Ann Shelton in Home Style magazine

“It all started back in the mid-1970s, when Ann, then aged about seven, was first encouraged by her mother to enter flower-arranging competitions in the Timaru Horticultural Society Show.”

It was the usual stuff to start with — you know, sand saucers, that kind of thing,” she says. “I won some prizes and gradually moved through the floral art sections of the show. Mum tells me I did do some ikebana-style entries, which she taught me the principles of from a book.”

Later, when Ann’s side hustle as a rampant op-shopper was in full swing, she began to collect Ikebana International magazines — widely read publications that were being discarded after the post-war craze for Japanese flower arranging had begun to wane in New Zealand. “I carried them from one grotty flat to the next, thinking I’d eventually make use of them,” says Ann.

“The bright colour fields that formed the backgrounds of the photos of arrangements in the magazine have always been in my works, from Redeye to Jane Says. I guess that’s where they came from.”

Text By Peter Shaw.