I've just delivered three sculptures to "Taniwha Farm" just south of Waipukurau. They are having a "Sculptures in the Daffodils" exhibition through September.
One sculpture is a new rendition of Uenuku, a rainbow God inspired by a Tainui artefact of the same name. It is made from macrocarpa and stands at about 7-8 ft tall (2m odd). I almost exclusively carve New Zealand native timbers, but I make the odd exception with an occasional macrocarpa outside sculpture because macrocarpa doesn't take up moisture so it will never go rotten, and because I was given a huge piece of macrocarpa driftwood (my source) which I have already made 2 scuptures out of, and had this piece left over.
The second sculpture I've delivered to Taniwha is a tuatara made from an old driftwood puriri burr. It's been a lizardy looking thing at the back door for two or three years, and I recently got inspired to morph it into a tuatara (for those non New Zealanders, a tuatara is a New Zealand native reptile which has survived from the time of the dinosaurs).
I've put exterior marine grade varnish (3 coats) on both of these sculptures.
The third is called "In memory of Shrek and The Dog". Again for the non kiwis Shrek was a sheep found in the mountains of the south Island which had evaded the musterers for 7 years, so had a huge wool growth, and became a world wide phenomenon. He died recently, and "The Dog" is a cartoon character, another New Zealand icon by Murray Ball who retired him a few years back. Unfortunately I forgot to photograph this one so will have to post photos later, but here's some of Uenuku and the Tuatara.
