Wild New Zealand Blog

It’s the three and a half day journey by train from Cape Town to Salisbury (Harare), that brings the traveller face to face with the vastness of The Dark Continent - this mighty Africa. 

Train may not be the most upmarket way to travel - unless you go by South Africa’s famous Blue Train or one of the boutique steam train services - but you sure get closer to the continent and its landscape travelling that way.  I’m glad we did that trip, although my memories of it are definitely influenced by the state my health was in.

Even the harbour of Cape Town with its beautiful views of Table Mountain couldn’t restore to me the full excitement of travelling - I felt too rotten.  My mom and I sat in the lobby of a hotel somewhere in Adderley Street while my dad did some shopping - and that was as much as I saw of Cape Town.

I was having trouble keeping down food.  People on the train got used to the sight of me careering down the passageway from the dining-car to the toilet after meals. They got out of my way real quick. Aside from that, I think I gradually began to feel a bit better, and I know I took photos of the Africans who seemed to materialise from nowhere whenever the train stopped, carrying wooden carvings and other artwork for sale.

The great plains of Africa, dotted with mopani trees that paraded past the windows seemingly interminably made a huge impression on me.  I had never seen so much wide open space in my life before and it was that impact of the vastness and space of the veldt that stayed with me inwardly, so that when I was finally introduced to the outdoors of New Zealand, it was the wide open spaces that got closest to my heart.

There were no overnight stops in South Africa.  We were in a tourist class coach and our cabin had 4 bunks, with the top 2 folding away to give seating room during the day.  The slow, rhythmic “click-clack, click-clack” of the swaying train as it ate up the miles of this epic journey was actually soothing by day and quite restful at night.

Our last night on the train started off in Bulawayo.  I can’t remember if we stayed on the same train for the final leg to Salisbury, or whether we changed trains.  Something far more important happened. Sitting in the dining-car in Bulawayo station before the train resumed our journey, I felt hungrier than I had for days.  I tucked into a plateful of tomato sandwiches, and can still remember my mom warning me not to eat too many.  I did of course - AND they stayed down!

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness, travel

We sailed from Southampton in the Union Steamship Company’s “Carnarvon Castle”.  The first of their diesel-powered vessels, she had been built for the mail run between Southampton and Cape Town, and she could complete the trip in 12 days.  She had seen World War II service, including a dangerous running battle with a German strike-vessel that crippled her temporarily. She was near the end of her service.

Our first stop was Madeira. We were already rejoicing in the warmth and sunshine. As we continued southwards,  the African continent appeared on the port side, with its long, featureless flat coastline fringed for mile after mile with vegetation - it looked hot.  Small boats came out to meet us, with young boys diving for coins in the clear, turquoise waters. It was like a dream.

It turned out to be an ill-fated trip, though. The same flu that I’d had earlier was circulating on board and we’d taken on bad water at Madeira. Dysentery struck the ship. Once we crossed the line barely a quarter of the passengers made it to meals at any given time. I succumbed - flu for the second time in a month and dysentery as well. I was running both ends at once and the ship’s doctor doubted I’d be well enough to get off the ship at Cape Town.

Our train journey from Cape Town into the interior of the mighty continent was already booked.  We had no option.  So the doctor by his own admission threw the book of antibiotics at me.

It was a very groggy girl who disembarked to a new future at Cape Town, and the extent of that new future didn’t become apparent for a year or two. I won’t go into details - suffice to say that for 20 years the medical profession had no answer to my digestive problems and weariness.  It was all in my head, they said.  I carried on with my life as best I could, watching very carefully what I ate, and was finally diagnosed with systemic candida from that massive dose of antibiotics.  I’m actually still dealing with it.

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness, travel

It was a time of high excitement - for me anyway. For my parents there was a lot to be done - and in a very short time.  Travel to book, passports and vaccinations to organise - possessions to sell and to pack.

Right in the middle of it all I came down with a bad bout of flu. My clearest memory is of lying in my parents’ bed in the big front bedroom of the Desswood Place flat while they packed up stuff around me, ready to leave.

My schoolmates were sceptical, having heard me talk about Canada, but they soon came to realise that this was for real. As for me, I was too excited to think about missing Aberdeen - though I look back on it fondly now.  The prospect of journeying to an exotic continent like Africa was exhilarating.

A few days before we left, my parents’ application for permission to build the house they had planned earlier came up for hearing before the Council.  Aberdeen is very fussy about granting planning permissions - the Granite City has strict rules about building materials to start with. After the hearing was over, the tribunal did in fact grant planning permission and then my father had to tell them we were leaving the country.  One of the planners commented what a pity that was because we had such a very nice set of plans.  Typically, my father dropped the plans on his desk and shook him by the hand.  I imagine that house got built - I just wish I could remember where the piece of land was!

