Art activities at the Sculpture Gardens

All weekend there will be drop in art activities at the Kaipara Sculpture Gardens. The Gardens are on SH16 just north of Kaukapkapa and consist of a garden centre, sculpture trail and cafe.

Sarah Harrison will creating items for an installation based on the book Where the Wild things are written by Maurice Sendak. You can let you imagination run wild from 11 - 3 on Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday Sally Lush will be creating flowers from recycled plastic bags and paint. These will be added to the Sculpture Gardens displays for all the see.

Both activities will be held in the cafe and are by gold coin donation.  They would be a great beginning or end to a walk through the sculptures. ( there is an entry charge to the sculpture trail but the garden centre and cafe are free)

Andrew Denton's work on show

Andrew's giant meccanno works were inspired by his father's love of meccanno, and are made of steel.

His large birds were the result of cutting down some palm trees at church and going to dump the cuttings in the forest. When he looked at them he could see their potential and took them home and created the Jabberwocky.

Andrew's work will be on show in the pop up exhibition at the meeting room at the Memorial Hall in the main street on Helensville, Arts in the Ville headquarters!

Flax weaver in residence

Heather Steadman  will be weaving her beautiful baskets all weekend at the Helensville Museum.

Heather studied raranga (weaving) for one year at the Waikato Institute of Technology and at marae from Kawhia to Rotorua. She worked on her weaving for four days a week and learned to care for and harvest harakeke (flax) for kete, strip the muka (fibres) and  traditional dye techniques using bark and mud. Also taniko (finger weaving with fibres) and tukutuku panels. She enjoyed teaching the basics and creating her own designs. She ran the TCAC (Titirangi Community Arts Council) Upstairs Gallery in Lopdell House for two and a half years before having her daughter. Heather has continued her studies in Not For Profit management and Community Development and believes that we all have the capacity to create and that it is an intrinsic part of our wellbeing.

look out for the woolly mammoth

During our weekend of colour, creativity and fun you will be able to spot Wim around the town, I am sure she will be visiting the Mustangs at the show grounds on Sunday between 11 and 2 and at some point trying her hand at wood carving at the musuem. Who knows where else she will be spotted. She would be more than happy to pose for a selfie.

Kura has been busy creating this colourful creature ready for a weekend of fun.

Wood bowls

Along side the paintings we will have in the pop up exhibition we will be showing a collection of beautiful wooden bowls by Peter Daymond-King

Woodturning

I like to make useful articles with generally simple but hopefully elegant shapes and little if any embellishment so that the decorative features of the timber take precedence and are shown to best advantage.

I do not harvest wood but use a range of native and exotic timbers from trees which have been felled for other reasons and rescue timber destined for firewood or occasionally scavenge beams from demolished buildings.

My introduction to turning was to work the treadle on my father’s lathe while he was turning stone over 65 years ago and I have been fascinated by the process ever since.

Jayne Thomas

The wonderful, textural paintings of Jayne Thomas will be on show in the pop up exhibition in te meeting room at the War Memorial Hall all weekend.

Jayne says :- My artwork is about beauty and colour bought together simply in a figurative way.

 

I enjoy building up then peeling back layers of the paint, sometimes stripping it right back off the canvas until I reach a balance between chaos and calm - the accidental and deliberate.

 

My materials of choice are encaustic and oils.  It is the richness and mobility of these products that I find so seductive.  They give me freedom to push the paint, build up colour with glazes and enabling the surface to create itself.

 

My works are an expression of people, our complex layers and uniqueness.