and designed living room. The cosy, brown lounge chair is the first reupholstery project she ever tackled and is one of her favourite pieces.
It was not love at first sight for Jeanie Simpson when she spotted the little three-bedroom worker’s cottage her family was to move into three years ago. “To be honest, I cried when I first saw the house; the walls were the most awful shade of salmon pink and the carpet from the sixties was pretty yuck,” she explains. Jeanie, her husband Ben, and their two children, Allie, 7, and Nicholas, 5, settled in the cottage on the outskirts of Pahiatua when Ben was offered a position as farm manager.
Jeanie and Ben found themselves in a situation familiar to many farming families where budget restrictions and business priorities limit the scope of renovation to farm dwellings. With this in mind, Jeanie took to work almost immediately in making their little house a home. “We spent $500 on paint and we were able to get new carpet which has been a big improvement,” she says. “Since taking the manager’s job we have moved into an equity partnership, but the farm comes first and the farm we are on is leased, so we can only do so much to make it home. I painted all of the kitchen cabinets which brightened things up a lot.”
The vibrancy of Jeanie’s artistic endeavours brings a rich array of textures to their home, creating a cosy space to live and grow. Their little cottage isn’t the stereotypical dream home, but it serves as an unlikely canvas for the artist. A lover of bold aesthetics and pattern, Jeanie has explored her passion for art and design throughout her home, from the walls of the lounge and bedrooms down to the eclectic crockery on the side table.
Jeanie started to have creative visions for their own furniture, having never been overly fond of brand-new pieces. The first to be transformed was an old Kauri sideboard, that Ben wasn’t convinced should be painted black. “Ben came home from a hunting trip to a surprise painted sideboard,” she says. “I think he’s starting to warm to the idea now. I also painted one of the walls in the lounge entirely black one weekend he was away, which was reasonably bold, but it looks amazing."
Jeanie, 42, has been married to Ben, 39, a country boy through-and-through, for thirteen years. This saw the artist, who originally grew up on a sheep and beef farm in the Bay of Plenty, move back to living rurally. “I mainly leave the farming to Ben. The creative stuff is my department. I love living rurally and think it’s a great place to raise a family, but I actually saw myself moving to the city when the time came.”
This return to country life led to some soul searching when it came to finding work that Jeanie loved. “I’ve had quite a few different jobs over the years but none of them I could see myself doing for a long time, some of them were related to agriculture and some of them were more graphic design based,” she says. “Creative work is generally that much harder to come by unless you live somewhere like Auckland.”
Jeanie had a small sewing business but grew bored of the repetition and decided to start upcycling furniture. Despite its effortless appearance, Jeanie’s distinctive art is not created on a whim.
Her creative process is one of careful curation in an effort to capture and celebrate the unique story of each item. “I investigate the era of each piece and try to incorporate design motifs from that era into the renovation of each piece, as well as occasionally tying in historically significant happenings or stories,” she explains. “The researching is probably my favourite part; it enables you to really develop a respect and connection for the piece.”
The money Jeanie makes from a selection of commission pieces is put towards gathering more art for their home. Her most recent purchase is a selection of vases, one of which complements a wooden cabinet that when opened, reveals a set of exquisite intricate patterns inspired by Māori carving, the colours an ode to the seventies. Throughout their home, Jeanie’s art seamlessly blends into pearls of country life; trophy heads of ‘Steve the Stag’ and ‘Terry the Tahr’ perch either side of a freshly renewed green couch that was once completely dilapidated. “I mainly search online for new pieces to paint; they have to be pretty decrepit for me to want to fix them up. I guess it runs in the family. My Dad is pretty handy, he turned the legs of the couch for me, but I do a lot of the smaller handy-man jobs myself. I have my own toolbox that must be returned if it’s borrowed for farm jobs!”
Jeanie’s furniture restorations are firmly tied to her ethos against cheap furniture piling up in landfill. She urges others to see their belongings as not just things, but as everyday pieces of art. “Upcycling is so satisfying, anyone can do it. It can also challenge people to break the barrier in their mind that furniture only has to be functional.”
When the opportunity arose in 2018 to submit work to a Painter in Residence programme for internationally renowned designer and paint producer Annie Sloan, Jeanie jumped at the chance. The UK-based creator of Chalk Paint enlists about three Painters in Residence every year, from all over the world. Jeanie was honoured to contribute a number of pieces as a resident in 2018 – the only painter to have been chosen from New Zealand. Now, the artist is the New Zealand distributor for the Chalk Paint brand. “I actually had to badger Annie a bit to convince her to give me the job. There were a couple of people who were doubtful if I was in the right location to be suited to doing the job,” she says. “But it’s worked out really well. I have time to work around dropping the kids off at the school bus or if Ben needs a hand on the farm, as well as getting a bit of time painting too.”
While Jeanie would love to have more opportunities to showcase her art and creative skills, she is happy where her journey has taken her so far. “It’s all really come together in the last two years; the opportunity with Annie Sloan was a great boost for my creative confidence. I’d love to do more pieces of furniture for our home; I just love stuff. But our house is getting quite full. I can only pack so much in!”
The creative engine of Jeanie’s home, her art studio. “It’s like my holiday home, because every time I go out there it makes me so happy,” she says. Although Jeanie’s creativity can cause some disarray, the teal apothecary drawers that she has painted in various hues of her favourite colour organizes tools, fittings, drawing equipment and assorted junk.
Even Jeanie’s unattached container studio is flamboyant and colourful. The black and white man-robe holds a lot of paint and odds and ends, and is loosely inspired by the work of Keith Haring. The paint brush holder on top is an old school desk Jeanie repurposed and stencilled.
The black and white wall of art in the living room is Jeanie’s favourite part of her home’s interior. The black arts and crafts dresser was painted by Jeanie. “No one wanted to buy it, so I decided we would just have to keep it,” she says.