Dispersant

View of Dispersant through the window from the ally. It doesn't photograph well because of the reflections. But its lovely in real life so if you can go, please have a look.

I installed Dispersant at the Outeredge Project at Sanderson Gallery last week and I'm really pleased with how its turned out.  But there is no chance to rest on my laurels or even have a cup of tea and a lie down. I'm running out of time to finish my big black oil spill and my Tui mine in time for their near deadlines, so I'm stitching even more constantly and certainly more frantically than usual.  So, not much blogging over the next little while.

Me on a plinth in the window installing

To keep you entertained click through to read two essays that accompany Dispersant. Fiona P. McDonald, an anthropologist has written a very erudite analysis, and I've got my own essay/artist statement.

Side view by day

Fiona writes: Experiencing Dispersant through the gallery window as though through the optic
lens of a microscope highlights the need for focused— rather than dispersed—accountability and an 
understanding the interconnectedness with unseen environments. This installation offers a new visualization and experience from which to negotiate alternative cosmologies in the aftermath of manmade environmental disasters. 

Side view by night

By the way, Dispersant is for sale, either as a complete work or as individual strands.. Please contact Sanderson Gallery if you are interested.

Tractorgirl interview

Julie Gibbons interviewed me and has posted an article about my work on her blog, Tractorgirl.  

Call and Response

The lovely Sculpture Park at Waitakaruru Arboretum has a new exhibition on for Autumn: call and response, curated by Kim Paton and featuring all early career artists. I walked around last week and really enjoyed myself. It is a very fun show with lots of playful interactive pieces.

Taarati Taiaroa's Site drawings involves borrowing a pair of scissors and buying an envelope printed with instructions for foraging from trees around the park.  I chose kahikatea and enjoyed sweet little red berries.

Grace Tai's Sound Hunt : Traces was even more fun with a treasure hunt  for brightly painted boxes hidden around the park, some making a doorbell noise to lead you to the others which had log books, postcards and photos to take in exchange for some small gift back. I made little origamis out of bright gum foil wrappers and took some lovely images home with me.

Another interactive piece was Amber Pearson's happiness tree and good luck gravel. Both demanded some energetic hard work on the hand pump to bring the sculptures up to standing.  This is me pumping up the happiness tree, always a worthwhile endeavour. Good luck gravel shed silver glitter as it grew and I didn't like it so much, perhaps also because of the large bush cockroach than ran out of its folds very close to my face.

Blankets featured in a couple of the pieces, the most successful I thought was this (untitled) by Karen Burns in which the folded blankets lined a large wooden box with a (replica) 1853 musket, a bible in Maori and some beer bottles.  The blankets were all folded with their lovely vintage labels showing, and since I have a thing about blanket labels I photographed each of them individually.

I'm fascinated by the industrial history of the gravel quarry that transformed the landscape at the site before it was planted up by the current owners, so I appreciated Ryan Monro's RIP Greywacke in which little boxes with a big chunk of gravel were scattered inconspicuously around the edges of the quarry.

At the bottom of the quarry Veronica Herber's Slowness Shifting II was a lovely subtle cascade of masking tape down the rocky cliff face and across the path.

Two of the artists I am most familiar with in the show were tucked into the shady forest edges.  I've seem many photographs of Nell Nutsford's Mould, erosions and extrusions but to see them in real life set in the landscape was a whole new experience.  As large glossy photos in a white gallery they seemed purely conceptual, but in among moss and lichens they seemed like they were a new kind of alien plantlife growing our of the gravel.

I met Ross Forbes last month at the opening of Sculpture and Object at Sanderson Gallery where we both had work.  Once again, his signature style was transformed away from the gallery into something much more organic.  With his shards of mirror reflecting foliage instead of walls, and the balance of ropes and weights seeming more precarious on a rocky hillside, and the whole thing covering a much bigger space, I found "clash crash bang" very beautiful and exciting.

There's lots of other work in the show that I liked, and very little that is predictable or boring.  If you are in the Waikato I'd recommend checking out this show before it finishes on 10 June.  I think it would be great to take children around and even people who aren't usually that interested in art would, I think find it stimulating.

