![\"Neumes\"](\"https:\/\/www.janetdewagt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Neumes.jpg\")
<\/a>\nMy most recent painted shapes were penguins, birds who inhabit the land and the sea, so it has been a natural progression to venture further and deeper into the ocean and become interested in the giants of the sea, the mighty whales. Their stories and their journeys are both rich and inspiring \u2013 from the Ngai Tahu story of the creation of Foveaux Strait and the Solander Islands, to the recording of the Humpback whales\u2019 song on the golden record carried on Voyager 1 into the extremities of outer space. The Humpbacks\u2019 and other whales\u2019 songs were put into the earliest of musical languages, neumes in the 1970s, and thus given the first recognition of their fluid, musical and song-like patterns and qualities. These and the myriad of other stories about whales are truly amazing and I have tried to capture these stories visually.
\nWatching and painting the sea, particularly at night time, I have also been struck by the glow and fluorescence of the waves on the sea. Further research has taught me of the many creatures and organisms in the sea that have the power to luminesce and are responsible for this bioluminescence that I have sometimes seen. I have tried to recreate this light in some of these paintings, so that after they have been exposed to light they fluoresce in the dark as the ocean does.<\/p>\n
They will rob you<\/em> In fact whaling went on in New Zealand for a total of 172 years, finally stopping in 1964. There were many whaling stations established in Otago from the late 1820s when shore based whaling began \u2013 for example Moturata Island at Taieri Mouth.<\/p>\n Today the whales themselves still can\u2019t escape from the threats of human activity \u2013 from the still continuing controversial hunting, to other pressures from modern human life such as plastic and chemical pollution, warming oceans, sonar disruption and propeller strikes from ships.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nI love information and the social impact of why we do things. Whaling had a huge impact on the early settlement of New Zealand. In many New Zealand history books whaling has been seen in a romantic way, a life of adventure and freedom on the high sea. The truth was very different and it was an extremely hard and dangerous life as uttered in this whaler\u2019s lament from the 1820s:<\/p>\n
\nThey will use you<\/em>
\nWorse than any slaves<\/em>
\nBefore you go whaling boys<\/em>
\nYou best be in your graves.<\/em><\/p>\n