Sarah Jane Parton

I live in Wellington, New Zealand.

At the moment I'm studying towards a Masters in Creative Writing at Victoria University. Whenever I tell people that they say, "Oh, you mean the Bill Manhire course?" and I say "Yes, I mean the Bill Manhire course."

I'm in a band called Fantasing. I play the recorder and sometimes the tambourine and sing ironically, because that is the only way I can sing. My boyfriend's in a real band, but that's another web page.

I curate the visual art at a festival called Camp A Low Hum.

I have directed a few music videos and fancy myself as a bit of a director, one day.

And I make art. Here's something I wrote this year (while I'm being a writer) about being an artist:

I waited for someone to attach the microphone to my collar. The radio bit was on my lap, the cord hidden behind my lapel. The interviewer was wearing a mask of make-up. Her foundation was applied so thickly that when she accidentally rubbed some off on her sleeve no bare skin was revealed, only more make up. I said Can I just take my jacket off? But they didn't have much time and she said No it's okay leave it on. At the time I was going for a style where I would wear a hoodie under a blazer. That was my key look. I always wore a lot of clothes because I was always cold. But I wasn't cold under the lights – I was hot and sweating and my face was going red. I never wore make up, and it only occurred to me how terrible I was going to look when the camera operator said Rolling. Then they said Action, and the interviewer smiled at me with her biggest white teeth bronze foundation skin pink glossy lips smile and said,

So, what's your art about?

I ran away.

Did I mention we were in a gallery? I didn't run very far, and soon I came back and we did the interview and it aired on the 6 o'clock news and you can probably find it in some archive. It's really very boring. I look kind of grey and I think I giggle and talk too fast, which is hardly surprising. The show was of art made by artists who could be or already are very important. The angle was that I was the youngest artist in the show, which isn't much of an angle. The paper ran with that too, and their photographer took a photo of me in front of my art which was then cropped so tightly that it was just a massive photo of my face. I didn't like it. My last name was misspelt in the accompanying article.