Turning Pointe

Ballet might seem an unlikely path to recovery for someone with anorexia. But for one Dunedin woman, dancing gave her not just one, but two artistic outlets that have changed her life

- Trudie Mcconnochie

There’s so much in Anneke Nahkies’ life that she can’t control. First, the ever-present fear that she will plunge back into the grips of the eating disorder that has disabled her life for almost two decades – a roaring anxiety that, once it sinks its teeth in, can imprison her in her home. Then there’s the disquieting uncertainty of how people will respond to her art. But one thing she knows for sure is that when she’s painting intricate designs on pointe shoes, she’s free.

For more than a year the 36-year-old Dunedin woman has been using art to bring a new lease of life to worn-out pointe shoes. Her increasingly popular Instagram and Facebook pages feature exquisitely decorated shoes ranging from scenes of the Sydney skyline at sunset to Banksy’s famed girl-with-a-heart-balloon artwork. One pair is painstakingly encrusted with diamantes. Another is boldly embellished with paper flowers against a sunny yellow backdrop. All are accompanied by no-holds-barred captions giving insight into her recovery from anorexia, complex posttraumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

Anneke’s creative command of such small and often-cumbersome canvases is extraordinary. But you don’t need an appreciation  for art to be struck by the beauty of how a woman so practised in torturing her body is tenderly restoring life to objects that would otherwise be cast aside.

“I have always been fairly creative and I found art a useful thing to do when my mental health was not great, just because it uses a different part of my brain – it’s a natural thing for me to do and I don’t need to understand or think too much about it,” she says.