Daily News
WILLING, Avalon
September 06, 2001
Funny things happen on the farm --
just ask Huinga farmer Sue Morton. AVALON
WILLING went to meet Sue, who has an artistic
way of expressing her country sense of humour
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ON the flash notepad bearing the new name and logo of the $12
billion mega dairy company, Sue Morton has already sketched a rough
draft of her latest cartoon.
It's a handful of cows, on the top of a double decker stock truck.
They're clearly enjoying the sights and sounds as they motor through
the countryside. Not a care in the world.
"They're wondering how much the boss has paid for their first-
class trip," says Mrs Morton. "My sense of humour is pretty whacky --
I like the sense of the ridiculous."
The cartoon is the sequel to an earlier work that features two
young cows dreamily gazing over the fence as some of their older
colleagues are loaded on to a truck.
"I wonder where that retirement home is," asks one of the other,
completely oblivious to what is really in store for the old girls.
The Huinga dairy farmer has been painting for almost as long as
she can remember.
"I used to do sketches as a young child. We'd do a lot of cartoons
-- usually it was more copying and then I left it for a while.
"As far as art is concerned, I do all sorts. Watercolours,
acrylics. The subjects are particularly varied and that's helped me
with the cartoons."
Mrs Morton is vice-president of the Stratford Art Committee. She
held a combined exhibition of her work in New Plymouth a few years
ago with two other local artists. They included Joan Fitzpatrick,
with whom she teamed up a few months ago to paint a mural down the
road at the Toko Community Hall.
Her latest foray into cartoons is a recent one. Prompted, she
says, by an advertisement in a dairying magazine seeking someone to
provide a cartoon series. She got down to the final two but the job
went to a Helensville farmer.
Mrs Morton and husband Henry milk 165 cows on the 77ha property
they have owned for the last 11 years. It's a peaceful place, nestled
at the end of a quiet, country road. And it's also her inspiration.
"It's whatever is happening at the time. At the moment it's bobby
calves. I do a lot of work on the farm so I'm thinking about a
cartoon all the time.
"When I'm in the shed my mind is buzzing with ideas -- I try to
think of something that can be made into a joke. And I can see funny
things when others mightn't. I always remember a few years ago we had
to shift the calves out into the paddock. I insisted that instead of
taking them out on the back of the tractor we walk them out. Of
course, they ran around everywhere. I was doubled up with laughter
but Henry couldn't see the funny side."
To date most of her work is black and white sketches. But a full
colour cartoon depicting a bull and young cow on the back of a
motorbike obviously heading for a nocturnal liaison of the bovine
kind reflects her "whacky" sense of humour.
"OK, I'll cover for you, but be back before milking," warns the
cow's friend on the other side of the fence.
"Sometimes cows get in-calf and you wonder how on earth it
happened," says Mrs Morton.
Some cartoons are inspired by real-life incidents like the time
the vet was dragged around the paddock trying to calve a cow.
"I also have the family helping out with ideas. Our youngest son
has a zany sense of humour and he often throws ideas at me."
It was he who suggested the "retirement home-bound" cow cartoon.
"But we couldn't have printed his version. It was pretty
horrific!"
Mrs Morton says while drawing a cartoon comes naturally, writing
the catchline is not quite so easy.
"One word can change the whole thing. So I've found it's not just
about being an artist. That's when I spend a lot of time talking to
the family.
"The other thing is the perspective aspect of getting everything
into a small area. It not a matter of what to draw, it's what to
leave out."
Mrs Morton is a keen fan of other rural cartoonists like Murray
Ball of Footrot Flats fame and Edna's creator Malcolm Evans.
But at this stage she has no plans to develop a central figure in
her cartoons.
"I consider the cows to be the central figures -- how they react
to things rather than using the people side."
Ball last year was quoted as saying that to be successful, a
cartoonist needed to be able to put across ideas, an editor had to
like the work and then the public had to like it.
"So you have three obstacles to overcome and you must overcome
them all. If the editor doesn't like your work it won't get seen and,
if the editor does like it and the public doesn't, you could be a van
Gogh (great but not appreciated in your lifetime)," he said at the
time.
Mrs Morton couldn't agree more.
"I'm just finding that out now as far as getting something
published.
"I want to make people laugh. But humour is a very personal thing
and people tend to laugh at different things. At the moment my
cartoons are more dairy oriented, but I'm sure they'll appeal to all
sorts of people." *
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(C) 2001 Daily News. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