The image at the top of the post is  part of a zombie woodland creature picnic, Antoinette Ratcliffe's Freeze Sucker.

Lovely for me

A strand of Dispersant, casting night shadows on the studio wall

In preparation for installing Dispersant in the Outeredge Project window in just a couple of weeks I am attaching my 400 crocheted, dyed and starched globules to fishing lines. I keep coming up short whenever I run out of the strips of old sheet and duvet cover that I use to carefully wrap each strand so they don't tangle in their boxes (five big boxes full so far).  So sometimes a strand of globules is left hanging in my studio for a day or two.  At night my bedside lamp is well positioned to cast lovely shadows through the globs. It is incredibly beautiful and I'm afraid I am the only person who will ever see them looking like this.

I feel sorry for (most) people who only get to see my finished art works in galleries because there are so very many moments of loveliness in the making and you will never know them as I do. I try and share as many work in progress (wip) photos here as I can, and often I continue to use wip photos after the piece is complete, because they remain my favourite images. But if I stopped and took a picture every time I noticed the transient loveliness under my hands I fear I would be even slower than the outrageously slow artist that I am anyway.  So most of my delight unfolds hour after hour in exclusive solitude.

Much of the loveliness can't be captured in photos, and I'm sorry, not matter how I try, my words are inadequate. How can I share with you the feeling of pulling floss through plump felted layers of blanket? The shushing of cotton and wool fibres stroking past each other until I sense just the right tension has been reached, the stitch is complete and the smooth point of the needle probes into the dense softness to begin the next stitch.  Over and over and over again, in a rhythm governed by the ever shortening length of thread, which begins as long as my arm can stretch from my lap and ends as short as the needle.  The trance is broken, I stitch the knot, snip the ends, pull another three strands of DMC off the card and thread the needle.

That's the pause when I am most likely to look beyond the row I am stitching to see the whole of what I've made so far.  Sometimes, especially in the long middle of a big project it's not lovely at all.  There's an awkward adolescence in which the charms of beginning are exhausted and the satisfaction of maturity seems a long way off. But I love the first stages of all my pieces as fiercely as a mother loves her newborn baby.  And coming to the end, seeing my vision made manifest the pieces look as intensely gorgeous to me as they ever will. More than the finished piece will, because once its finished I am stuck with all the little flaws and disappointments I have settled for.  No more potential, and to me, potential where the real beauty lies.

Blizzard Wins an Award

Blizzard (2011)

I won an award!  One of the four 2012 National Contemporary Fibre Arts Awards, the one sponsored by the Nelson City Council for 'the work which best embraces the theme of 'Water and/or Light'  The winning work is Blizzard, part of my Antarctica series.

The judges "felt that there was a lovely subtlety in the work, and that we loved the feeling of disappearing into the blizzard which the depth of the work gave.We also liked the contemporary interpretation of the quote, and the choice of fabric."

I am deeply moved by this Award.  I got a bit hysterical when I first found out, laughing uncontrollably as I conquered my surprise to let the news sink in. Then I started to cry a little. And then, because I had a busy day planned I had to just get on with what I had to do.  But every time I remember this exciting news I roll through another emotional response.   Here are three reasons why it is affecting me so deeply.

I've been a selected finalist in national art awards four times in the past four years but this is my first win.  It feels like an overwhelming acknowledgement of the persistent hard work I put into my art practice, and my commitment to pursuing new directions.  I'm very glad Blizzard is getting this recognition because it is a little different from the work I'm best known for, so I feel the Award is encouraging me to keep experimenting technically as I dig deeper conceptually.

Blizzard (detail)

I almost didn't enter Blizzard because I didn't know how I was going to pay for the courier fee.  Nelson is on  another island, and Blizzard is a big work, not heavy but a large awkward parcel that was expensive to send.   Unexpected dental costs a few months ago used up all my savings and put me on a back foot money-wise.  I sent up a prayer to the universe to sort my finances out before the credit card bill came due and sent the work to Nelson anyway.  The Award is a cash prize of $1500 which will cover all my current bills and make a huge difference over the next few months.  Thank you universe!

