Struan Farm

Belated, But Not Forgotten

My Valentine had to be away this past Friday. Duty called, a business meeting up in Auckland that ended quite late in the day, so no time to return to Struan Farm that evening. Can I just say this must have been scheduled by a man? No woman would do this on Valentine's Day!

John returned home on Saturday. And he brought me a lovely gift for Valentine's Day, the companion rusted steel disc of native trees by James Wright that goes with the one we have of native birds. It's now installed along the row of roses and totara posts in the garden, and looks amazing.

I'm very happy with belated, but not forgotten!

New Art in the Garden

John gifted me a beautiful piece of rusted steel sculpture for Christmas, created by Clevedon sculptor James Wright. The disc has various native birds. It's designed to be hung from a tree, but I thought it might look interesting set in a weathered totara post in our garden here at Struan Farm.

And guess what? It does. It looks amazing. Merry Christmas to me!

When An Artist Visits...

We like to think Struan Farm is a relaxing, peaceful place. That the trees and gardens are calming and speak to people, not just to us of course.

This past week we had return farmstay guests who've visited the farm on a regular basis on trips to New Plymouth. This may very well have been their sixth or seventh visit. The wife is a flower photographer and composer, and tells us she finds considerable inspiration from the gardens, trees, and just being here. She often sits looking out on the gardens and Pet Paddock trees, composing music. After this last visit she suggested we consider offering accommodations to an "artist in residence," an idea that immediately inspired John. He's thinking we might offer a special one week concessionary rate to artists who want to come here to create, think, work, be inspired. Painters, photographers, writers, composers. 

What do you think?

More on Jacob's Ladder

On our recent visit to Gibbs Farm one of my favourite sculptures was a new installation by Gerry Judah called "Jacob's Ladder." This prompted a discussion with the friends we were with, since I remembered a song we sang growing up about Jacob's Ladder. I thought it might have been a hymn, since the words were about climbing Jacob's ladder and being a "soldier of the Cross." I also remembered a string creation like "Cat's Cradle" that was called "Jacob's Ladder." My memory banks were bubbling away. 

I decided that this sculpture was meant to represent a ladder up to heaven, and it certainly looks like that to me.

Seems there's considerably more to the story about Jacob's Ladder now that I've done a bit of homework. Jacob's Ladder does have a biblical origin, in Genesis. The prophet Jacob is travelling and dreams of a ladder or stairway on which angels are ascending to and descending from heaven. Later God reveals himself to Jacob, promising him his family will be large and will inherit the Promised Land. In this vision Jacob also sees a ladder/stairway that is meant to be the connection between God and Man. Many Christians believe Jesus Christ became the ladder, reconnecting Man with God after the connection was severed due to original sin.

The song I remembered takes its origins from an African American slave spiritual dating back to 1825. It was one of the few spirituals to be adopted by white Christians, and was recorded as a folk song with somewhat different lyrics by Pete Seeger in the 1930's/40's, Arlo Guthrie, and Bruce Springsteen, amongst others. The spiritual implies God's promise to Jacob of finding the Promised Land will also lead the slaves to freedom.

And yes, there is a string game called "Jacob's Ladder." Find out how to make it here.

I've spent some time searching for British artist Gerry Judah's statement about the sculpture to get an idea of what he was trying to express, but haven't found anything as yet. Perhaps it's so obvious that we're meant to know, I'm just not inclined to try to second guess any artist. 

A Visit to Gibbs Farm

It's taken me a few days this week to have the time to sit down and write about our visit north this past weekend. John and I travelled up to Auckland and further north to go to an open day at Gibbs Farm. The trip was to raise funds to support the Auckland Art Gallery.

It was an amazing day. The 1,000 acre private property overlooks the Kaipara Harbour, and has a growing collection of monumental sculptures (20+) by major contemporary artists installed in dramatic, open air settings. Animals, exotic and otherwise, range around the place. The farm is open monthly by appointment to educational institutions, artists, charities and the public. It is a very special place that everyone should see it at least once. In New Zealand the phrase "world class" is overused and often aspirational, reflecting in my mind some self-esteem issues, but I don't know how else to describe Gibbs Farm.

I was going to spend some time researching the works and artists but have given up on that in the interest of time and my fear that I wouldn't do them justice despite some art history education many years ago. Artists include Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy, Maya Lin (who designed the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. and is currently working on the renovation of the Neilson Library at my alma mater, Smith College), and Len Lye, amongst many others.

My favourites were a new work entitled "Jacob's Ladder" by Gerry Judah, "Dismemberment, Site 1," by Anish Kapoor, and "Te Tuhirangi Contour" by Richard Serra. The light and sky weren't terribly good for photography that day, but I'll share some photos with you below so you can get an idea of the variety of works and the massive scale, of both the art and the landscape. 