The blur of activity finally focussed itself.  On a late October evening we boarded the famous Flying Scotsman at Aberdeen station, surrounded by friends and my father’s colleagues - and there was a surprise - a lone piper in full kit who as the train prepared to pull away, played “Ye’re No Awa’ Tae Bide Awa’” - you may be going but you’re not going to stay away. What a moment of mixed emotions!

As it happened, we did stay away.  But that doesn’t stop me having a high priority to return for a visit. 

The first time I found the Aberdeen City Council’s Webcams - it was around Christmas a few years ago - I spent some days with them permanently open on my desktop, just alternating between the Castlegate and Union Street views. Thank you, Aberdeen City.  Your town gave me my best childhood memories, an education second to none at Harlaw Academy, and a wonderful appreciation of all things Scottish.

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness, travel

For an Army family, our lifestyle had now become pretty settled. London had tried to get my father back, but thanks to some very powerful Scottish connections, we stayed put.  We enjoyed living in the more rural environment at Culter, with its distant fells and sparkling burn.

My parents were even planning to buy or build our own home, preferably somewhere along the Old Deeside Road that we’d come to love, and I can still remember a variety of locations we looked at with the land agents: a lovely old high-walled garden, a disused stable complex, a new subdivision. I think that was at Murtle, but there was trouble with the laird over putting in a water supply.

My schooling was well settled and for the first time in my life I had one or two really close school friends.  My best friend, a doctor’s daughter, lived on the corner of Baillieswells Road, Bieldside not far back along the Old Deeside Road.  In winter we used to sledge down a narrow path to the bottom of their steep garden.  I can tell from Google maps that it’s all still there…..

I was still pursuing art, if only on the sidelines, and it was about this time that I entered a small marquetry plaque in the Aberdeen Marquetry Club’s first annual exhibition held in the foyer of the Odeon cinema in Justice Mill Lane.  It was exciting because I gained a mention, along with a couple of other top exhibits, in “The Press and Journal” newspaper. The plaque depicted a Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago) coming in to land, inspired by a painting on the cover of a Scottish Field Magazine. It was a detailed work, every piece of veneer carefully chosen for its color and markings, and I still have it.  I had done one marquetry piece previous to this - a store-bought kitset scene.  Though the work was all mine, I know the success of this do-it-fom-scratch job owed a lot to my dad’s insistence that I select my veneers carefully.

But there were winds of change blowing in the British Army, and they began to rattle the tent flaps of our comfort zone. Word had it that men with long service would be the first to feel the axe. My father had served the Army for 24 years. So there we were - looking to settle but living in uncertainty.

In the midst of all this, for some reason that I can no longer remember, the Army moved us again - back into Aberdeen. We moved into an upstairs apartment of a terrace house in Desswood Place not far from my school, but we expected that this would be only temporary accommodation.

My parents were also looking into the possibility of emigrating to Canada. My dad knew that scope for employment for ex-servicemen in the UK was limited.  The idea of getting away to a country with more freedom to prove oneself on merit appealed to him.  Then one of the officers from the University Training Corps resigned and went to take up a post in Zimbabwe - Southern Rhodesia as it was then. Before long, he wrote to my father saying he had a job for him if he wanted to come.

We were emigrating to Africa!

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

Here in Far North New Zealand, we have just seen a similar appropriation of public property, on a much larger scale, to that described in my previous post - with a far less happy outcome.

My nearest small town, Kerikeri, had a Memorial Hall - a refurbished packing shed complex with stage and auditorium, gifted to the Far North District Council many years ago as a Memorial Hall for soldiers lost in the two World Wars. 

It was a good venue, and I have fond memories of designing and painting sets for stage productions there during my holidays from University.  It was the town’s theatre for many years, and hosted a heap of events including substantial Art Exhibitions over the Christmas holidays, and the world-famous Kerikeri Piano Competition, annually.

It was a simple but serviceable building that the Far North District Council left to rot. That should never have happened. The same thing occurred here in Kaeo until a small group of public-minded citizens got togther, sought and got financial assistance (not from the FNDC note) and put in the hard yards to recover the Kaeo Memorial Hall from a far worse state of disrepair and all-out abuse. 

