The open see

What makes a man leave his warm hearth and head for the open sea. Is it the last frontier. Is it the last chance to exorcise his earth demons and float coddled like an astronaut in the arms of a gentle and terrible mistress. Perhaps it's the horizon always there but never reached. Do we really know what is beyond it, what is beyond the horizon of our own soul, that gentle and terrible mistress. Could it be survival that strips away the pretense and leaves us one on one with life and death, to see how much we want of either. To fight death until the last breath must mean life is worth it.

Pacific Curls

We hosted the Pacific Curls last night and were treated to a fabulous mix of traditional and contemporary Maori and Scottish music on guitar, ukelele, fiddle, percussion beatbox, tambourine, nose flute, porotiti, stompbox and vocals. Band leader Ora Barlow is steeped in Maori lore and gives out a strong message to care for Aotearoa and it's people.
They are playing Katikati tonight then Te Papa our national museum then leave for a tour of Korea and Scotland.

Life on the ocean wave

Daughter Sarah with her dinner

Denise trying hard for her dinner

Son Sam spearing his dinner

Heading home for dinner with our newly repaired spinnaker.

City living

Been away for a few days visiting the grandchildren and delivering sculptures and seeing how city people live. They seem quite placid sitting in traffic, perhaps they are all drugged on the carbon monoxide! I couldn't do it. If I have to wait for two cars so I can cross the road down here I get impatient. Still I'm glad most people like the cities I wouldn't want them all down here.
Sold a couple of sculptures. Sweeet. More room to make some more!

Personal Chef

While the Egg is closed for 5 months I'm hiring myself out as a personal chef for romantic dinners or other special occasions. I'm in the process of setting up menus so customers can mix and match according to their tastes and budget and I'll bring the food to their house, cook it, serve it, clean up and maybe sing to them (if they are tone deaf!). I'm missing the creative side of cooking, my family are tired of me experimenting on them and want good old fashioned meals for a change.

Salty Dog

Oh to be a salty dog. You wanna taste my skin? I'm out sailing most days and freedom comes to mind. Enjoying something at no cost to me or the environment. Catching my food, making my own water, cooking with solar power (OK that's a dream at the moment but I'm working on it!). I only have to learn how to turn seaweed into something edible to stop scurvy then I'm complete! Have you ever heard such pretentious, greenie babble? A lot of people have started giving me sailing advice because they watch me gybing and luffing and going round in circles and don't realise I'm chasing my dinner and I never realised the disdain power boat skippers give to sailors but it probably works the other way too.
Easter weekend is the end of the summer season here and it's been great to see the summer people enjoying themselves in our beautiful area but it will be nice to get back to just the locals and a walk on a deserted beach for a change. We will have it to ourselves until about October and then look forward to seeing all the 'loopies' again.

The kite runner

Just finished Khaled Hosseinis' book 'The Kite Runner' about a boy of privilege growing up in Afganistan in the '70s before the Soviet invasion, the Taleban and the American invasion. His friendship with a servant boy highlights the intractible nature of the class and religious system which has led to the excesses of the Taleban but also gives a brutally honest account of how a societys' rules get handed down and ingrained in the children.
The title comes from the sport of kite fighting where opponents try to cut each others string and the 'runner' searches for the defeated kite and brings it back as a trophy and the author paints a picture of the beautiful city of Kabul brought to ruin by the time of his subsequent return from the USA as an adult.
For most of the book I thought Hosseini was telling his own story and felt a little cheated (why? because truth is stranger than fiction?) when I found out he wasn't but it's a stunning story, well written and worth reading.

You could love

Billie goes back to England tomorrow so we thought we had better record our song. The music is hers and the lyrics are mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxAMgoMvnDs The quality is pretty crap because it is only on my little digital camera. We are singing it live for the first time tonight at the monthly open jam session at the Egg. Maybe a new career beckons. Not!!!

Running man

OK, I haven't sold any of my wooden sculptures and before you hammer me with 'that's not a reason for making art' (yes you, my sole blogger friend hiding behind your mothers' skirts!) I ain't got no room left in da workshop. So maybe I will take the 'wooden' (I've just realised how bad that sounds) out of sculpture and throw some colour on them. Soulmate Billie has made a start above transforming my running man from a swastika to...well...a funrunningmanfunrunningmanfun...sigh, now I've got to think up colour combinations, being a failed artist is not easy!!

god or religion

I'll give you god
No problem
But take him to an
Open field or
Down by the river

Don't put him under
A vaulted ceiling
For then you'll gather
And become
Intractible


A response to Cosmics post

Public sculpture

There is not one single piece of public art in Whitianga my closest town. I intend to change that but it means meeting with the towns' philistines which I hate with a passion. I get sick and tired of defending art and of showing that artists are real people with real jobs. Maybe I should just drop my large vortex into the middle of the main street to reiterate that art is unavoidable. Our region has a long history of the arts but I think the pursuit of money has got in the way and the art community is regarded as sandal wearing curiosities.
So I will have to be underhanded and resort to such things as competition. Paeroa, a town as big as, but lesser in stature than Whitianga is having a large stone sculpture carved by friend Jocelyn Pratt and it was amazing to see the change in facial expressions when this was mentioned.
I know I am getting into a fight which I don't want or need but one has to keep battering at the wall till maybe one small crack might appear.

