Reason (season) to be jolly. I hate this time of year when the feeding frenzy starts to buy, buy, buy, yet I get to be Santa. First at a pre school called Country Kids then at the local Playgroup. Now although I'm getting porky round the middle I don't fit the rotund bill so have to tie a pillow against my chest to fill out the santa suit. Then I try to put my socks on!!
I get to ride on a fire engine or a helicopter or a farm bike or just take my little car and startle the odd pedestrian with my long white locks blowing in the wind ( I can bring a smile to the lips to even the most hardened teenaged criminal, not that we have many!)
You probably think Santa is easy, just sit there on your decorated chair and hand out presents to the adoring kids but a lot of them are shit scared of you and you have to decide which of the gorgeous mammas you have to have sit on your knee to show the kids how it is done.
So the challenge every year is to try and get every one of the sixty odd brats to at least come forward and take the offered present. I lie on the ground with my legs in the air (it's alright this ain't Scotland!), sing badly, crow, shout, pretend I'm sunning myself in Samoa, promise playstations, even try to be meek and mild which I sure aren't. Then after three years Amelia finally overcomes her fear and she is off to school and I have to start afresh on Ryan, Anika and Jackys' mum (sigh).

Christmas tree

On Sunday I've got to dress my Treepee up for a christmas party. There is a festival in Hamilton two hours drive away and I've entered in the avant garde section. Not the most advantageous exhibition for my work but at least it will recieve a little attention. I will place Akio Hizumes' fibanacci star on top with lights and decorate the tree like our own christmas tree, the pohutukawa, which is just starting to flower. I can play with lights inside too

Naked feet

Most people don't feel comfortable in their feet anymore. With no shoes they walk differently, creeping along self consciously as if naked. So they encase them in leather and plastic and feel better up top but lose connection completely with good old mother earth.
I remember tramping high in the Pasubio Mountains north of Venice with friend of the family Piero who knew no English and I knew no Italian which is a great way to experience the landscape together. Anyway we kept meeting these very well dressed Italian climbers with all the gear including alpine hats with feathers who were aghast that I was up there in bare feet. It was summer so there was no danger of my feet falling off and after time the soles harden and climbing becomes a breeze.
Of course there are plenty of times when I have to wear shoes so I don't get an errant knife in my foot, but I can't wait to get them off and stand in some lush grass.
Orgasmic!

Procreation

Man it's a wonder those gannets procreate at all! They out front at the moment in the sun of a beautiful morning diving headlong into the sea from a great height. It must be headache material when they go home from work. Sorry mum.

I Feel for You

You seem so
bloody and raw
so sensitive
that
each
success
ive
arrow
flares at your
furnace


But it's not the
draw
hold
thwang
but the
single most
delicious moment
before impact
between cause
and effect
that offers you every
Possibility

Grandfather

I'm a grand daddy again! Number five, a girl to Duan my second son and Tracey, 9lbs, no trouble, a sister for Ella and Dylan.
Who are these beings, these products from my loins, who have such separate lives.

And again symposium

Symposium has finished. Nice to have them, nice to see them go (not them but the dust and noise!) The quality is excellent this year but the auction was disappointing. I sold a small piece and Rika sold his. However the unsold ones stay in the garden for sale over the summer and now I have the joy of setting them in the garden which will make a total of 36 stone sculptures plus my wooden pieces. A good number!
Anna Korver won first prize of $3000 with her sculpture 'Flight' below and Tai Meuli won second of $2000 with 'Ocean Life' (can't find his image!)


Anna Korver 'Flight'

Jocelyn Pratt 'Catching Kisses' and Tui Hobson 'Bird Watch' (above)

Lauren Kitts ' The ascending ins and outs of life' and Donald Buglass ' Space-Time 4' (above)

And two of mine.

Morning has broken

The sun, unseen yet making her presence felt, pushed back the darkness until only the valley lay slumbering, unwilling to rise, cuddled in a soft quilt-like mist. Bird song, tui and thrush together, spattered the clear cold air with notes like the silver dew drops hung out to dry on the mornings' spider webs.

More Symposia photos

Symposia photos

My effort so far using a local basalt

Lauren Kitts hard at it

' Well it was meant to look like this!' Terry Haines

The Motley Crew having lunch

Alien Attack

The scene is a gardeen in Flaxmill Bay. There is high cloud and a breeze drifting in from the sea. Fifteen aliens in full suits and breathing apparatus stand waiting. Their weapons, huge nine inch grinders glisten in the sun while their victims lie passive on the ground.
At a command from their leader the air erupts with high pitched screaming and clouds of dust as the attack begins.
A scene from ‘Chainsaw Massacre 6’? No, ‘Inferno at the Egg’. Their annual sculpture symposium has started.
Photos pending

Lament to love

He took the body down
And the sky opened and closed
In time with his sorrow

He took the body down
And the fox stopped and the bear stood
Against his wall of grief

He laid the body down
and the earth peeled and stung
with all his bloody tears

He laid the body down
and the mouse hid and the ant froze
from his single scream

He buried her body down
and the goblins cursed and the dwarves hissed
to see his blackened heart

He held his body down
and ten score years would have to pass
till he saw the world again

Denise is 50

Hi Daughter (Shelley in Sydney), couldn't find a picture of me with long hair, will pink hair do? The picture is a before the party shot and yes that is a tupperware container Sam has on his head!

