The changing faces of Shona Laing. Photos / Supplied
The changing faces of Shona Laing. Photos / Supplied
Shona Laing felt an intense need to, quite literally, get her life in order and create a timeline of her career.
50 Years Later is a journey through the Waikino resident's lifetime of music, and will be on display at Waihi Arts Centre and Museum at the end of the month.
The idea came after a busy 2019 with gigs and new material recorded.
''I felt snowed under by 'clutter', actually and metaphysically, and had a need to 'get my life in order'.''
The lockdown of 2020 provided time for quiet consideration and Laing decided to present her years in music pictorially. She organised her extensive memorabilia and gathered some from her mother and sister.
The exhibition follows Laing from the early 1970s when she was thrust into the limelight as a 17-year-old schoolgirl coming runner-up on television talent show New Faces with song 1905.
''Most of the intense times in my career after the early 70s happened overseas. The Not a Kennedy success was generated out of Australia and the notoriety that followed was because of the United States interest.''
A still from Not a Kennedy video.
The exhibition includes hanging banners interspersed with record covers, magazine articles including a 1973 Listener and a Royal Command Performance programme from the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch.
There's many newspaper clippings, sheet music, awards, tour books, posters, faxes and photocopies of United States and Australian press.
Photos are mostly of studio sessions showcasing her changing styles as well as some gig and tour shots.
Laing is an artist and includes some of her paintings.
''I call them songs on canvas.
''Some of my fave things include two awards from Japan, The Yamaha Tokyo International Song Festival. It was my first journey outside of New Zealand, humbling culture shock (and Hong Kong in those days … wow) and the awards themselves are the most beautiful silver discs in red satin lined boxes. They felt very special.
''I kept a Newsweek Cover from 1971 showing an American soldier wearing crossed machine gun magazines and a Ban The Bomb sign around his neck shining between them. The headline read 'Our troubled army in Vietnam'. The actual page is a part of the first of a number of banners that sets the scene, New Faces TV show 1972 until I left for Britain in April 1975.''
A more recent photo of Shona Laing.
There's the tour book that shows her first gig was in the courtyard between the towers of the World Trade Centre.
Laing says the process of putting the exhibition together has been really enjoyable, extensive and has left her with a ''very satisfying sense of perspective''.
