Cheap talent

Since 2020, the Blackwell Press has produced 12 incredible A2 sized collectable prints featuring scenes from our favourite Wairarapa locations like this one of Mr Blackwell providing a local bicycle courier delivery service for his bookshop wife which he hasn't yet collected a paycheck for.

Q: "Mr Blackwell, why do you appear in many pieces of your own artwork. Do you have an obsession with seeing yourself in media like a certain ex president of a large democracy to the north east of New Zealand?"

AB: "No, it's more to do with budget. I am exceedingly cheap and I therefore have no interest in paying others to model for these photo sessions. It's bad enough having to pay Mike Heydon to take the photos these artworks are based on."

Q: "Mr Blackwell, based on your legendary baked goods consumption levels, being a bicycle courier is obviously necessary to keep you from exceeding the capacity of your vest. Do you have any plans to expand the range of goods you are willing to deliver? I'm thinking sausages from the Greytown Butcher or even coffee from The Offering?"

AB: "Right now, Mrs Blackwell requires a Sub15 minute response time from me and with her online store open 24/7, some of our local Greytown customers seem to delight in setting their alarms for 2:15am and placing an online order for some bookmarks they seem to need right then and there. So by the time I have dressed, picked up the order and delivered it by 2:29am, they accuse me of being an intruder and set their shih tzu on me. So, no. I can't deliver sausages."

Q: "Mr Blackwell, why do you insist on telling such long and irrelevant stories about your tedious life in Greytown to an audience who neither cares nor is remotely interested in them?"

AB: "I actually just write these stories for my beautiful wife. If she thinks they have any humour value, I am rewarded with a vast array of fruit pies, crumbles and cobblers. Pies have become very important to me in my middle aged years. I like them lightly warmed with a heavy, generous dollop of whipped cream and a ... hello? Where did you go? ..."

The interviewer has left the building.

We have a full range of limited edition A2 Wairarapa artworks by Paul Rees, to remember your visit to Greytown by. Prints are supplied unframed.