Whether the Kerikeri Hall could have been done up and developed for the community uses suggested by members of the public over recent months, is not strictly the issue.  True, there’s a crying need for it - this little town, busily chasing the reputation of being New Zealand’s “top small town” is no different from any other - it is fighting drug abuse in young people, daily.

HOWEVER… Several years ago, the Far North District Council set up an independent trading arm called Far North Holdings.  Notwithstanding that the Hall was originally gifted to the Council as a public memorial, Council saw fit to pass it over lock, stock and barrel into the hands of the Far North Holdings company.

To cut a long story short, Far North Holdings announced it was going to  divest itself of the property.  It was put on the market, to the horror of many local residents. The pretext was that the building was no longer viable and was surplus to requirements because Kerikeri now has a new (not yet fully completed) plushy venue - The Arts Centre.  Hmmm.  Where do local kids in dire need of something to do fit into that? 

There were protests, of course - and petitions.   The last petition, sactioned by Council, was ignored because Council elected not to play by its own rules.  The stance of Far North Holdings was that if the public wanted the Hall, they would have to buy it at the market price - about $1.05million.  Council and the Mayor reiterated that money was required to finish off The Arts Centre as priority number one.  Miscalculation of priorities, I’d say.

Just as the tangata whenua threw their weight in behind the movement to retain the Hall and it began to look as if there could be some daylight at the end of the tunnel, a motion was passed in Council condemning the building as unsound and demolition began literally overnight. I have quite honestly never been so appalled, and I don’t doubt many people were equally shocked.  No doubt the ratepayers - again - footed the bill to have their own property destroyed. 

A builder who went on site and inspected the Hall in the course of demolition commented that the building was sound. 

This Council wantonly destroyed a public asset given to it by the ratepayers in good faith.  Ironically, as a Council, it was elected quite recently to make a change for the better in local government, by ratepayers hoping to be listened to at last: hoping at least for fair play.  Well, well…   

It won’t matter in the long run if this Council turns out to be the one that got the finances together for finishing the Kerikeri Arts Centre - there are bigger issues than that at stake here.

“Lest We Forget?”   Oh yes……

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

We had moved out of Aberdeen to a small house in Malcolm Road, Culter, to the southwest along the Old Deeside Road.

There was no garage for the car there and the winters were cold. I can remember first thing in the mornings my dad throwing a bucket of hot water over the door handle and grabbing it mighty quick to open it before the water refroze.  We lived a little way up Malcolm Road, opposite what was then a “common” with a small general store at the side of it, run by a great lady called Fanny McAdam. 

That common was where Cornyhaugh Rd is today. There were cows in the paddock over the fence - my first animal acquaintances - and an elderly lady in the house next door. Things are different now, but in those days our two small bungalows sat by themselves with a farmer’s paddock all around.

I can remember doing a lot of art in that house, as well as making balsa aeroplanes - I had several hanging from the ceiling of my bedroom: an interest fed by the Biggles stories and a stream of surplus aviation magazines thrown out from the University Training Corps.

My most striking memory of Culter itself was at the A93 bridge over the Culter (Leuchar) Burn as it descended through a rocky gut to join the River Dee.  On the steep rocky cliffs above the burn and below Malcolm Road perched a commemorative statue of Rob Roy McGregor, his scarlet tartan and green jacket shining like jewels against the backdrop of rocks and foliage. According to legend, the 18th century Scottish folk hero was fleeing from English troops during the Rebellion, and leapt the chasm to escape from them. If true, it was a mighty feat, and I’m sure none of the pursuers was game to try it on.

Some time after I first came on the net 12 years ago I tried to find pictures of this statue.  There was very little  - one picture only of it draped in shrouds during a refurbishing paint job.  Disappointing, I thought…

A lot has happened since then, above the Culter Burn, and it’s now well documented on a great site about Culter - with more pictures of the Rob Roy statues in the History section. The statue that I knew was the third of four Rob Roy statues, the first being fashioned around an old ship’s figurehead and erected on the site around 1850.  This had to be replaced in 1865 when another figure was commissioned by public subscription.

The third Rob Roy, also funded by the public, was unveiled on the site in 1926.  It had been carved out of a log of Quebec Yellow pine and was carefully maintained by R. Geddes a local painter, who at risk of life and limb kept the paintwork in good condition until his death.  This was the version of the statue that I remember - though I never realised he was larger than lifesize!   The reason the story is now so well documented is that when he was replaced by Rob Roy 4 in 1999, a home was found for him in the local Gordon Arms Hotel.