 

As you might imagine, this has given John a few "ideas." We'll work our way through that.





 

 

 

Meet Rudolph

The elves have been working overtime in the workshop today here at Struan Farm. (Actually, it was nephew Mike, with contributions and artistic vision from John and me, respectively.)

He's crafted out of chicken wire with other bits and pieces. We've staked him down for now just so Clifford doesn't knock him over. Grandchildren will determine where he ends up down at the Homestead, most likely the Pet Paddock. I suspect he'll end up in a shed in the off-season!

I might bling him up a bit more--what do you think? 

Countdown to Christmas & Boxing Day

A few of the gnomes here at Struan Farm have taken it upon themselves to keep me on track with my preparations for Christmas and Boxing Day.  Ringo (Charlie's gnome), Doc (Freya's gnome) and Little Tinker (Violet's gnome), aka "The Cornes Gnomes," are doing an official countdown. (Okay, Little Tinker is still learning to count.) The other gnomes haven't gotten into the Christmas spirit just yet.

Ringo in particular might need a good scrub up before the holidays, he's had quite a bit of wood to chop up with the trees coming down!

 

Getting Rusty

We finally had a long enough period of settled weather here at Struan Farm for John to paint the concrete base of our Grounded Art sculpture. He used Porter's Paints Liquid Iron and Instant Rust. It's a two step process--two coats of the iron paint are put on and then the "instant rust" liquid, which prompts a chemical reaction turning the iron to rust.

Here's step one:

And here's step two. It will continue to rust a bit further, but we're quite happy with how this has turned out!

Next will come a walkway to the sculpture from the garden, with fencing and hedging (we think). This is a John project, so while I'm consulted he will do the planning and associated work.

Installation

We've finally managed to get a break in the weather and work projects to get to the installation of the rusted steel sculpture John and I purchased in Nelson from Brendon & Jane Harley earlier this year. It's now out in the paddock here at Struan Farm, set on a concrete pad and into a huge concrete pipe with (what else?) concrete. John spent quite a bit of time pondering the perfect location and what to use for the base. We ended up getting a drainage pipe from Hynds in Te Kuiti. Thankfully nephew Mike has the strength to help us with this sort of heavy work.

The site is just out from the garden gate of our house, on the top of a rise not far from where the huge poplar was recently felled. It looks amazing, doesn't it? What's interesting is that it can be seen well from various angles, including our bedroom and different points around the gardens. (I was joking with John that it was almost like the Mona Lisa, with that smile following you around the room.) John's favourite vantage point is from below, looking up to the sculpture from the Old Road. I prefer the view from the gardens with our native QEII bush in the background, since the shape of the sculpture mirrors the shapes of the trees.

 

Once the concrete is set and dry I will be painting the base with special Porter's Paints to achieve the same rusted look. If the weather cooperates, that might be next week.

A Tree Falls in Piopio

Sticking with yesterday's tree theme, John and nephew Mike are working on taking out some trees around the edges of our house at Struan Farm, basically to improve the outlook, when time, weather and other projects permit. They've started with the side where this work involves individual trees rather than the forest of macrocarpas at the bottom of the bowl. Those will come in due course.

This week while I was off food shopping a large poplar tree came down. I'd forgotten this was going to happen, or I would have taken a "before" shot. I went through my photos and realised that I'd always managed to avoid showing this tree since it was damaged and pretty unsightly. Now it's down and the view through to one of our QEII bush reserves and the hillsides beyond is clear.

The clean up work of the associated mess and firewood below the line of sight here now begins. 

Mike and John are also working on the installation of the big rusty metal leaf sculpture we purchased not too long ago in Nelson. A concrete pad has been made. Next a huge concrete pipe will be put on end, and filled with concrete, into which the sculpture's stand will be inserted. After everything is dry I am meant to treat the concrete base with a rusty paint from Porter's Paints, which basically matches the colour of the rusted sculpture. The finished sculpture should be visible from the gardens and house if all goes to plan.

More to come as the sculpture installation continues. In the meantime the lambs like hiding out and sheltering in the concrete pipe!

Sculptures on the Scene

A truck arrived here at Struan Farm a few days ago to deliver the "Grounded Art NZ" sculptures John purchased during our recent trip to Nelson. 

There are three steel "wind wand" pieces that I've installed in the pergola area for now. While this location was meant to be an initial test, it's not bad, is it? They don't block the view and are visually interesting.

