the arts – Page 2 – Chris Preston

Gay Pride in Auckland

Considering that New Zealand passed the Homosexual Law Reform Bill as late as1986, the celebration of Pride has leapt ahead. By contrast, London Gay Pride’s attempts to turn into a parade or carnival, have failed. It has remained essentially a march, albeit a huge one, with an after party in Trafalgar Square or in a club of one’s choice, all happening on the one day.

In Auckland, celebrations now go on for two weeks, beginning with a huge cultural offer which, quite frankly, puts London to shame. Covering exhibitions, film, Literature, Theatre and Comedy, there’s also the Heroic Garden Festival where you can meet the gay garden owners.

I manage to get off Waiheke Island to a couple of the theatre shows in town.

SCCZEN_No_More_Dancing_in_the_Good_620x310 — Chris Parker in No more Dancing in the Good Room

Chris Parker’s No More Dancing in the Good Room is a coming out one man show indulging Chris’s desire to dance ballet. There’s not quite enough material to make the show work but the finale where Chris dances a duet with a home movie of his younger self in the kitchen is very moving.

Living on an Island, I make the most of time in the city and see The Legacy Project in the same evening. Here, six emerging queer writers, present short plays. Things are looking good for the future of queer theatre writing, particularly with the introduction of Trans issues. Trans (male to female or female to male) is the new frontier to be won and two of the plays bravely make a start on what proves to be a rich subject and hopefully work for trans performers in the future. The Pronoun Game was the most confrontational and experimental of the six plays. The premise is the cleaning of a bedroom, but the subtext delves into gender identity and Trans/intersex possibilities. Clad in a flesh coloured body stocking the protagonist seems asexual but several conversations with friends and colleagues later conclude that being naked might have been an even bolder decision. My favourite, however, is Sean Carley’s The Last Date. A man in his fifties wants to try sex with a man before he dies. Bedevilled by inaccurate on-line dating information, neither man is what the other expects. This chimed with me in my current dilemma, to date younger men or continue looking for that elusive companion around my own age.

Hard working Proud to Play Organisers Craig (Centre) and Dion (R) with Volunteer Marjo

My main focus at this time is on swimming. I’m on the committee organising the Swimming Competition, part of the Proud to Play sporting festival. I end up with two contrasting tasks, organising a voucher system for volunteers to get a filled roll (ham or egg) from the pool café and inviting the Deputy Mayor, Penny Hulse to open the event.

The Voucher job involves contacting the café manager for a quote and designing the voucher – easy. Inviting the Deputy Mayor involves getting her contact details off the council website, calling her mobile number to leave a message with a follow up email. She replies almost immediately with a yes and there follows an event sheet from her office to be filled in and returned – almost as easy as the vouchers. I can’t imagine the Deputy Mayor of London being so accessible or available.

I also volunteer for the Ocean Swim event. This is an opportunity for Proud to Play to combine with the Bean Rock swim starting and ending at Mission Bay on the Saturday. Taking my fold up bike on the 8am ferry, I cycle around the harbour. My job is to tick the Proud to Play swimmers off the list, get them to sign a waiver form and issue a purple/blue swim cap so we can identify them as they come in. My choice of UK English is picked up by a couple of cute American Guys who read ‘tick off’ as ‘told off’. They like that. The distance out to Bean Rock and back is 3.2K and around the half way buoy 1.6k. Two of us ‘check off’ (US & Kiwi English) the purple caps as they come in, for place and time.

Off they all go. Green caps n the 1.6K Yellow caps for those who are nervous

Later we have our own medal ceremony and I get to award the guys – medal over the head and kiss on the cheek. I then cycle off to do a final swim session in the 50m pool at Newmarket before our meet on Monday. Standing on my feet all morning has taken its toll and after doing a sedate 1,400m I can hardly move my legs. The ride from the pool to downtown is all

TAMS medal winners Jeremy, David & Cynthia

down-hill and one of my favourite freewheeling journeys, so my legs come back to life and I arrive at Silo Park down by Auckland harbour all ready for the games opening ceremony. A powhiri (welcome) from the local Maori has been organised and we, the people of Auckland welcome our visitors onto the land. I’m always moved by this part of our culture and am pleased that it has become so much a part of tradition in Auckland. Local ‘out’ lesbian MP Louisa Wall, who promoted the gay marriage bill is there along with the Mayor of Auckland Len Brown accompanied by his ‘Rainbow Advisory Board’. It’s a great opening event and to my delight Trans activist and academic, Lexie Matheson is on that board. I’ve not met up with her since we worked together as Actors in 1977 – a lovely reunion.

Sunday is Big Gay Out at Coyle Park, Point Chevalier. For me, this is another volunteer job on the Proud to Play tent. BGO is the usual info and merchandising tents with bars and a music stage with live acts.

