With a Twist

A wicked sense of humour is vital to appreciate Simone Anderson’s slightly twisted taste in decor. Take her freakish, two-headed teddy bear, for instance. The stuffed animal stands stiffly on a small chair, matted yellow fur hinting at old age and twin pairs of beady eyes staring blankly into the living room. Simone smiles fondly at the creature, explaining that she was cutting out a normal bear when it suddenly seemed wasteful not to use the extra head-sized piece of fabric.

 

 

The Tauranga artist has duplicated the concept for pregnant girlfriends, who long ago learned not to expect a pair of hand- knitted booties from Simone. She prefers to present newborn babes with soft, beautifully sewn, two-faced teddies or cats.

 

Inside this abode, on Tauranga’s rural outskirts, a second glance always pays. Look again at the family Christmas portrait and see Santa is wearing a pair of false teeth that would sit well on a Tennessee redneck. The pull-apart anatomical brain was a gift for daughter Olive, seven, who shares the house with six-year-old twin siblings Felix and Ivy and dad Mark Podmore.

 

Heart valves and a urinary tract feature in a framed picture on one of the art-crammed walls and, yes, that drawer in her studio really does contain the wings of dead birds. The gold-hued paintings of skulls are Simone’s own work.

 

“Why do I paint skulls? Well, everyone’s got one in their head. I’m definitely not a macabre kind of person – I’m always cheerful. I just like a sense of incongruousness and juxtaposition. It’s part of my sense of humour. I like to challenge the viewer.”

 

Her father has another theory about his daughter’s unfathomable taste. “My dad always says to people, ‘I think she was dropped on her head as a baby’.”

 

 

Presumably, the droll wit is a family trait. After all, that’s her father wearing the scary teeth and Santa suit in the Christmas card portrait on the fridge.

 

Simone says her fascination with anatomy began with illustrations found in an old medical textbook. The passion for religious icons can be traced back to her Catholic grandmother, though it’s a safe bet Grandma never envisaged the Virgin Mary featuring in a painting entitled Mary Had a Little Lamb Chop.

 

 

The artist’s collection of intricate religious ornaments sits alongside clusters of sake cups, Crown Lynn ceramics and paperweights. Simone used to collect royal wedding coffee mugs – friends squabbled over the Fergie and Andrew vessel – but that phase has passed. She has also shed dozens of teapots, tea cosies and kitchen scales, sold on the TradeMe auction website.

 

Her penchant for old books and sculptural hands shows no sign of abating and she is still adding plates and cups to the pretty crockery sets inherited from a great-aunt.

 

“I’m addicted. I actually looked up on the internet last night to see if there’s a name for someone who can’t stop collecting.”

 

She says the self-diagnostic website confirmed her collecting approaches obsession. “I’m on the cusp.” The list of confirmed symptoms includes her attempts to sneak pieces into the house and hide them from her partner.

 

“I’m a magpie at garage sales and op shops. I have to be visually stimulated all the time. I’ll probably be one of those old ladies who, when I die, the kids will be absolutely swearing about having to get rid of all my rubbish. I’ll try not to collect newspapers though. That would be one step too far.”

 

She and her friends delight in buying oddball second-hand gifts for each other and the Anderson-Podmore offspring have also caught the collecting bug, fossicking for treasures at flea markets alongside their mum.

 

At the moment, the children are on the lookout for discarded, hand-knitted dolls. “I always feel sorry for them, they’re always so cheap,” says Simone, pointing to an especially ugly example of the craft. (It cost 20 cents – shame!) “Some poor old nana had knitted that monkey for a kid who probably prefers something from China. I said to the kids, we’ll collect them and make an orphanage for things made by hand. They’ll be more loved by the second owner than the first.”

 

Little wonder she fell for their house on sight 17 years ago. The 1930s farmhouse sat, uninhabited, for months before Simone visited. She used to wander through it without the real estate agent, imagining it lived in and loved.

 

The house has soul, she says. “I believe houses are like onions. They collect layers of history, they remember people. You can sense the feeling in a house.”

 

Mark’s prowess with power tools – he’s a builder – has taken care of kitchen renovations and skylight additions and Simone has stripped back many layers of paint to reveal heart rimu floorboards and rough-sawn art deco-style wooden joinery. The unusually generous, low-slung windows feed her artist’s need for abundant light.

 

 

Her parents’ friends recall parties from earlier decades held in this house at the foot of the Kaimai Ranges. While suburban development has since swallowed much of the surrounding Tauriko farmland, the house remains true to its rural roots. That means one bathroom and shower in the converted outdoor wash house, three bedrooms, a deep verandah and Simone’s studio poked into the covered-in porch room out back. She doesn’t mind that the latter room is “horrendously hot in summer and freezing in winter”, claiming the privation makes her feel like a starving artist.

 

The couple met in London, courtesy of Mark’s barbecue. The pair had flats in a Fulham terrace house and South African-born Mark would fire up the braai in his tiny yard, sending tantalising smells up to his curious neighbour.

 

In New Zealand, Mark relished taking on the overgrown .4ha garden. Having tamed the wilderness with his “panga” (known here as a machete), he built the pizza oven and oversized outdoor dining set that cater for hordes of guests. He also created the rambling “chook city” hen enclosure and planted the orchard.

 

“We have every kind of fruit tree imaginable,” says Simone. “We’re preparing for the apocalypse. Mum and I have been filling the back pantry with peaches and beetroot and all sorts of cucumber relishes. We’d kind of like to be environmentalist hippies but we’re too lazy. We’re not quite ready to cross the line, to part with the luxuries and convenience things.”

 

Though she may not be prepared to give up supermarket shopping, Simone is an enthusiastic gardener who wants her children to appreciate the outdoors. The younger Anderson-Podmores collect eggs, spend their pocket money on plants and play in the tree house Mark erected. They also have their own garden. Naturally, it has a spooky cemetery theme, strung with dismembered doll parts and fake tombstones.

 

“When I was a kid, I was really terrified about dying. But my kids go in there and put flowers everywhere. They won’t be frightened of that sort of thing.”

 

What’s with the paintings of skeletons wearing cable-knit vests?
They’re Knits for the Dead, based on old knitting patterns. How could a skeleton look macabre in an eight-ply cable guernsey? I’ve taken away their faces but they ooze personality!

If you could do one thing differently with the house, what would it be?
To have huge, cavernous wardrobes.

 

Do you have a favourite item?
I have too many to choose one – my treasure box made by my children from bits of flotsam and jetsam then sprayed gold; some of my grandad’s old carpentry tools. Everyone loves the two-headed ted. He went missing and we grieved. Dad found him in his shed a few months later. He’d been on an adventure. We were glad to have him home.

 

My garden is like a takeaway Chinese smorgasbord. All you can eat jammed in together, whether it goes or not, and it still tastes good! I don’t know how people who don’t have gardens survive. I really missed it when I lived in London.