The first in this year's Christmas snapshots!
I was out photographing yesterday and just happened to arrive at City Mall at precisely the right moment as Christchurch sculptor, Neil Dawson and a team of orange-jacketed, hard-hatted workers were raising Neil's latest public sculpture, Sky Lens above the mall.
Cranes and sculpture coming together in one happy event and intricate patterns etched against the grey, broody sky - I couldn't have been happier.
The $140,000 laser-cut, aluminium work measures six metres across and weighs in at 160kg. Unfortunately for Neil and his installation team, the notorious Canterbury nor'west wind was gusting through the mall but they took the conditions in their stride and everything appeared to go to plan.
The sculpture features 'a series of interlocking paper darts' and has evolved out of a series of small domed wall works that Dawson exhibited around five years ago. "It usually takes about five years for the interior works to make it outside," he says, pausing to shout instructions to the crane driver. Despite an outwardly calm facade and regular chats with passersby, Neil says the installation of his giant works is by far the most stressful part of the process. This in fact, was the second attempt to get the work installed above the revamped City Mall.
I sat and watched proceedings for quite some time and was greatly amused by the conversations going on around me. A surprising number of people seemed to think it was a giant Christmas decoration being put in place for the festive season. When I mentioned that to Neil he just sighed. "Oh we've had it all," he laughed. "The guy from a nearby Chinese takeaway place came out and said he was going to call it The Leaky Wok; and someone else told me it looked like a giant IUD." For my part, I think it's great and I look forward to seeing it at night with the coloured spotlights illuminating the intricate matrix of shapes. I think it's a perfect companion for Neil's Chalice, just a street away in Cathedral Square. If you click on Neil's name in the label line below, you'll see other Dawson sculptures around New Zealand that I've written about previously.
I can never go past a good reflection - nor a good crane for that matter. So when the two are combined a photo is inevitable. I had a great time in Auckland in April snapping these images. The top one is a reflection of an apartment block on office windows in Greyts Avenue; the bottome two? Can't be sure but I think I may have taken them on the Auckland Art Gallery construction site. 
Kaiapoi
Okains Bay, Banks Peninsular
I grew up with a mother who was obsessed by caravans. She loved them and dreamed of owning one. She/we never did own a caravan – we never even holidayed in one; and it was not until I was much older, an adult myself, that I realised how lucky I was to have even known something of my mother’s dreams. Without wanting to digress too much, I think we too often fail to see our mothers (and fathers) as ‘real’ people with ordinary ambitions, ordinary desires and ordinary dreams – as fallible human beings with their own sets of yearnings that go way beyond our childhood perceptions of them as providers of food, warmth, love, security comfort and protection.
Kaikoura
Wanaka
So for me, caravans are thoroughly entwined with memories of my now late-mother. I cannot see one without thinking of her, without considering how she may have felt about never realising that particular dream. But I take heart in the fact that for many, the caravan is as deeply entrenched in the New Zealand holiday psyche as the seaside bach is. It is an iconic marker of summer, beaches, holidays, long hot evenings and the annual laying down of memories with friends and family.
