Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
This Impressive 7 metre tall Christian Nicolson figure (titled; 'In Search of Barebottomland') casts a surreal figure along the Fort Takapuna ridgeline during NZ Sculpture Onshore. Here he stares nonchalantly out to the islands of Rangitoto, Rakino and as far as the Coromandel peninsula.
The exhibition featured 89 works by sculptors many of them perched dramatically along the ridge. The kids were more interested in the works by North Shore primary school students exhibited underground in the old fort tunnels and gun emplacements - something to keep everyone happy.
Works by Dion Hitchens (above) and Charlotte Fisher (bottom). Rangitoto island behind.
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