Toilet Art at Kawakawa

Some people have flowers and bushes and even trees in their garden.  Some people have lawns.  Some have garden gnomes.  Some have whimsically amusing toilets.  'Though not, I suspect, very many.  So these may have  rarity value.   May have......

Trivia

Toscany Memories - Mark Arian

Which city do Bill Bryson (author) and Mark Arian (Realistic Romantic Artist) and Ronald Reagan (Former Disc Jockey, Actor and US President) have in common?

It just so happens that I came across Mark Arian on Bas van Houwelingen's website Reading and Art this evening.  The fact that he was born in Des Moines wasn't his fault.  

Any more than it was the fault of Bill Bryson whose dry sense of humour has amused me since I first read The Lost Continent and Neither Here nor There many years ago.  I have subsequently read many of his books although there are still some outstanding.

Ronald Reagan on the other hand presumably went to Des Moines of his own volition to work for RadioDJ as a disc jockey. 

I think that I decided that I would read every word that Bill Bryson wrote when I read the first line of The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America. "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." He went on  "When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a girl called Bobbie and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbie and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever." He was equally unsparing about the UK in Notes from a Small Country.  And it was from Down Under that learned that until 1957 (I think) it was still legal to shoot Aborigines in Australia.

Graffiti or Art?

What do you think?

Thankful Thursday

Dear CCC

You are a talented young lady.  Your art is not what I have always thought of as conventional art.  Some of it is probably art that I would have walked past with little thought other than possibly to pass a quick comment on how beautiful a piece might be.  Last year when you took me to see your work at the graduation exhibition you explained a great deal about your work and the thought processes behind it - some of which we had already discussed.  You also told me a little about some of the other artists and their work.

This year you are producing more work which I admire for its sheer beauty but which I am also beginning, with your help, to understand.  I am looking forward to seeing it at the exhibition in May. 

Yesterday you blogged the statement by Toni Morrison "At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it.  It is enough. "  

Now Toni Morrison is, I understand, one of the USA's distinguished novelists as well as being an editor and professor.  I confess I'd not heard of her.  So her words should presumably be given some weight and credence.  I'm not sure that I agree with her.  However I'm pretty sure that there is enough debatable material in those words for several doctoral theses.  I may well come back to them.

I want to tell you how thankful I am that that you share your knowledge and thoughts and your art with me (and many others of course).  

Thank you dear CCC for making me think.

Yours gratefully

Crazy Uncle  Graham

A Decorated Bridge

This bridge in the centre of Whangarei has been completely painted with various New Zealand icons and some poetry and has, so far at least, remained tag-free.  I wonder if this says something about providing pleasant environments.

The Hills of Hawkes Bay

Ever since I saw Katherine's posting of her interpretation of a Hawkes Bay landscape I've been intending to do my own photographic interpretation because her painting was exactly as I see the landscape.  So today I spent the afternoon climbing the hill at the Sugar Loaf Reserve in nearby Taradale and then went to Te Mata Peak in Havelock North.  There is one small caveat:  the hills this year are much greener than they often are - there's been a lot of rain in the Bay this summer.

Sugar Loaf Reserve covered in wild thyme.  Napier and Bluff Hill in the background.

The wild thyme was bee-laden and the hum was reminiscent of hot summer days.

Looking towards the Kawaka Ranges from the top of the Reserve.

Looking towards the Ranges.

From the top of Te Mata Peak looking South and West towards the central Ranges in the middle of the Island.

The Hawkes Bay Hills

And again

And the faithful Handbag waits for me in the shade.

It Just Took My Fancy

Wendy and I had coffee at The Starving Artist Café in Napier's Emerson Street on Tuesday.  There were several paintings on view which took our fancy but one of them spoke to me in quite a strong voice and said "You are attracted to me and I will hang on your wall in Scotland one day."  The flowing lines were, I had to admit, very attractive and the New Zealand Flax combined with the classical Art Deco was a very tempting combination.  I looked more closely and the face had a curious quality which puzzled me and drew me to it.  I resisted temptation.  Then.  But all that night I thought about it.  Next day I wandered back into the café and the owner said to me "Ah.  So you've come back for it have you?"  Nothing escapes her, obviously.  And now it is hanging in its temporary home above my bed before it begins its journey to Scotland.