P2P volunteers release the rainbow balloons.

It’s become a tradition for the Prime Minister of the day to attend, but this year apparently, Prime Minister John Key got booed off the stage. He hasn’t had a good month as reaction to the Trans Pacific Partnership kept him a way from the annual Waitangi Day Celebrations. I miss all the drama – too busy sorting out registrations for gay athletes and by 4.30 I’m ready to cycle off to the ferry for an early night on Waiheke.

Waiheke Playwrights Festival

The Waiheke Playwrights Festival is now in its 4^th year and I’ve got two contributions in the programme. I was attracted to The Other Flag by Mano Pratt and John McKay because of its subject, The Treaty of Waitangi, something which rumbles around the New Zealand news and media seemingly without resolution after 150 years. The script reveals things I didn’t know about or had forgotten, buried under white mythology and justification. On returning to New Zealand I found that people have stopped listening, even though the issue is not going away. I was also interested in composer John Mckay, whose War is an Avalanche I raved about in ANZAC Arts back in April. John has contributed to the text and written the final song.

The performers are musicians Mano Pratt and Richard Cannon who play two guys jamming. John can’t get his tongue around Moko’s name and has to have lessons. This leads to him learning how to say his own name in Te Reo Maori and then to a discussion about the Treaty and onward to the Maori flag, Te Kara.

I wrote a version of The Four Horsemen back in 2012 for something called The Clash Project under the auspices of London New Play Festival. Back in 2009 I directed the first plays to be written, when writer/ musician, Cheryl White, a fan of the Punk Band The Clash had an ambition to present a programme of short plays, each inspired by a track of their album, London’s Calling. I had a cast of four actors to do all the plays which played in a fringe theatre above a dodgy Irish pub in Kilburn, West London, one of the few remaining rough spots in town.

By 2012 there were nine short plays ready which we presented as script in hand performances over two evenings. I’d originally been interested in The Right Profile – an unexpected lyric about the pain suffered by gay actor Montgomery Clift after his car accident. Someone else had got there first so I went back to the album lyrics and found The Four Horsemen which begins with a rant about grapes and wine leading onto harder stuff and attracting

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, straight from St John’s book of Revelations in The Bible. Again, this is astonishing material for a punk band to be singing. That was it – I had to write about Death. I set the original play on an island, using Waiheke Island (New Zealand), a landscape I knew well so it was appropriate to submit the play for consideration here. I set about cutting more than a minute out, a curiously satisfying exercise, leaving the play with the essentials to reduce it to ten minutes. I have handed the play over to director, Louise Roke, who was very enthusiastic about the play and, more importantly, understood it. I went to a rehearsal last week and the two guys playing the gay couple are excellent. It’s shaping up to be a moving performance.

We’re opening at Piritahi Marae on Friday 9th October and again on Saturday 10th @ 7.30pm bookings at gyo15@vodafone.co.nz Tickets $15

From Page to Stage Short & Sweet Theatre

My friendship with writer Judith Cowley grew during the rehearsal period, what with skype and mobile phone conversations, we discovered that we agreed on so much relating to script development and with the input from actors Sheena and Mike, the text came alive for us more or less in the way I’d first imagined it.

Mike Howell & Sheena Irving Photo by Shouik Nandi

There were nuances which the actors discovered without my help and underneath the layers there were more delights to discover. We explored the emotional journeys of the two bereft characters June and Bevan moment by moment throughout rehearsals. They’ve lost their son Cody through addiction to sniffing spray cans and their relationship is in tatters. Bevan visits with an important objective, but he’d also like to move back in, even if it’s only in the Sleep-out. Bad idea, that’s where Cody slept and died watched by his dog.

The dog is the only connection Bevan has to his son, so he want’s desperately to get him out of The Pound, but June hasn’t the money and has had enough. They reminisce, enjoying the happy times but it soon comes down to reflection of their failure as parents. June struggles to keep in control, only just managing to send Bevan away to sort himself out before breaking down to deal with her own grief.

It might have been a risky thing to put in front of an audience, expecting them to love it, but they did, and you could hear them listening. Four plays from week one were chosen to go through to the final Sunday gala performance, two from the Judges and two from the audience choice. To my great surprise, we made it on an audience vote. It just goes to show that audiences can be discerning and recognise quality writing. The other audience choice was the hilarious Threatened Panda Fights Back. The poster boy for the WWF refuses to mate, until confronted by a pair of reconstituted Dodos about to lay eggs.

