When you picture an embroiderer, a grandmotherly figure hand sewing a canvas on her knee comes to mind more readily than a man, more known for his talent as a drummer, working at a machine.
Even Benjamin Sargeant admits that was always his impression too. But he is turning that stereotype on its head by taking up embroidery, although not in the traditional sense.
It was while living in Auckland and playing with the band "ha the unclear" that Sargeant took a day job doing embroidery for an apparel company.
"I was like, man, you can do so much more with this machine than people do."
Just after deciding to move back to his home town of Dunedin, the Covid pandemic hit. So like many people stuck at home, he was surfing the internet when he came across a cheap 1995 industrial embroidery machine in Greymouth.
"So I grabbed that, which was a mission, fixed it up — I knew how to fix it from my work in Auckland — and then I just had fun with it."
Along the way he rediscovered his love of creating art.
Growing up he had been interested in art, mostly painting, and music — taking up the drums like his father — but chose to study art when he finished high school.
However, six months into art school, his music career started to take off.
"It’s too much writing and too many gigs. I kind of put art away and focused on music, and I did that for probably 15 years."
But playing around with the embroidery machine soon had him re-thinking his future as he discovered he enjoyed it more than playing music.
"So I left the band and focused full-time on this. I had to give it a shot. After playing music for so long, this feels great."
That was over two years ago.
"It's something that's quite unique. I think people will enjoy it. And it's a cool way to express myself."
It was that work that led to the beginnings of his current project "forget-me-not", a series of six embroidered and painted works inspired by his grandmother Hilda de Silva’s battle with Alzheimer's and dementia. His father’s mother, he describes her as a "lovely grandma" who would let him play the drums in the kitchen.
"As a child perceiving her losing touch with reality, it will always be that, as I picture her at peace now. So I suppose it's a way of me understanding that."
It also made him think about his own journey of re-discovery and understanding how people change throughout their lives.
"You go through changes and then you come out of things and everything's better than how it used to be. Hopefully, in a way."
He chose to focus on a bed of forget-me-not flowers as they progressively wilt, break apart and disappear to "reform fully bloomed again at peace as her memory".
The works start out vibrant blues, greens and oranges and fade out to a nearly transparent white work which represents a memory.
"She’s here but she is not here."
As he got older he also found a lot of his friend’s parents and grandparents were also affected by the disease and he hopes the works will provide comfort to people.
"They're at least at peace now after all the turmoil. That's the way I see my nana."
The process to create the works was a challenge as Sargeant learned to digitise the images. The first took four months.
"The whole thing takes ages, that’s probably why it’s not done. I’ve managed to teach myself how to do it. I use the computer as a canvas."
He has then repeated the shapes, manipulating and copying them throughout the series.
"So there is real progression, these are all the same shapes. It’s really intense."
The computer instructs the embroidery machine to "sew" the pattern with each one taking a month or two to create.
"So it’s been like two years and lots of 10-hour days. I left my job to do it."
"Because that colour, that slight shade of purple, would look better next to this one. And there's no way you can plan that before doing it. It's just like painting. You just need a whole lot of different shades of colours."
That also means a lot of time searching online for threads he can use in the machine.
"I’ll take whatever colour I can get. But then the colours run out and you’ve got to figure it out. But that’s great. It should be like creating anything. It’s a lot of chance, a lot of luck, that’s exciting."
Although he admits that was not his first thought when he ran out of the main colour in one of the works.
"It also feeds into the series, too, because the reality's constantly changing, and you can't predict what's going to happen. But it'll be all right in the end, right? So I just had to keep remembering that during the process of it all."
He also adds layers of paint of any type or ink to the backgrounds to draw out the embroidery.
"I throw paint into it. So it is a painting. I'm just trying to paint with thread."
Having completed the main works and a series of smaller or "sister works" called "Not Forgotten" (which are the only ones for sale), a homage to embracing change in life and memories of passed loved ones, he is happy with how they turned out.
"I didn’t expect it to take this long, but it had to take this long. It took a total of over 5 million stitches to create. I want people to see it and if they can relate that back to their experiences of it and give them a wee bit of comfort, that’s what it was for me."
For Sargeant, working 10-hour days in his studio alone is a big change from days on the road or rehearsing with four other blokes but it turned out it was one he was ready for.
"I think with any change, because that's part of life, I think you get a different perspective on things. It's probably healthier in a weird kind of way without alcohol and partying all the time.
"It feels like I'm really working. I'm using things in my brain that I haven't used in so long, so it's nice to revisit it again."
He has also found he has learnt express himself much better than he did at 18 years old and also has more life experience to draw on. Part of that is using the pseudonym as he prefers his art to stand for itself rather than it being linked to him.
To see:
forget-me-not, uou.label, Maggies Cafe, November 22-December 20.