The picture is called Flowing Flax and is by Vida Gardiner from Tauranga.

It's a Small World

Last September CJ, Jo and I went to Carr Farm and in a gift shop there saw some metal artworks.  I had never seen them before and wsa very taken with them and bought one which now sits in my Eagleton home on the outside of the bathroom door.  CJ was very taken with one particular one of some fish - it's the last one on his post (see Carr Farm above).   When I was in Nautical Trenz in Whangarei Town Basin last weekend I saw exactly the same fish artwork that CJ had fallen in love with.  So there you are.  Travel from one side of the globe to the opposite and you can buy exactly the same unusual piece of artwork - made somewhere in between no doubt.  It is a very small world these days.

The Sun Has Got His Hat On

Going back to Friday afternoon in Northland and our trip down the Whangarei Heads  we came across this delightful shelter at the waterside.  Well actually the shelter was pretty ordinary but, as is so often the case in New Zealand, it was decorated splendidly.

 

Dancing Silhouettes

These are very reminiscent of the figures in Glasgow that Anna showed me and about which I blogged in Eagleton Notes as Art on the Wall.  I thought that the motion portrayed by the silhouettes was very clever and expressive.  I loved them.

 

 

Surely You Prefer These

This is an electricity Sub-Station in Gisborne. Surely, Marcel, despite your comments on previous postings of wall art, you must prefer this to some of the drab and unappealing buildings that are sub-stations in the UK.

Wall Paintings: Hastings

The more I see wall paintings all over the place in New Zealand the more I want to photograph them for posterity. I think they are wonderful (and hope they don't put Marcel off enjoying the Blog). See Ashurst Wall Paintings.

A Pottery Figurine

Napier has a Pottery Club. It is just by the Croquet Club (and the Bridge Club and the Bowling Club and the Rugby Club etc etc - Napier has at least one Club for everything you can think of) but I've never popped in to say 'Hello'. Possibly because I've always thought that I might be tempted to renew my acquaintance with Pottery. In a funny sort of way I'd like to do it without it having to survive as a business. Anyway, I digress. We also have a Garden Centre called Palmers. They have a section devoted to the Pottery Club's results. I was in there a few days ago and saw the above figurine entitled 'Dutch Girl'. No surprise there then. It has a simplicity; almost a crude simplicity. Yet the attitude of coyness captured is, I think, charming. So, for the vast cost of $6 (£2.20) I acquired it. It was sitting on the table when Wendy popped down last night and she was taken aback because when she was at School she made an almost identical figure. So now my curiosity needs to find out who made the figure and a visit to the Napier Pottery Club will take place.

Wall Paintings: Ashurst

Ashurst is a small town on the Western side of the Manawatu Gorge. The attached wall paintings are on the buildings used for the large sports fields and the viewing platform for the windfarms in the Ranges which the Gorge bisects or separates.

Croquet in Gisborne

Yesterday (Sunday) I arived in Gisborne. After a quick lunch I found myself on the croquet lawns. They turned out to be 'interesting' lawns and I was struggling. I decided that the only solution was to alter my game. So I did. What a difference. When Mike and I arrived home last night I kept wondering if it was a fluke. Today I had four games against Mike. I used the new stroke and made almost every hoop I attempted. The fact that Mike managed to beat me in all four games was a reflection of his inspired play rather than of my failings. I was well pleased.

OK so that was the boring bit. But you, dear reader (or readers if, by any chance there is more than one of you) are really interested in the fact that the Clubhouse is one of the many buildings in New Zealand adorned with paintings by a local artist.

Art on The Beach

When we were at Ahuriri Beach recently the children made a rock stack. They are a popular form of art in this Country.

A Bridge At Waipawa

Like very many bridges in New Zealand this railway bridge at Waipawa spans a much greater area than the river generally covers. As readers of this and the blog of my last stay will know in New Zealand a lot of buildings are painted with pictures and designs. I cannot before, however, recall seeing a bridge so enthusiastically decorated.