Le Bons Bay Garden 
Okains Bay, Banks Peninsular
Here in New Zealand, they appear to have been superceded – more’s the pity – by the slicker, more convenient camper van. You don’t see nearly as many caravans on the roads these days; although they do still have their place as permanent fixtures in coastal settlements and around the shores of our lakes. I even found one in a garden last week – now used as a sleep-out for visitors; and I’ve photographed dozens of them pulled up and marooned behind farm sheds and in back yards. But there are the diehard fans, who will never give up on their caravans – they haul them for hundreds of miles to their favourite holiday spot and happily spend weeks squeezed within the tight confines with simple comforts. And I recently read of a group of 30-somethings who had bought old caravans and restored them for their own use. Maybe they grew up with a caravan-owning mother and know that there is much to be said for the simple, ‘nomadic’ holiday that ends up on a near-perfect strip of New Zealand’s coastline.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I very much like Christchurch Art Gallery’s Outer Spaces programme on the Worcester Street side of the gallery exterior; I just wish they’d change it more often. That’s possibly an unfair comment given that they’ve only just raised the second work in the series but it did seem like the first one was up there for ever (and almost ever). I loved it but I was ready for the second work weeks ago. But enough of the nit-picking. Now we have this massive image by New Zealand photographer, Fiona Pardington ‘The Prow of the Charlotte Jane (2009).’ There are plenty of other photographs by other photographers that have elicited a far greater emotional response from me but I do enjoy the story behind this work – and the undeniable photographic skill involved in its production. It’s a photograph of a glass model of the Charlotte Jane – one of those famous & much-touted first four ships that brought some of the first settlers to Christchurch in 1850. Made by Christchurch glass blower, John Rowe (a descendant of one of those first passengers), the glass model (his second) is now in the Canterbury Museum collection. A second smaller version of this work has recently been acquired for the gallery’s permanent collection and it makes an eerie, velvety statement in the new central hall of the revamped permanent collection gallery spaces – new, light, airy galleries that, it must be said, are a vast improvement over the old burgundy rabbit’s warren that existed before. www.christchurchgallery.org.nz 
Kaiapoi is a small rural service town just 10-15 minutes’ drive north of Christchurch – depending on how fast you cross the Waimakariri River to get there. When I was a kid growing up in the North Island, all Kaiapoi meant to me was a label inside woollen garments and on blankets. The town was well known for the woollen mill run by the Kaiapoi Woollen Manufacturing Company, which produced a wide range of products that can still be found all over the world. But I digress… I went to Kaiapoi yesterday for the annual Kaiapoi River Carnival, Street Market and Santa Parade – an all-day affair that also included speed boat and rescue demonstrations and dragon boat racing on the Kaiapoi River, which runs right through the heart of the town.
I got there an hour after the start and the whole town was packed. I’d never seen so many people there. In all fairness to Kaiapoi, although it began life as a rural service centre, it is now virtually a satellite town/suburb of Christchurch. It’s a domicile for many who work in the city and the population (2006) sits around 10,200 with a further 1,700 in the surrounding district. That represents a growth rate of 11% over the previous five years and by now, in 2009, I’d say it’s grown even more. Large new subdivisions are sprouting up all around the perimeter.
For all that growth, there is still a very real sense of stepping back in time when you hit Kaiapoi. The buildings are old and wobbly (a few are restored), the shop window displays are definitely archaic and the town’s leading department store, Blackwells, was opened in 1871 and hasn’t changed much since. I went into Blackwells yesterday and smiled at the shambolic array of goods – fishing rods nestled up against stands of women’s hats, scarves and bags for instance. The whole place had an air of the 1950s about it. But none of the locals seemed to mind, so why should I? In many ways, it’s nice to know that rampant slick commercialism hasn’t taken over the entire world….Kaiapoi is still waiting.
As for the Christmas Parade and carnival festivities….well….what can I say? I spent the whole day switching between amusement, surprise, nostalgia and amazement. In short – a great day out. Unlike many of the much more sophisticated city Santa parades, this one had all the hallmarks of community do-it-yourself spirit. The all-day street market set the mood. The main street was closed off and became a busy marketplace complete with a two-man band belting out all the oldies from ‘Achey Breakey Heart’ and ‘Ten Guitars’ to ‘Dancing Queen.’ There were preserve and plant stands, hot-dogs, candy floss, lucky dips, merry-go-rounds, Scottish dancers, clowns, brass bands, stilt-walkers and a million hideous shopping opportunities. The local tavern overlooking the river did a roaring trade; mobile espresso vans faced endless queues and food stalls included unlikely treats like haggis on a stick and black pudding butties; and people gathered on the riverbanks to watch wood choppers and practising rowers – and the odd jet boat and inflatable rescue demonstration.
