Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson 

Groundwork came to Devonport Library on Tuesday 15 April, five days after its launch in Wellington. Catherine and her family travelled to Auckland for the event, as did Jo Elliott, Senior Project Editor at Te Papa Press. About 70 people filled the library to welcome Emily Harris into the light again.

We were warmly hosted for the evening by the Devonport Library Associates, whose chairperson Lynn Dawson was organiser and MC. Paradox Books was on hand to sell copies of Groundwork and there was a brisk trade around the signing table as library associates, friends and family lined up with their books.  

Auckland-based Harris descendants and members of Team Emily were in our midst. 

Sisters Brenda Briant and Heather Jones, great-great-nieces of Emily, brought art work and their families to the library. 

Brenda, herself an artist, examined the display of Emily’s hand-coloured books, a watercolour and a large oil painting with professional interest. Later she presented Michele with a framed drawing of her own featuring a woman sketching under a tree. The inscription on the reverse leaves open the possibility that the sketcher is Emily or a self-portrait of her descendant.  With Brenda was daughter Ariane, son Josca and Josca’s young son Pippin.  

Heather and her daughter Caroline brought their Emily Harris watercolour for display alongside a selection of our hand-coloured sets of New Zealand Flowers, Berries and Ferns. Dated 1916, it is one of three late watercolours still with family members. In one of her signature moves, Emily drapes a sundew tentacle around the hand-drawn border, which has the effect of bringing the viewer into her painting. Its delicate arrangement of pōhutukawa, and ferns beautifully complemented Emily’s hand-coloured books, which were laid out in front. 

Brianna Vincent and her mother Sheena brought Emily’s large framed oil of yellow kōwhai and bellbirds for display on a sturdy easel, the first time we have been able to see the painting for ourselves. Founding Team Emily member Ricci van Elburg and her daughter Ingeborg were in the front row. April Geers and Anna Boswell flew in from Christchurch and London respectively. PhD researcher Victoria Adams, who supplied us with crucial information about Walter Crane and Emily Harris exhibits at the 1906 International Exhibition in Christchurch, was also present.    

Jo Elliott introduced our presentation and we thanked her and Te Papa Press for creating such a luscious publication. We presented a talk with slides customised for our Devonport audience. ‘She is the female speck in the history of texts. And she is the scout of its presence: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris’ concluded with acknowledgements to the Harris descendants and Team Emily. 

Then Ariane Craig-Smith stepped forward and read an excerpt from Emily’s diary about the camping trip she made to the lower slopes of Taranaki Mounga in January 1890. The reading brought the distinctive voice of Ariane’s great-great-great-aunt into the room and we were instantly transported in time and space:   

When first we entered the forest the trees were gigantic great pines & ratas, their trunks & limbs thickly covered with creepers and pendant ferns, while here & there the rata blossoms showed crimson against the sky.

We walked our horses in single file keeping a sharp lookout that our saddle bags did not bang too often against the trunks of trees or our heads knock against the overhanging branches.

Every now & then by a step or two the pathway ascended, and the character of the forest seemed to change. The larger forest trees were less frequent, the supplejacks disappeared, ferns were still plentiful, the trees were less in height, their trunks & branches gnarled & twisted into the most fantastic shapes. Then as we neared our camping ground the branches of the trees were draped with greenish grey moss, which gave the forest a most weird appearance, as if the whole place had been dipped into the depths of the sea & had come up covered with seaweed.

Where we camped a few trees had been cut down, & through the opening the snowy summit of Mt Egmont was visible. […] The next day we went wandering about in twos & threes, some for water which was a long way off & some to spy out the land. Three of us followed the line until we found Mr C. and Mr P. working away to improve the pathway. The trees had grown less & less in height until at length it ceased to be forest and we found the long slope of the mountain covered with dense scrub through which a pathway had been cut. Many of the shrubs were in flower. As we wandered on, the scrub became smaller & a change to grass & alpine plants.

Before us rose the mountain, dark rock & snow, & floating above & around it the light, fleecy clouds. Looking back we gazed over a sea of forest, here & there in the distance little islands of cultivation with blue curling smoke. Stratford, Ngaire, Inglewood & others, on the left mountain ranges, and far away the deep blue sea & sky. At our feet the dwarfed forest looked white with the blossom of the towai tree. 

It was a good night. Catherine and her family were farewelled outside the library and flew home next day just ahead of Cyclone Tam. The Devonportions stayed up talking past midnight, still buzzing with the relief of having completed two book launches in a single week. Everyone slept soundly.