Last but not least, is the timing of this award for Blizzard. A century ago this month Captain Laurence 'Titus' Oates died in an Antarctic blizzard. His final words 'I'm just going outside and may be some time' is one of the most famous Antarctic quotes and I made it into Blizzard.  It sends shivers down my spine to have my own honour coincide with this anniversary. There are many celebrations and memorials taking place for Scott's Polar Party this year, and I feel that this Award gives me another connection with Oates and his companions.

The Awards show is called Changing Threads and is on at The Refinery Artspace in Nelson, New Zealand until 21 April.  Unfortunately I won't get a chance to go down and see it, but if you do, please write and tell me all about it.

400 Globules

One strand

This morning I finished crocheting the 400th globule for the Dispersant installation.  I think I started the first globule back in September when I was still thinking of them as spheres

Looking up

  for clouds.  It's been a long journey and its not quite finished yet.

Each of the crocheted globules is dyed in tea, then starched in home made wheat starch with a wool stuffing so they hold their sphere-ish shape as they dry. Then the wool stuffing is picked out and finally the globules are tied to fishing lines, ready to hang in the Outeredge Project window next month.Whew!

All together it works out to about 50 minute per globule from start to finish which that adds up to about 333 hours in total of making for this project.  Not quite as long as making My Antarctica, and definitely easier because of the modular aspect of it, but on a similar scale.

I had my first real crack at attaching the globules to their fishing lines this week.  I really like how they look, and can't wait to see them en masse, against the dark blue background.

I'm pleased to have finished the crocheting, especially because at one stage I'd fallen behind my production schedule and was worried I wouldn't get them all made in time. But as usual for me, its a bitter sweet sense of satisfaction because I always enjoy the process of making so much and now that fun part is over.

I'm not sure what I can do next as a portable project to occupy my hands when I'm on the bus, or visiting friends.  Without a little project in my bag I am prone to anxiety and impatience.

Shall I indulge in something purely personal as a break from my gallery oriented projects?  Helen Lehndorf's cute knitted necklace reminded me that I was keen to make a crocheted necklace last year but got caught up in making my globules instead.  

It has to be a very quick project because I am just *this* far away from deciding what my next modular making gallery project will be. Well actually I pretty much know, I just haven't decided yet how urgent it is. So I better hurry out to my storage unit and have a sort through my little stash of wool yarns.

A batch of starch ready to be rubbed into the globules

Writing Bridges

Click on image to see more of the show

Sculpture & Object at Sanderson Gallery had a wonderful opening on Tuesday.  It's a gorgeous, coherent exhibition across a really diverse range of three dimensional art in many media. Ceramics, textiles, metal, paper and other materials all shared a sense of the makers touch and care in more-often-than-not quirky (and even humorous) pieces.

This is the second of five exhibitions I'm in over the next four months (the list is in the right column of the blog), the consequence of writing many proposals over the past six months.  I worked out the statistics this morning: I'm preparing and sending out an average of 1.6 proposals/applications/entries/submissions a month, with about a 50% success rate so far.

Momentum is building as I get more practised and confident at this side of the art business. The first proposal of this blitz took about a year of anguished procrastination, several weeks of drafting, interminable hours of assembling all the attachments and a firm push from a supportive friend.  The one I sent yesterday took me a few days of thinking, writing and sketching followed by an hour or so to put everything together.  It helps that my CV is up to date, the 'recent work' photos are assembled and suitably sized and my statements are honed.

I'm learning so much from this process as I cycle through it month after month.  I've noticed that my successful proposals are for situations which are a very good fit to the work I am doing right now.  So far most of the unsuccessfuls involved some stretching and bending for me or my work to meet the criteria.  I'm ambivalent enough about those to shrug off rejection with hardly a twinge of disappointment and a genuine interest in learning how to improve my chances as I pursue more passionately-desired goals in the future.

Each application involves reaching towards a situation which I aspire to and so I've started thinking of my proposals as bridges, my preparations as bridge building. The wider the gap between where I am now and the situation I'm applying for, the more carefully I need to build a sturdy, well-designed and sound structure to carry me towards my destination.