 

We're having considerable discussion on the larger sculpture, with two, possibly three, locations under consideration. One is just outside our garden area at the new(ish) house where we've opened up the view out to the hills, one is on a hill behind and near the Cottage near a triangle of trees, the third is in a paddock near a cluster of interesting limestone rocks down from the bowl outside our house. John is keen to develop this latter area into a landscaped garden with some interesting deciduous trees and conifers.

Right now the sculpture is resting beside the workshop pending an executive decision. While it's silver metal it will develop a rusty patina now that it's out in the elements. We also need to come up an interesting base, will be playing around with our stash of corrugated limestone rocks.

 

Stay tuned!

 

A Weekend with Everything, Even Trees

Apologies that blog posts will be a bit thin on the ground this week. John and I travelled down to Nelson for an extended long holiday weekend for Queen's Birthday here in New Zealand. It was a belated birthday and anniversary present for me, we'd needed to wait until the farmstay season at Struan Farm settled down to get away for a few days, and that had been extended even further by the contractors staying in the Cottage.

But we made it to Nelson, hooray! Lots to do down there with the arts, food, wine, wonderful Saturday market, and friends to visit. Friday night we had an amazing dinner at my favourite restaurant in NZ, Hopgoods, but since we were a wee bit early for our booking we went next door for a drink at the Cod & Lobster Brasserie, where John had this extraordinary gin and tonic to whet his appetite:

I love the huge vintage glass and embellishments (juniper berries, curl of lemon peel). It was served with a special Indian quinine tonic called "Fever Tree," chosen to compliment the gin John selected from three pages of options. (Who knew one could be quite so serious about gin, or tonic for that matter? Perhaps we don't get out enough...)

On Saturday after breakfast with John's cousin Ann and a quick tour of the Nelson Market we spent some time walking in the Queen's Gardens, which are located next to the recently modernised Suter Art Gallery, where we saw an interesting exhibition of kinetic sculpture by Andrew Drummond. Later that day John splurged on some garden sculpture by Nelson artists  Brendon & Jane Harley (I know, John bought art!), before we met our friend Glen out in nearby Mapua for dinner at the wharf.

On Sunday afternoon we caught the new NZ documentary film "Pecking Order," a quirky story about rivalries amongst members of a Christchurch poultry club, all of whom are rather obsessive about chooks, before an early dinner and fabulous Irish music concert at the Theatre Royal that was part of the annual Ceol Aneas Irish Music Festival. 

But back to the Gardens. They have a number of notable heritage trees, many types of which we have in the Pet Paddock at Struan Farm, including several Dawn Redwoods, Swamp Cypress, and a huge Cedrus atlantica glauca, which I was interested to learn is also called "Atlas Cedar" and originates from northern Morocco and the Atlas mountains of Algeria.

 

John was thrilled that our large Dawn Redwood is much bigger than the Queen's. It's a guy thing isn't it? My tree is bigger than yours....

Suffice it to say that our weekend away had everything: companionship, great food and wine/gin, art, music, film, perfect weather, and even TREES. The one thing we missed out on due to time was Evensong at the Cathedral, but really, what more could one want over two days for a weekend escape?

A Facelift for Gandalf

Struan Farm's Gandalf has been stationed outside the Garden Cottage since he arrived at the farm almost two years ago in the passenger seat of John's car. He positioned himself in the Homestead gardens to make sure no trolls sneak up the Mangaotaki River valley from nearby Hairy Feet Waitomo, aka "Trollshaw Forest" and cause trouble for our farmstay guests.

But dear Gandalf managed to get himself worn out over this time by all that responsibility, with his face weathering considerably from all the stress and strain. So a facelift was called for to keep him looking his best. Artist Keith Bell from Dargaville shipped down supplies with instructions for John to undertake the procedure required. But John chickened out, and asked nephew Mike to step into the fray.

Mike has done a great job. Gandalf is resting comfortably in the workshop after the procedure but is definitely back to his old self!

Sunflower Saga, With Apologies to Van Gogh

This is one of two sunflowers that grew in the Homestead gardens near Heidi's green gate  and the Pet Paddock this year. If you knew how many sunflower seeds I planted in this bed you would laugh: over forty. Of various varieties. One thing gardening teaches you is that Mother Nature doesn't always deliver the goods you want. She is in control and you need to accept that to a certain extent. (You know me, I try to negotiate.)

I was striving for a bed full of delphiniums, sunflowers and zinnias, with borage for the bees on the side. Several years ago we had an amazing sunflower garden, but I have never been able to achieve anything close to that since.

Maybe the problem is that I've been wanting them to share the garden with other flowers, rather than being the only show in town? Perhaps they're egomaniacs. To be researched further. I do prefer a mix of flowers and colours, sorry Vincent!