Yachting

So now I wish I had bought a monohull! I put Chica Bonita on the beach below us just after high tide, which was the easy bit, then had to scrape and polish two 36' hulls before the tide came in again. Eight hours of hard slog for a retired(tired) gentleman with little fitness. I can feel muscles I didn't know I had! She looks good though and will probably go another two knots faster
I didn't paint her bottom (although I am a painter of bottoms!) because I want to bring the colour up the bow in the outline of a woman (her name means lovely lady in Spanish) and turn her long hair into her name but I want to spend more time on the design to get it right.
We've had some great days sailing in the bay with my eldest daughter, son in law and two grandchildren who are visiting from Sydney and Denise slept on the boat for the first time and didn't feel sick which is a bonus but didn't sleep well and I woke up with bruises so it must have made me snore well (she forgot to take her ear plugs!).
I'm loving learning all the systems on board and planning improvements which will keep me off the streets for a while yet.

Perfect paua pasta

So you have beaten the paua from (last post) between a tea towel and mum has told you off because it's (the towel) all black and gooey but she loves you again when you present her with a perfect paua pasta!

Slice the paua, chop some garlic, put a great knob of butter in the pan and cook stirring for around 4 minutes on high heat. NOW YOU ARE BURNING THE GARLIC, BE MORE CAREFUL. Add sea salt and fresh ground pepper, half a teaspoon of green curry paste (OK whatever you've got!), some fresh parsley and a good dollop of fresh cream. Reduce for a couple of minutes until sauce thickens and add to your favourite pasta. Don't forget to taste the damn thing and adjust the flavours.

Key...... Some - use your imagination

Knob - too embarrassed to say

Around - more or less

Dollop - enough to do the job

Don't blame me if mum is still angry!

NZ paua

Our paua (par-wa), or abalone as the rest of the world knows it, is a black footed variety and virtually one large muscle which has to be cooked either very fast or very slow. There is a white part in the centre which, if sliced very thin, can be eaten raw with soy and wasabi and it can be tenderised by wrapping the whole thing in a tea towel and beating the shit out of it.

The meat is prized and costs NZ$140 so there is a big black market trade. And then of course after enjoying it as food you can marvel at the colours inside the shell!

Live music

Wow! We hosted the lovely Mel Parsons last night for her first gig on a nation wide tour to celebrate the release of her debut album 'Over my shoulder'. Beautiful voice, inspired song writing and all delivered with a down to earth country girl (Westport) innocence.
Then there was her band! Keyboard, guitar, double bass and percussion, I don't know about their name (the Rhythm Kings) but they sure could play music! After Mel finished and most punters had gone home they jammed for an hour and treated us to something very special. Sometimes music just works, it can't be forced, the individuals join to become one organism ebbing and flowing between each other and we could see they loved playing music.
So lift that cold, grey day and go out and support live music at a venue near you. It'll rock your socks!

Boating

The joys of boating! I've spent the last three days with my head in diesel motors. Learning a lot though and better now than on the high seas. I've never owned a diesel before apart from an old truck and that never missed a beat, the boat engines (two 13hp nanni kubotas) seem simple enough. One works fine, the other is leaking oil and sea water (water pump seals) and won't run at full revs which I presume is lack of fuel.
I did some single handed sailing yesterday in 20 knots. I'm glad I fixed the auto pilot, it makes things so much easier and allowed me to catch six kahawai trolling and the dinghy and the rudder!! She sails well and seems to catch fish. Believe it or not, some boats don't!

Autumn shades of amber grain

Autumn is upon us. It's 6.45am and only just becoming light and a coolish 10 degrees. Summer is withdrawing her favours but her beauty is still apparent with cloudless skys and little wind. The oyster catcher chicks on the beach are flying but are still a dull black without the brilliant red feet and beaks of their parents and the shining cuckoos' call can be heard no more, presumably on the journey back to the Solomon Islands like a rat from a sinking ship. Frivolous bird, expecting summer all year round!

I love the changing of the seasons here. They are soft renewals without violence. You just get used to one then another nudges you awake and reminds you of a picnic on the sand or dinner by the hearth or birth or decay.

The cold, clear mornings also bring the john dory onto the beach. Disorientated in the shallow water, they are left high and dry by the receding tide and grace my table with their succulent flesh.

Ahhh... a life well lived.

Art and music

A few images from our open studio weekend




Guitars in waiting in Billies' studio

Billie hard at work

My latest sculpture.

We have had a good amount of people to view the art but the festival was a disaster for whatever reason. We only sold 30 tickets and needed 200 to break even. Back to the drawing board.

Art and music fest

Been busy organising our artists open studio weekend and music and wine festival. Weather has been bad but better this morning so fingers crossed.

Chica Bonita, Kerikeri to Flaxmill Bay

John, partner in the crime of the blind leading the blind!

Tuna lunch

Sunset in Shang-Ra-La

Drunken homecoming