It’s tough when your wife of 16 years calls time on your marriage, because she wants to live alone. It’s a real hard, nasty, blind-siding blow. When she says she loves you as a friend, but not as a husband anymore. There are no third parties involved and, having known her for 16 years, I know she has her heart and mind set on separating.

I enjoy a good challenge – but this is one I could have done without, especially as I’m about to plan the writing / illustration of a children’s book for the local hospice.

I also have two great children and the most adorable mini Schnauzer in the world.  I’m going to have to sell the family home I’ve worked hard to build and find somewhere else to live, while juggling the children, divorce matters, and a new job.

So, I have challenges and I need a bit of help via this Pozible fundraising:

1. After I’ve sold the family home and found a place to rent, I’ll need to pay to lodge the dog (Zoe, see picture of hairy animal on this page), so I don’t have to part with her. Local landlords in my city will almost always refuse tenants with dogs, and it will be many months before I’m in a position to find and mortgage up a place of my own.

2. I need to buy beds, furniture and a pile of other things that I’ll need for when my children stay with me. If only divorce lawyers gave away free stuff like this when they present their invoice….

3. Buy more art supplies for when I get settled again, and begin writing and illustrating the hospice’s book.

How I’m dealing with it

I guess some people throw plates, swear, key the car, get drunk, or cut up their spouse’s favourite clothes when they announce a separation. That’s too exhausting for me, and I’m not like that anyway. My children don’t need that kind of drama, they’re already going through enough as it is.

Instead, I chose to deal with it by drawing imaginary fish. Every day or so, to give my mind a rest from all of the bad stuff I’m having to go through, I sketch out and colour up an imaginary fish. My aim is to do 100 of them (nearly half done already), with an informal title of “100 Fish of Separation”.  

There are newspaper fish being chased by French fry fish and lemonfish, a peacock fish, and of course, breaking-hearts fish (that’s the first in the series). Number 100 will be a peaceful-sun-rising fish. Some are just plain weird, such as the robot fish and the fish-net stocking fish. You’ll see a few of the ones I’ve done on this page!

When the 100 are all done and lovingly edited on my computer, I’ll arrange them neatly to fill an A2 poster, and get a limited run printed in full, glorious colour on good quality poster paper. I won't use the title "100 Fish of Separation" on the poster, as many people will just want a happy poster of quirky fish, not necessarily a reminder of separation!

The Campaign – 100 Fish of Separation

That’s where this Pozible campaign comes in. 

A simple pledge, whatever amount, is received with heartfelt thanks.

For those who wish to and can contribute more, there are posters available with extra features as rewards, such as autographs, fish sponsoring, and fish design. There will only a 100 posters printed total, across all rewards. The reward cost includes printing, packing, and postage. I must point out that because I’m in New Zealand ( a few hours north of the penguins in Antarctica), a fair bit of the money pledged for the rewards – especially the lesser value ones – is used in postage and printing. For example, about 60% of a $30 reward going to the USA is used in the printing, postage, packing, and other fees. It’s a necessary cost, but I felt I should make you aware of that. In the higher value rewards, it runs at about 45% and down to 30% at the top.

I’ll be posting updates a couple of times a week with some samples of the new fish; I’ve set up a blog: https://100fishblog.wordpress.com/ . If you’d like to see how it’s all going, please feel free to subscribe to keep in touch. You can also post comments here in Pozible-land.

I would really appreciate any help you can give – be it in the form of a pledge, choosing a reward, or simply forwarding the fundraising link to anyone you know who has been through a separation and / or might love quirky fish illustrations! Please spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, your blog, website, even your community notice-board. :-)

The campaign will run for six weeks, and if we hit the target, I’ll arrange the printing and despatch of rewards (plus thank-you notes) within a couple of weeks thereafter.

Thanks!

Nigel (and children, and Zoe)