For Blythe At the start you move through the grey challenging, darting in and out of fact & fiction. Some say A conductor, batten at the ready you signal, the time, melody, and music. A thought expressive, Quickly your eyes move creating from one page to the next until crystalline. A quiet laugh. Collecting, you move thoughts, fragments & people together. The words woven, through pictures unfolding as if by auto-magical means. I’ll say. A composer.
What can you say? What can you say after 12 years of creative roller derby, when the derby ends? Blythe you have been a huge part of us, helped shape us, challenge us, and have helped to build us. We have shared the bumps, bruises, highlights, lowlights, many laughs, and rides along the way. Ok, so at times the ride has resembled a shoot-out at the OK corral, followed by some inevitably bad cowboy jokes and some bad German accents. The jokes provided welcome relief from the simply relentless development and progress we have made together in 12 years.
Malt Biscuits From the start, when I saw your work at the Massey End of Year exhibition, you stood out. Something out of the ordinary. A subtle quality and a thoughtfulness. As the very first person to join the team in the Valley Road ‘Studio’ (all right, it was a 2 bedroom house), I think we were largely making it up as we went along with a set of ideals and philosophies to drive what we were doing. I felt like a sensei at the ideological dojo. Our slick presentations involved accidentally plunging coffee all over a client’s trousers and then offering them the top of the line Budget brand malt biscuits, but somehow through sheer dint and perseverance we got through. As our projects developed, you started to stretch your legs, and Curve Surf provided a great example of your ideas and thoughts coming together into a cohesive picture. Predictably, a simple sketch of yours formed a key idea.
A Move Our move into town heralded the arrival of Neil and Ryder, which created a long and lasting design conversation that still continues today. It saw you head over to the UK to extend yourself with the guys before returning fresh to New Zealand. It was clear that you had developed whilst working with in Glasgow and London and I must admit I was glad to have you back. Your return coincided with our making a big step forward in both our projects and team.
A Transformation We then took on the Transform Initiative which you helped to orchestrate and direct. Five simultaneous Product Development Specifications certainly tested our approach to feasibility. It provided some unique projects in Forester and Encircle that grew to become seminal examples of your thinking and work. Encircle, in particular, really tested your mettle and showed just how far you had developed. I can remember in the presentation with Symbian, being so proud of how you had knitted such a complex range of facts together, suffusing it with such intent and heart.
Expansion As you developed, you started to expand, becoming a board member at DINZ and contributing to the development of a cohesive set of contracts for the industry along with other key programmes. Judging YIA and contributing to the development of this programme, all the while hitting it up daily in the studio, helping with the smallest things to the big picture(s). Better by Design coaching beckoned and provided yet another arrow to your quiver, brought back into the fold. It was now that you were the metaphorical sensei in the ideological dojo.
Shared Experience As we developed, our experiences started to blend. Sometimes like oil and water, at other times like a coffee banana smoothie (surprisingly tasty and guaranteed to keep you awake). Pushed further through hard discussions, these experiences have merged to form some of our ‘common law’ practice for developing new products, which has crystallised in the last year. The hard thing to communicate through this is the degree of difficulty, and the ardour required, to develop these ideas to fruition, hold to your ideals and ideas, leaving no stone unturned and no one behind. You have always given your passion, enthusiasm, and skill, both to us and the people that have been lucky enough to have you work for them. You will always be revered and remembered (and hopefully called on creative input).