Life's rich experiences
DOCUMENTARY FILMING BEGINS
A film crew arrived for two days shooting towards a year long documentary featuring our sculpture work. We made a plan to make a sculpture on the shingle river banks of the Matukituki River near the West Wanaka estuary into the lake. After carefully marking out its position using a stick tied to a string we began to fetch water in buckets and pour it onto the gravel beach. It proved to work well and took less time than we imagined to “draw” a 24m circle.
When viewed from above it had the shape and presence I had anticipated and and I photographed it in overcast light giving plenty of detail in the sculpture as well as the mountain landscape beyond. As the circle begun to dry the crew filmed with time lapse to record it .
River Cycle
The next day rain was forecast to arrive from the west so we devised a sculpture concept that was about rain. Gathering dry driftwood from the lake edge we made a work on a shingle beach which would change colour when it became wet. Sure enough right on time the sky darkened and big drops of rain began to spatter the driftwood. The flat light gave an evenness to the range of tones so that the camera could capture them well.
Summitting Mt Avalanche
CLIMBING MT AVALANCHE
I have been wanting to climb Mt Avalanche in Mt Aspiring National Park ever since I first wandered up the beautiful Matukituki valley 35 years ago when I arrived in New Zealand from UK. Its symmetrical shape and triple peaks above Avalanche glacier crown the junction of the East and West Matukituki valleys and are visible from where we live in Wanaka.
An invitation from climbing friends was too good to pass up and we were away the next day. The long plod up the valley to Pearl Flat and a steep climb through beech forest and tussock took us to French Ridge hut in about seven hours.We had been experiencing strange low cloud effects for a week but hoped the next day would be clear. It wasn't.
Leaving the hut at 4.30 am we made good progress up onto the Quarter Deck in heavy cloud. At dawn a pinkish cast entered the scene and suddenly there was visibility. Stretching above us was our glacier route to the Bonar glacier and above and to the right our objective, the West Ridge of Avalanche, dark and free of snow. Below us a sea of cloud filled the valley.
After a couple of hours' careful route finding through crevassed ice, we broke out onto the Bonar glacier to a perfect clear view of Mt Aspiring's south face and the SW ridge on which two years before I had suffered a terrible experience when my friend John fell to his death. I was glad to return but it was with great sadness that I reflected on that day and the loss of a great friend.
Crossing the glacier we made good progress on firm snow up to the foot of the rock slabs that run up to the high peak of Avalanche. Leaving our ice gear at the schrund we climbed the rough weathered rocks past huge exfoliating flakes following deep cracks. The climbing was easy but often loose with big drops to the glaciers on all sides. No room for mistakes here.
The summit consists of spectacular broken rocks balanced above huge drops towards the Kitchener cirque with its icy blue lake far below and still further down the East Matukituki river winding its way towards Wanaka. The two lower peaks stood out in front of us with sharp jagged ridges bristling with gendarmes connecting the summits but barring access. Mt Aspiring shone majestically across the Bonar glacier, its summit still hundreds of metres above us.
Warm conditions allowed us a rest and some lunch on top before returning to the safety of French Ridge below and the comfort of the hut, a meal and a sunset to remember.
Cyclic Flow
SCULPTURE IN CENTRAL OTAGO
The next few days were spent making final preparations for installing a sculpture in the park like setting of Rippon Vineyard overlooking Lake Wanaka. Sculpture in Central Otago is a biennial show of selected sculpture works installed along a 1.5 km walk through one of the most scenic vineyards in the world.
The installation of Cyclic Flow. went without a hitch and the exhibition opened with a gala dinner in the new Rippon event centre positioned on a hill above the vineyard - a spectacular venue built with rammed earth walls and recycled timbers. Today I returned there to give an artist talk and enjoy the sculptures of the 35 artists involved along with live music.The sculptures remain on show for three months.