On My Wall, Kōanga Spring 2023

The artist Mike Worrall lived, as my husband Pat and I did, on Waiheke Island in the seventies. We were – and still are – good friends. By the early eighties we had moved to Northland and had some money to spare. Mike was a talented, impoverished artist. Pat’s idea: we would commission a portrait.

It took Mike maybe three weeks. He stayed with us, practised pool in our garage, and painted – noble, handsome Pat and crabby Sue. I objected; that woman wasn’t me. Mike was displeased. He took the painting home with him and painted out the background, obliterating his signature. He refused to change the woman’s expression: “An artist must remain true to his vision.” A few years later, Mike turned up with a highly flattering portrait of me – a gift, signed and dated. In this house, which we hope is our last house, that picture hangs in our passage and the couple portrait in our bedroom (it seemed to best belong there).

The older I got, the more I seemed to look like the crabby version. Then I reached the stage of wishing I looked more like her. After some forty years, the portrait is so familiar we rarely notice it – though it surprises us both that the couple are still together. “What does it make you think?” I asked Pat. “Mike,” he said at once. “Mike and our friendship.”

Sue McCauley
Waitahora Valley, Tararua