On Wairere Falls Track

Icebergs in Auckland and Upper Hutt

I have Antarctica-themed work appearing in two group shows opening in March, one in Auckland and one in Upper Hutt (Wellington Region).  I'm really pleased because I so want Imagining Antarctica to have a wider audience beyond Hamilton. One of the nice consequences of my burst of productivity in 2011 is now I have an existing body of work to offer for group shows while I work towards upcoming solo shows and installations.

My Antarctica (Ross Island) Collection of Waikato Museum

Opening tonight at Expressions in Upper Hutt is a show called 'Common Threads' featuring contemporary artists who use woollen blankets in their practice.  The gallery has arranged to loan My Antarctica (Ross Island) from Waikato Museum's collection and I have sent down a couple of small icebergs.  This is a show I really wish I could see as I'm interested in so many of the artists. There's a floor talk on Sunday 29 April which would be fascinating. And the opening tonight features Words in Motion with poetry, story telling and music. I wonder if poet Apirana Taylor will recognise my name and remember knowing me as a little girl when he was a young poet published by my father?

Sanderson Gallery's Sculpture and Object group show 'brings together contemporary three-dimensional works from a selection of artists. Works include sculpture, installations, objects and ceramics.'  Other artists include Matt Moriarty and John Oxborough so I'm honoured to be in this company (and even more honoured that my Arch Berg is featured on the exhibition's front webpage).

Big Berg

I've sent up the  Big Berg and a number of smaller bergs from my Imagining Antarctica series. I'm going up to Auckland to attend the opening on Tuesday night, and I hope some of my Auckland friends will be there. (Opening starts at 5.30, please do come!).  I'm looking forward not only to the opening, but also to spending a weekday in central Auckland visiting galleries I haven't been to for a while.

I'll also be having a closer look at the Outeredge project window at Sanderson Gallery, where I will  install Dispersant next month.  So far I have stitched 358 globules, tea dyed 300 and starched 275. So I have a busy month to get all 400 finished and ready to hang by Easter's end.  You can be sure that I have a crochet hook and ball of cotton handy everywhere I go. If you see me in Auckland, ask and I'll show you my workbag!

Some starched globules waiting to have the wool stuffing picked out of them

What I actually do

Big oil spill in progress

 I've got three substantial works in progress at the moment and flit between them according to where I am, how hot it is or whether my fingers are getting tired of felting needle, stitching needle or crochet hook.  The making is of course in addition to working on a few proposals and applications and negotiating to consign existing works to out of town galleries.  2012 is turning out a busy and exciting year!

The needle-felted top of Te Aroha (935m)

I've finally pushed out my Tui Mine piece from the shores of planning and preparation onto the wide sea of making.  Starting at the top of Te Aroha, thick pads of New Zealand bush greens are being felted onto the contour lines above the mine.  I'm still waiting for embroidery threads to arrive in the post before I start stitching and can get a sense of what these mottled colours will ultimately look like. Hopefully less like camouflage fabric than they look right now!

My whole floor area covered in blankets and pattern pieces to be cut out for the big oil spill

Meanwhile, my urge to stitch is more than being satisfied with long waves of big black oil spill.  All the pieces of blanket are cut out, and as I felt, then stitch them around the edges of this very large work, it becomes more and more awkward to manage. Rolled up in its dust sheet I think of it as a baby whale, soft, heavy and compact.  But there is no longer anywhere big enough in my life to spread it out to see in full or pin the newest piece flat.  I have to work in sections with the rest of it folded or piled out of the way.  Despite this limitation I can tell it's looking good, well past its unlovable adolescence and into a big bold strong maturity.

Dispersant: colour check 

Last, but not least, are my globules of Dispersant. The count is now about 325 and there seems a good chance I will make it to my goal of 400 by the deadline (it didn't look so possible a month ago, but I've been working hard at it).  I recently took some time out from crocheting to choose a colour to paint the backdrop to the installation, one of my favourite shades of blue, a deep, cool under-water-column for me to fill with my tea dyed globules.

Fired up about Stockton Mine and Denniston Plateau

Stockton Mine (photo from Solid Energy)

I spend a lot of time looking at pictures of open cast mines (photographs, diagrams and maps) trying to make sense of the distorted landscapes; trying to understand what is up or down, to grasp the massive scale and identify different activities and elements.  I spend a lot of time trying to think how to respond to, interpret or represent open cast mining in my work.  I have mostly been frustrated and disappointed with my attempts to bridge the gap between my ideas and what my hands can produce.

