Welcome to Auckland’s original ‘Municipal Destructor’. Everyone, like me, know it as Victoria Park Market – a super popular open air market through the 80's to 2000's – a great place to buy your crystals and tie-dies etc! I've always known that it was originally the city rubbish dump – when the city was waaaay smaller). There is more to the story, of course. It was originally created in reaction to a bubonic plague scare in Sydney. For sanitary reasons it was built to burn Auckland’s rubbish and waste while using the heat generated to provide electricity to power the city. Sounds pretty clever eh, and I guess we were plague free. However, we must have been breathing some seriously toxic smoke fumes! That 38 metre tall chimney must have helped a little but don't forget all the horse manure and night carts, they were definitely smellier times. The municipal destructor is now a gentrified place that's home to restaurants and businesses, like the superb Milenta restau...
Here is a flashback to the days where I felt the need to draw absolutely everythiiiiing.
This is maximalism sketching at its absolute max, and Swashbucklers on Auckland's waterfront is the best place I know to do that. Packed with maritime memorabilia, can you spot the puffer fish? The maps and charts rolled up and stored in the rafters, the bomb, ships bell and most obvious, the sailing ship figurehead?
My 2019 sketch above ended up 600mm in width and I recall adding colour for an hour or so at home after the live drawing session in the bar, it was too much to complete in a 3 hour Urban Sketchers Auckland event.
This weekend we visited again, with 40+ sketchers turning up to have a go at sketching their version. Here are my 2 sketches below, much smaller and simpler this time, complete with Luka's comment while serving at the bar... 'That'll be 15 swandoolies mate!'
Don't forget, when you visit... 'If you drink to forget, pay in advance'.
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