And then came the Santa parade! It’s years since I went to a Santa parade so maybe I’m a little out of touch but I couldn’t help thinking it would have been hard to come up with a more disparate and unlikely gathering of parade participants than Kaiapoi’s effort yesterday. The truly bizarre collection of included everything from tractors and soliciting politicians to horsemen, Vikings, angels, hotrods, vintage trucks, ponies, a trailer load of Christmas fairies, fire engines, boy scouts, ambulances, school floats and bands on the back of trucks – oh and of course the Scottish bagpipes and knee-kicking dancers. It’s as if every single club and organisation in town decided to have a crack at it. Quite frankly the floats were dreadful in terms of decoration and design but it didn’t seem to matter a bit. Everyone was happy, Santa waved, ladies threw sweets and glitter, the stilt walkers wobbled about and bunches of balloons floated through the air. Totally crazy and much to my surprise, I loved every minute of it.
Two Country Churchesxxx.jpg)
One of My Favourite Recent Bird Photographs.jpg)
Give me cute work books, paper cut-outs and little dishes of coloured pigment and I’m as happy as a sand-boy. Christchurch Art Gallery seems to know this because they keep staging these great colour-themed exhibitions - supposedly for “a younger audience” – that are right up my alley. I may have finally found my level in the art world. They started with red, then white and now they’re on to blue – hence Blue Planet, a terrific, vibrant show that draws works in blue from the gallery collection, with additional loans from other public and private collections. The image above – Gavin Hipkins Romance: New York (Jellyfish) 2006. C-type print. Private Collection, Christchurch, Reproduced courtesy of the artist, Hamish McKay Gallery and Starkwhite – makes a memorable statement at the entrance to the exhibition.
Once inside the gallery, there is much to attract the eye – everything from the work book (for kids), making up the cardboard snow crystals (also for kids – I guess) and a wildly diverse array of sculptures, paintings, photographs and prints. I particularly loved Peter Madden’s ‘Small World View,’ an imagined alien museum display – a gorgeous gathering of colourful madness that reminded me of the chaotic insides of my own head. Rohan Wealleans ‘Blue Brain’ is also sure to please and intrigue. The work illustrated above is: Reuben Paterson A Shadow Born from Three Dreams 2008-09. Glitter and acrylic on canvas. Private collection, Christchurch. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz 
And so to Week 6 of this marvellous little series Homage to Max Ernst, a group of works by one of New Zealand's leading printmakers, based loosely on the 1933 Max Ernst book Une Semaine de Bonte (a week of kindness). 
Apartment. Ahuriri, Napier
House details,Christchurch
I like Murcutt’s Australian work very much. It has a sense of place about it that is singularly appropriate given the fact that like New Zealand, the Australian rural landscape is dotted with practical agricultural examples of the use of corrugated iron that goes back decades. Like the French architect, Pierre Chareau, Murcutt has discovered beauty in apparent banality. He has turned out attention to the ordinary, to the things we walk passed every day without ever really seeing them. He has toyed with materiality, incorporating the iron’s linear aspect into his designs; and he has paid homage to simple things like the sound of rain on tin roofs that we all love so much.
House, Lincoln, Canterbury
House, Kaiapoi, Canterbury
In New Zealand, a good many architects have used corrugated iron in the last ten years – some more successfully than others it must be said. I wonder sometimes, just when corrugated iron stops being a homage to rural vernacular and slips into the realms of pastiche, gimmickry and token gesture. The fact that it is light, strong, versatile and economic – all the qualities that have guaranteed its place on any good working farm – may also have seen it become ‘the cheap solution.’ I refer especially to inner city apartment blocks where sheets of corrugated iron scream loudly of ill-conceived design ideas and a lowering of material costs.
Apartments, Christchurch
But I must not become sarcastic. There are also plenty of good examples of the sensitive, well-considered use of corrugated iron in modern architecture. They can be hard to find I’ll admit – I certainly never found anything riveting when I went in search of good domestic examples to photograph here in Christchurch. But maybe when the trendy, fashionable aspect of its use has waned, we’ll see serious architects taking this cultural icon and making poetry in buildings that celebrate the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