It does seem as though my lack of first hand experience is an impediment, and that in this area at least, my imagination alone is inadequate for the task I set it. I have visited one open cast bauxite mine, at Weipa in Queensland Australia, but that was before I knew to look for what I would now.  That visit was certainly seminal in making mining such a priority for me, but the tour bus had filthy, heavily scratched windows, and my memory (and few photographs) are similarly hazy.

My best photo of Weipa's bauxite mine, taken through scratched and dirty bus windows. Bauxite sits on top of the earth at Weipa, they just scrape off 10m or so and then 'landscape' the much lower ground behind them.

Last night I went along to a talk about plans to mine Denniston Plateau in the South Island of New Zealand.  Over recent months I have read all I can, focused in on Google Earth from every angle, sought out every image of  Denniston and its sister Stockton Plateau where open cast mining has been underway for many years. My poor brain has felt as dull and dim as the Weipa bus windows in trying to visualise Denniston and Stockton.  But listening to Kevin Hackwell of Forest and Bird speak, while seeing his beautiful slides projected large and clear, was like knocking that opaque window out of the frame and seeing through clear air at last.

Finally, I can make sense of the geology of the Plateaus- tipped and cracked into different angles as they are, they still share the relatively shallow but very hard sandstone cap on top of high grade coal.  I could see with my own eyes the 80m tip of Mt Augustus being bulldozed into rubble and tipped down into the fertile, wild valley below. I could see the boundaries of the conservation land that includes the Plateaus.

I was completely engaged through the early part of the presentation, utterly entranced by the unusual ecosystem that clings to the exposed rocky top of the plateaus; the snails, the birds, the crayfish all intriguing.  Then the first slide showing Stockton's open cast operation flashed up and I felt a thrill through my body that seemed at odds with the groans of dismay uttered by the grey-haired greenies that filled the audience around me.    For me though, seeing the mining so clearly, and so well contextualised, was utterly compelling, fascinating and exciting as well as horrifying.  Finally I could make sense of the light and shadow, the shades of rock, the textures of each layer as the overburden is scraped away to reveal the thick rich black seam below.

Kevin had extraordinary stories to flesh out the images before us. The tenuous consent to mine nearby Happy Valley was granted at the last minute based on Solid Energy's spontaneous offer to roll up the wetlands and store them for a few years, then reinstate once all the coal had been removed(!). A case has been taken by investors in the Australian Stock Exchange against Bathurst for misinformation in their prospectus for mining Denniston.  Bizarre and possibly futile efforts to relocate the unique carnivorous snail from Mt Augustus before it was decapitated.  The mysterious jewel-like flatworm, unknown to science, found by contractors during the snail removal, whose photograph has been suppressed by Solid Energy.  Our new government reversing its promise to publicly notify the access agreement that allows Bathurst to mine on Conservation land, just two days after last years election.

Biking home after the talk, under the moon rising golden and swollen in a halo of little clouds, my mind was full of the stories and images of Denniston and Stockton. What had been a nagging ache of desire to visit there was simultaneously sated and inflamed.  I am full of ideas and eager to begin making confident at last that I know what to do, but it also seems even more urgent to find a way to fund a field trip to see for myself.  The urgency is not just to feed my creative hunger, but also because this year is the turning point for Denniston. Consent has been granted, but will be appealed to the Environment Court (and possibly beyond) this winter. If the appeals lose all the way, mining could begin on Denniston next summer.  It is a crucial time for public activism and thus raising public awareness. If my planned textile works can help raise public awareness to positive effect, then I want them not to be too late.

A visit to the unit

The first action on visiting is always to move the spinning wheel and tapestry frame out into the hallway so I can access what I need. I share the rental on the storage unit with a friend who rarely needs to access his excess household possessions, so his bits are all at the back (top layer of mattresses visible). 