Alas, how often items of public heritage turn into private property! How often acts done in good faith for the public benefit go sour when money-grubbers come on the scene!  I won’t go into the full details - you can read them HERE - but the people of Culter and their supporters ended up having to find £8360 to return Rob Roy 3 to ownership of the public, who funded him in the first place, and secure his future in the safety of the St Peter’s Heritage Centre, Howie Lane, Peterculter.

To be continued…..

     http://patriciahowitt.com

     http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

At the age of 13 in the Scottish educational system, a pupil has to make the choice of what they want to do. Obviously a very big decision, quite hard to make at a relatively young age: I don’t know if things are the same now.  The options for me were Languages, Science and Art.

I wasn’t in any doubt what I wanted to do and it was called Art, but here’s where one of life’s major disappointments reared its head: my father’s response was a flat, “No! You will never make a living at art. Keep it as a hobby and enjoy it.”  Hobby? Aaargh!  

Looking back, I can understand his reaction at that time, but it sure was hard on me.  What’s more, I was also very good at both languages and science - It wasn’t as if art was my only option. So I didn’t have that leg to stand on.  One doesn’t argue with an RSM.  With a great deal of sadness, I decided to go for languages.

My dad’s comment impacted very heavily on my mind for far too long, and I am only just now beginning to shake it off.  What’s more, I never until very recently fully forgave him for what he’d said because as I grew older, and especially lately, I became so very aware what a strong influence it had on my thinking and choices. 

Though I sold quite a lot of art all through my legal career, I found I had indeed a very deep belief that I’d never make a living at it. How deep that belief was, I only discovered when I quit my job and moved up north here - about which, more later.  It seemed like I would never shake off the stigma (as I saw it) of not having been to Art School. 

That is beginning to change. When I look back now, and take off the wistful, rose-tinted glasses, I have to say that I’m strangely glad I didn’t go the Art School way and end up trapped in an “arty” world. 

I’m grateful for where my education led me - not that my career in the law was ever truly, deeply satisfying - but because I hope I’ve ended up a much more rounded person, with more to bring to the art I create.

Looking at the academic flavour of “establishment” art and art galleries today, I’m at last really coming to see that I’d rather be where I am.

This blog is part of the healing process. It’s also a very necessary part of me revisiting, acknowledging and truly valuing what my dad DID give me - and I’m now realising that was considerable.

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

Cinemascope had hit the big screen: at some point, my mom and I went to see “The Robe” from 20th Century Fox.

Aside from Disney, of any film I ever saw, this film had by far the widest and most lasting impact on me.  I had already been studying Latin at school from quite a young age (thanks to that great Scottish education), and I found it rather dry. Now for the first time, the Roman world began to come alive. I bought the book, The Robe by LLoyd C Douglas, was fascinated by it, and started taking an interest in the Romans and their culture.

More than that though, I got a crush on the movie’s leading man, Richard Burton.  Ah me - the effect of getting a crush!  -   It was actually a very good thing for my art, believe it or not. Doing the usual teenage girl crush stuff and finding out more about Burton’s career led me into the world of Shakespeare at the Old Vic, Alexander the Great, The Dark Tower, Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, Keats’ Rime of The Ancient Mariner, and some of Christopher Fry’s plays. This new world I stumbled upon had an exciting richness of spirit.   Shakespeare took on new life, and I began to look at literature with different eyes.

All of this impacted more or less on my art - especially Alexander the Great which opened the door on Classical Greek Art and Architecture for me.  That was hugely valuable, because Greek sculpture taught me a lot about anatomy - along with a couple of anatomy books I got for Christmas presents. I spent some enjoyable hours drawing anatomical studies from Greek pieces, and went on to produce a couple of free-standing sculptures inspired by the Classics as well.

Ancient Greece got under my skin well and truly. Rome may have conquered the Greeks, but it never conquered their art - that stands on a pinnacle of its own in the Classical world.  Greek art embodies the living breath of human and artistic endeavour, the vibrant life-force and awareness of those who created it.  Alongside the work of the Greeks, Roman statuary pales.  We are reminded that the Greeks also created the living democracy of the City State, whereas the Romans created an Empire - a very, very different thing.

Greek vase painting is still something I frequently go back to in wonderment, and so is the marvellous, almost unbelievable skill of the artists throughout the Ancient Greek world who carved in metal, in intaglio (in reverse) the dies from which the many city states’ coins were struck - coins that are works of art in their own right.  Can you imagine the skill required to carve perfect works of art of that size - in reverse? In metal? A study of the development of Greek coinage from about 700 to about 150BC opens the door on a whole new world of artistic triumph.