Adventures

My latest escapade with trailer and stone comes as no surprise to family and friends. I seem to have a penchant for disaster on the road, mainly because I'm not a planner. To put it more plainly I'm a rip, shit and bust artist who doesn't maintain his equipment.
Things like the sliding door falling off the van on the mainstreet of Kaitaia and watching a wheel roll past near home in Kaiaka and wondering where it came from were small incidents. As was the axle breaking on the caravan while towing it with my truck, pulling the skids completely out from under our little house while towing it with my ex wife inside. Getting more serious was said ex and I sitting in the truck in the river looking at each other after the farm bridge broke and upending four large bins of potato chips for the pigs on a busy roundabout near Auckland. Perhaps the most serious was when I was carrying metal for farm tracks in my big truck up a steep, winding, narrow road and I missed crawler gear and it started to roll backwards and I couldn't get it back in gear or stop it with the brakes and there were steep drops on both sides and my young son was in the cab and I didn't know whether to tell him to jump or not. We picked up so much speed the metal was shifting as we went round corners and we would have flattened anybody coming up the hill. Gradually the road straightened out and flattened and we rolled to a stop 200 metres from another busy roundabout.
But I'm still not cured so if I ask you to come on an adventure make sure your life insurance is up to date!!

Sculpture symposium

In a week our 6th annual sculpture symposium starts. Yesterday I was picking up maratoto stone at the quarry and I broke the deck of my neighbours trailer. Said trailer came off on the way home and smashed the back of our car and I stood on an exposed nail to boot. Not an auspicious start!

We have 12 sculptors from around NZ coming this year to work for a week in the garden with live music and an auction of the pieces on the last day (Sun 30th). The local andersite is very hard and the sculptors use diamond grinders so for most of the week there is clouds of talc like dust seeping in everywhere. Would you like rock dust with your scallops?

It's a great week learning how other sculptors approach their work and the tools they use. We will set up a camp for them and there is usually a party every night with guitar strummings and uncertain warblings.

Heading towards the past

Even though I love the view and the proximity to the sea of our little house, I'm finding it too small. Everything I do is seen by the neighbours. Merlot barks and disturbs them. Teenagers come home late and wake them up and I haven't even started cutting stone yet!!
So we are looking at a 4 acre orchard with bed and breakfast accomodation in the garden. Room for my sculptures and to breathe and we can live off the land when the financial world comes crashing down.
Just like my hippy days

Sexy summer is stalking but cool spring won't let go. The plankton are thriving in our little bay and they are feeding the pipis who nourish the stingrays. Then the orcas come by for dinner dressed to kill.
I am but a flea.

New paintings

Two new paintings. The top one is of good friend Elpie wearing her clans' tartan from photos I took when staying with her in Scotland.

Denise turns 50

Denise turns the big five oh on Sunday so we are partying on Saturday night and wishing we hadn't on her birthday!

Well damn you

i only left

a small chink

and you prised it

open and climbed

right in

If only you had

taken your

shoes off

and brought your

slippers and your

own tea bags

I might have had

time to stand

the dresser

against the

door and nail down

the hatches

Pretending there

was no one home

gone fishin'

address unknown

now damn you

it's love

Jam (and honey) Session

It was music, muzik, mewsick at the Eggsentric Cafe on Sunday night. The instruments were on stage, the house lights were dim, the spots were bright and then out of the Coromandel Mountains came a mish mash of finger picking, throat warbling, foot stomping, hairy musos who at other times can only be seen hugging trees and tending various organic gardens in the deep bush.
The legend lives on!
Then there was Ian, who has a bone carving studio, playing and singing his originals and poetry, young Josh sometime underwater ceramic engineer (dishwasher) with his distinctive voice and excellent guitar skills, even younger Jeremy (9) on his trombone.
And still they came. Phil, a builder from Tairua, with his gravelly voice singing Dylan, Ronnie played with Julie who played with Ronnie an eclectic mix of originals and covers on keyboard and guitar with soaring vocals, Rob, who has a Lodge at Ferry Landing, gave us some Country and Western then his mate joined in and they belted out numbers like the Everly Brothers 'Bye Bye Love' and the crowd was up dancing and whooping.
Then it was time to go home. After all we are responsible citizens and go to work on Monday mornings. To sit and dream. Of next month!!