My studio flat is too small to contain me, all my possessions and all my home and studio activities. One of the ways I manage around this is by renting a storage unit about five minutes bike ride away.  Everything that is not in at least weekly use lives in the storage unit. I visit the unit once every week or two. I pick up and drop off what I can fit on my bicycle (or persuade someone with a car to help me, if there is too much bulk for my bike). I spend time there working too: packaging pieces to send to collectors or galleries; photographing work against the big bare walls of the corridor; and sometimes even doing the odd bit of stitching.

Note the green forks on the front of the bike which has lost its some of its glamour since the original forks had to be replaced in a hurry recently.

The list of things to do at the unit this weekend included packaging up a framed work to send to a collector. You can see it squeezed into the saddlebag on the back of my bike above.  I was also going through my fabric stash to choose fabric to sew a dust cover for my new sewing machine.  The vintage curtain fabric below is very funky and fun but also too ugly and weird for me to want to use in something decorative or sartorial. The yellow ground is printed with images of playing cards, smoking paraphernalia, coffee and booze.  I don't share any of those addictions, but making things is my addiction so I finally feel like I've found the right purpose for the cotton.

I learned how to use my new sewing machine on the dust cover project.

The most important task was to get into my Box o' Bergy Bits and prepare some for sending to an exhibition in Auckland next month, at Sanderson Gallery's new Paper/Project space.  The exhibition is called 'Object' (opening 6 March) and I am sending up four of my icebergs, including Big Berg.  When Big Berg was dis-installed from the Imagining Antarctica exhibition last year, someone cut short the fishing line used to suspend it. Since getting the fishing line into the Berg in the first place had been a long morning of tears, bad language and several broken needles, I've been postponing this repair task for months.  Now the time had come, but within the first five seconds, my only big needle broke.  It will have to wait a few more days while I re-equip.  (Lesson learned: provide dis-installation as well as installation instructions).

Iceberg resting on exhibition details

I finally got round to another long procrastinated task, to sew printed cotton labels onto the bases of the smaller bergs.  I've been frustrated with my previous labelling system for a long time until I came up with idea of getting labels printed on cotton that I can sew discreetly onto pieces. At least those pieces that have backsides or bottoms. It makes me cringe have my labels visible which was a problem with my old labelling system, as curators seemed to love to show them off and I would have to go around my exhibition trying to hide the labels, only to find them dragged out into view next time I visited.

What better to have on my label than the URL of my brand new gallery website ?

Brand Shiny New

I'm overjoyed to announce the launch of my new 'gallery' website at www.meliors.net.  It's been years in the dreaming, months in the planning and weeks in the making. The intention with my new site is to provide a reference point for collectors, curators and others to easily view  the best of my recent work, find biographical information and links to interviews and so on.

I find creating digital work very stressful compared to the slow sensual pleasures of hand crafting physical objects; so I can't praise too highly my website developer Conrad Johnston at Darnoc. Conrad's calm and competent approach helped me to overcome my angst and develop my own web skills as well as a new website.  He was particularly patient with my fussy intolerance of anything that didn't match my vision- even when my vision didn't match my (tiny) budget.

Bibliophilia will carry on being my blog right here on Blogger. The gallery website is a complement, not a replacement. However, the URL link, meliors.net that I've been using for this blog for several years, now will point visitors straight to the gallery website requiring another click through to the blog. If you are a frequent visitor, you might want to save meliors.blogspot.com to bring you directly to Bibliophilia for new content most weeks.  But  please do go have a look around at www.meliors.net first.

One of the joys of being an artist is getting to know the people who love my work enough to buy it, so I thought long and hard about how to enable people to buy my art via the website.  Rather than clicking through to a shopping cart, anyone interested in buying a piece just needs to send me a message. (More information is available on the website.)  That way you and I, both know we are dealing with a real human being.  It might not be quite as instant as shopping on Etsy or Amazon, but since whatever you are buying from me took weeks, if not months to make, an exchange of messages over a few minutes or hours seems an appropriate way to transfer its ownership.

Please share my new website with anyone you think would be interested in an overview of my recent work, and this blog with anyone interested in the unfolding process of its creation.