 

 

The Cottage Finds Itself Again

With thanks to local Te Kuiti artist Jill Ikin, the Cottage at Struan Farm has its identity back! I was introduced to Jill by Sue at Creative Spaces after Zenna at Oops.A.Daisy suggested I talk to Sue. (As you can see, it's sixty degrees of separation here in Piopio/Te Kuiti.)

Since I loved the simple, rustic look of the original, Jill replicated that.

Thanks Jill, Sue and Zenna, it looks really great. And I'm sure this one will last another 15 years! 

Road Trip: Finding Frida

Sorry for dropping the ball for a few days this week. I've been away from Struan Farm, on the road for the past week or so with visiting friends Kris and Bob. I will fill you in on what we've been up to over the next several days.

Upon leaving Piopio our first overnight stop was Palmerston North, where we went to the Te Manawa Museum of Art, Science & History to see the Frida Kahlo photography exhibition. 

Te Manawa is the only stop in New Zealand for this touring collection of recently discovered personal photographs of Kahlo. They had been sealed up in Casa Azul, the house she shared with artist Diego Rivera, upon her death in 1954.

While we all knew quite a bit about Frida Kahlo's art and her relationship with Diego Rivera, all of us learned quite a bit more about her early family life and education, the debilitating treatments she endured for a serious injury sustained in a bus crash, her various romantic liaisons, and her political activities during a turbulent, revolutionary time in Mexico. 

Definitely worth a visit!

Roadtrip South

Popped down to New Plymouth for a day over the long holiday weekend to attend the annual auction of stone sculptures by the Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Society. Sculptors from around NZ and from overseas have been working away on the New Plymouth foreshore over the past several weeks, including brother-in-law Alan Axten.

We're in the market (sort of) for a sculpture for the gardens at the new(ish) house at Struan Farm. We haven't finished the gardens just yet, and know that we need more structure than we've got right now, some visual focal points. Sculpture is one way of doing this, trellises another.

It was a fun day trip. The prices paid at the auction were slightly above our "ballpark" for something spontaneous, however. If we're going to pay what these sculptures command, we need to know where it would be going, and be agreed on the design. Below are several we liked, including two by Alan:

 

I favoured either one of Alan's two or the "Kereru" (woodpigeons).  (I could see designing gardens around them more easily.)

On the drive back we stopped off at an area called "The Three Sisters," where there are interesting stones and cave formations along the coast, as well as a funky little settlement of bachs (traditional kiwi vacation getaways). One had a quirky wall of jandals/flipflops outside. We also stopped at Mokau, where they were pulling in kowhai (local fish) for dinner.

 

 

Carved in Stone

I ran south to New Plymouth for a haircut and day of errands a day or so ago (truth be told it may have been an attempt on my part to escape the accumulated piles of farmstay bed linens in the aftermath of the recent wedding?!).

Wanted to stop by the Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Society's stone carving symposium, which is happening on the New Plymouth foreshore for several weeks near the iconic Len Lye "wind wand". Stone carvers from around New Zealand and overseas are onsite daily making sculptures in public, including brother-in-law Alan Axten. It was interesting to watch these artists at work, dust flying with saws, goggles and ear muffs! Pieces made over this period will be auctioned off at the end of the month. Check it out!

 

Creativity Fostered & Flourishing in Piopio

This year the Project Piopio Trust conducted a children's art competition in conjunction with the Aria Toy Library. The original idea behind this was to come up with artwork illustrating our rural life, and to foster creativity and talent within the younger members of the community.  Winning entries would be displayed on the Toy Library's exterior wall in Piopio.

Three local artists worked with children from pre-school up to Year 6 in a number of sessions. A total of 85 entries were received. The quality of submissions was deemed to be so high that an additional number of paintings were reproduced and are now hung on two other buildings. The remainder have been printed onto banners for display at the schools, with prizes and certificates awarded to all entrants.

The artwork has just been hung on the buildings in the past week, and looks fantastic, below is a sample. So take a break in Piopio and see all this firsthand!

 

The Garden Cottage, Teaser

My sign is done, the carpet and bed are in, and the drapes are scheduled. We're almost there on the Garden Cottage at Struan Farm!

Here are two teasers. First my sign:

This will be affixed outside once the exterior is washed and repainted.

Second, here's a rather interesting reproduction of a vintage NZ travel poster of Mt. Egmont (which is now called Mt. Taranaki):

This hangs above the new bed (apologies, it is hanging straight but the photo is a wee bit crooked...). The colours work really well with the rest of the room, you'll see in due course! I purchased it at Kina Gallery in New Plymouth, a great spot for NZ art and crafts.