To take a look, go HERE and click on  the Alphabetical Index of Issuing Authorities for Greek coins.  You will find at the top of each issuing authority page a link to pages with thumbnails, which saves a lot of blind delving.

To round out this post, here are one or two of my own sculptural tributes to the Greek die-makers, sculpted and cast in epoxy soon after we came to New Zealand.  Mouse-over the images for the details:

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

The instruction I got fom my dad went a whole lot further than drawing and painting. Sculpture was his own preferred medium, so naturally he got me involved in that, too.

He was experimenting with moulding and casting processes and it wasn’t long before I was learning the techniques of creating low-relief and three-dimensional sculpture in plasticine and making moulds from them to produce master casts - mostly in plaster of paris.

My dad had his own very strong sculpture style, which he passed on to me. Usually it was full of cutbacks and tricky shapes, so we started off making waste moulds of plaster of paris.  With free-standing sculptures, these moulds had to have more than one part.  I learned how to box in the original and use either shims or gravity to make moulds in several pieces, keyed into each other.  We used vaseline as the parting agent before pouring plaster into plaster.  Scary!   The end job of breaking the mould away from the hardened master inside it with a hammer and chisel was an exciting and tricky business - often fraught with accidents.  There was always patching and sanding to do afterwards.

Making moulds is a lot easier process today, even though the fundamentals are still the same.  True, you could get rubber moulding agents then, but they had to be poured hot - an impossibility with a plasticine original - hence the need to create a plaster master cast to work from.

In London my dad had already made puppet heads for a theatre project and cast them in plastic wood. Now he went on to make low-relief (or in his case high-relief) wall sculptures.  Heads and faces were always a favourite subject of his.  He extended the puppet head concept to a brilliant little “Army Major” head that he created as a decanter stopper, and we had four larger wall-plaque heads of his making, including a teddy-bear head he made for the foot of my bed.

I came away from that early period with several pieces and a wealth of experience.  I still have a spaniel dog and a low-relief tiger head made early on - both in plaster of paris and both still worth developing, plus a couple of jewellery pieces cast in epoxy resin.

I lost a big cantering horse I started because with my school commitments I didn’t complete it fast enough and though I tried to keep it damp, the clay dried and cracked on the armature inside it - lesson learned.

I realise now these early beginnings were a real gift - something else that has never left me. A few years ago, I took up sculpture again and found the moulding and casting fundamentals I’d learned as a youngster were still there. They stood me in good stead working alone, even though the materials had changed (for the better) over the years. It’s now possible to get cold-pouring, two-pot rubber, of course, and after a day of instruction at a bronze foundry I was able to adapt my techniques to make rubber moulds within a supporting plaster jacket very successfully. Thank you, Ken.

More later…

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness

I had arrived in Scotland with a perfect BBC accent. Aberdonians are very patriotic, egalitarian and up-front. No place to be talking like a London radio announcer, with or without the longstanding Scottish/English feuding factor.  That soon knocked the corners off the accent I didn’t know I had.

My new school was the High School for Girls (now Harlaw Academy) in Aberdeen where I gained the advantage of a great Scottish education. I was there for 8 years in total - my longest term at any school by a long shot.  In spite of our continual house moving though, my parents had always made sure I got the best possible schooling - this settled period at an excellent school occurred at just the right time in my education.

Outside of school, I enjoyed making scrapbooks of pictures I liked - Royal Family was one favorite topic for a girl from the military.  I embellished them with painted artwork and lettering, drawing on ideas from magazines and books. My stamp album got the same treatment.  Our new involvement with a Highland Regiment, pipe bands and all that went with it inspired a pencil study of a Highland dancer, drawn from a photo in the local newspaper - I’m glad I have that.

There was plenty of Art at school, too -  I still have one or two of the many things we created in art classes.  Naturally, we were beset by the usual array of still life subjects. A couple of paintings from those days remain - mainly because I used the backs of them for something else. (It’s called keeping a portfolio LOL!) They’re actually quite tricky subjects involving reflections on glass, and I’m glad to have these. They would have been done in my early teens. 

When we got to the higher classes, we were encouraged to produce black and white ink illustrations for use in the annual school magazine.  My first was of Alice in Wonderland, drinking from the bottle and holding her hand on the top of her head to see if she was growing any taller. No prizes for guessing where that idea came from, but I remember especially the art teacher’s help and encouragement in creating it.  I know it was accepted for the magazine, and so were a couple more in later years. I wish I still had those magazines…

http://patriciahowitt.com

http://wildnewzealand.com

Technorati Tags:
journey, art, painting, sculpture, artist, landscape, wildlife, New Zealand, wilderness