Close up of Tui Mine

View from the Tui Mine site, looking out over the town of Te Aroha and the Hauraki Plains

 As part of the research I'm doing for my next mining project I visited the site of the Tui Mine with some friends this week.  As it is the most toxic site in New Zealand and currently being remediated, there is no vehicle access, and many dire warnings about accessing it on foot.  So we didn't know how close we could get until we got there.  The walk up Te Aroha mountain was very steep, through some very beautiful native bush. There were a few birds about, but not many- which is not unusual for the middle of the day.  

Tunakohia  Stream, fed with water from inside the mines

We crossed several sparkling clear streams and rills, but despite the temptations of the beautiful water we tried to avoid contact with it, sharing our water bottles with Tara the dog so she wouldn't drink from the streams.  After heavy rains, or when the mine site is disturbed (as it must be during the remediation work), these streams can be full of toxic heavy metals (lead, cadium, mercury).   

Some rusty old mining rubbish lying around in the bush

 As we got higher up the mountainside and closer to the mine site, we started to hear the roar of heavy machinery and even a muffled explosion. The lower level of the large area of the mine is the tailings dam which is the current focus of remediation work.   I managed to get a peep at it through the trees, but could only see a small section of new tailings dam under construction. It will replace the crumbling old concrete dam left by the mining company when they flitted off leaving 90,000 tonnes of toxic tailings perched precariously on the steep mountainside above the little town of Te Aroha.

Constructing the new tailings dam

Higher and higher we climbed, and eventually came to one of the entrances to the underground mines of Tui. I thought recognised it from an old home video I watched at Te Aroha museum last months where a group of ex-miners revisit their old work place. This meant I could visualise the inside of the mine (dark, wet, dangerous, deep), even though the entrance is decisively blocked (not that I would venture inside a Tui Mine casually anyway).

Entrance to underground mine (top right).  Tunakohoia stream flows right past (see it coming out of the bush just above the dog?)

The mine was abandoned 30 years ago and although the lush bush crowds up the edges of the site, nothing can grow on the cleared ground, so toxic is the earth.  Looking at it, it feels very raw and new, but after thirty years, anywhere else would have overgrown the stream with vegetation.

Mine entrance, with water flowing out with bright orange sediment 

The mine's water runs straight down the blasted cliff face to join the Tunakohoia Stream

Looking down from the mine entrance

I was very excited to be able to be right there, on the mine site, seeing with my own eyes the details and the context.  I was particularly looking at the colours, because that is the decision making I'm immersed in at the moment with my mining project.   I didn't see anything that looked like cinnabar, though the dark red lichen growing on many rocks is a similar colour. 

The only life in the mine clearing are a few kinds of unfamiliiar lichens, presumably the kind that flourish on a diet of heavy metals.

We did find this piece of quartz stained with the same bright orange that flows out of the mine. I don't know exactly what the orange stuff is, but everything I've read about Tui suggests its a highly toxic mineral. 

Tui Quartz

When NORPAC abandoned Tui so abruptly after the market for their dangerous product disappeared, they left a lot behind.  A hundred tonnes or so of ore apparently, and the tailings of course.  But the most visible/accessible stuff these days are all the bits of rusting kit and a few concrete foundations. 

After we walked back down the steep mountainside, we drove to the otherside of Te Aroha town, to the charming historic Domain with its multitude of mineral spas. A luxurious soak in a warm outdoor pool was just what our sore feet and tired legs needed.  When my fingers and toes were pale and wrinkled I finally felt cleansed of any contact with Tui's toxic legacy.

A weakness for colour

 I'm doing lots of thinking about what colours to use for the Tui Mine piece I'm designing.  Although I am confident and enthusiastic about wearing and decorating with lots of colour, I think its a weak spot in my artistic practice.

In an attempt to generally improve the use of colour in my art and specifically work out what a palette for Tui Mine I'm trying to get more aware of colour combinations in nature and other people's art.  These fallen gum leaves caught my eye, under a big old tree I was walking past.  The leaves looked much more vibrant there, either the warm evening light or lying on verdant green grass.  By the time I got them home they all seemed much more subdued. But I still like them, and am drawn to the soft crimson as a shade I could try to replicate for the cinnabar of Tui Mine together with the bright greens of the forest, and the ochre and silvers of the bare earth.