We had a week off, though I continued to travel to Auckland to see theatre and swim. I’d entered the Taupo Masters Swimming Brown Trout meet which meant catching the early car ferry and driving to Taupo for a 1pm start. I stayed the night in a motel, swam an 800m freestyle race in record time (for me) then drove back to Auckland in time for a 1pm rehearsal of In the Pound at the theatre. The judges judged the plays (6 from week 2) at the 3pm performance with me watching from the lighting box. At 7pm, we had the final show followed by the prizes.

Sadly we didn’t win anything but we did explore white heterosexual working class social realism – currently under represented. Judith Cowley came up to Auckland for the second time and loved that the play had grown so much since the opening night. Thanks to my theatre friends, Liz, Richard, Raymond and Johnny and Elizabeth, who gave us such positive feedback.

The team: Mike Howell, Sheena Irving, Judith Cowley, Christopher Preston

What now? Well, I’m already into the Waiheke Playwrights Festival, directing The Other Flag and my play The Four Horsemen is in the programme. Just to show that I am into diversity, The Other Flag is about Maori issues and Four Horsemen in about a gay relationship.

The Winter Theatre Season

Theatre-going in the summer can be a bit of a chore, eschewing the long hours of daylight better spent working in the garden or cooling of in the waters of Rocky Bay and Palm Beach. It takes something very special to lure me onto the ferry from Waiheke to New Zealand for a summer evening and after the show, there’s that rush down to the ferry to catch the 10.15pm if you are lucky or the last sailing at 11.45.

As I still don’t have a television here and the garden is more or less under control (swimming in the sea … in the winter?) I’ve set about investigating New Zealand theatre. Auckland seems to be thriving these days and in particular, Auckland Theatre Company seems to be shunting out a continuous stream of product.

Rupert by Australian writer David Williamson was a rush through the life and business acquisitions of monster Rupert Murdoch. Not well written and I felt no empathy for the central character even though Stuart Devine tried to make him cuddly. The cast acted their socks off, having to work too hard to make the show work for me. Lysistrata by Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Michael Hurst, was by contrast, joyous and outrageous. This is the unlikely story of Greek women going on sexual strike to force their men to stop going to war. The women are all glamorous and sexy while the men, poor things are plain, over weight, or decrepit. One of them is in a wheel chair and smoking. Once stripped down to their non-designer white underpants and displaying painful erections it all becomes totally farcical. I remember having such fun in an Edinburgh Fringe Festival production many years ago.

Last week I took myself off to see the ATC production of Heroes by French writer, Gerald Sibleyras (translated by Tom Stoppard). What bliss to see three of New Zealand’s senior actors George Henare, Ken Blackburn and Ray Henwood having such fun with these damaged World War One veterans in a rest-home. This is West End standard theatre, not cutting edge or confrontational, but gentle humour that sends you away with a warm feeling, ideal for a winter evening. That was Wednesday and the 6pm performance allowed me to get the 10.15 ferry home.

Thursday took me out to New Lynn and Te Pou Theatre to see my friend Johnny Givins’ return to the stage as GranPapa in The Great American Scream by Maori writer, Albert Belz. Set in New Jersey on Halloween evening1938 when Orson Wells’ radio production War of the Worlds created pandemonium in the population. This seemingly wholesome American family are sent into panic mode and, believing that they will all die, begin to reveal their shameful secrets. The play reveals the power of the media and fear of deviating from the accepted norm. Chatting with Johnny afterwards, it dawned on me that Albert has written a ’well made play’ with every character harbouring secrets – a little touch of Tennessee Williams and well worth the journey. Best of all I made the 10.15 ferry again.

No ferry ride was required on Friday as this was the only date I could see Jan Bolwell’s one person show Bill Massey’s Tourists at the Artworks Theatre, Oneroa. Her publicity leaflet featured a generous quote from my old theatre director, Raymond Hawthorne, so I quizzed him about it and got a whole-hearted endorsement. Jan had booked her show into the Artworks Theatre, Oneroa for three performances so it was lucky that I could only attend on the first night as the other two were cancelled due to lack of bookings. Playing both granddaughter and grandfather, Jan told a moving story of a young girl prizing out a story of the First World War. Of course, he was reluctant to say much, but Jan has filled in the details from meticulous research. She’s touring around the country with this show, so I wish her well.

Richard Howard suggested I join him to see Michael Hurst’s one man show, No Holds Bard at the Tiny Theatre at Garnet Station, Westmere. Hurst and a team of writers have put together a gripping and hilarious evening. An Actor, playing Hamlet returns to his flat to end it all. His personal life is in tatters and, on the brink of madness, inhabits not only the Dane, but Macbeth, Lear and Othello. It kind of helps if you know these plays, but not essential as Hurst is a consummate performer. His fight between Hamlet and Macbeth is astonishingly athletic and funny – lovely to see this up close in a full house of thirty people.

Back to the big space in Q Theatre to see Silo Theatre’s production of The Events by Scottish playwright David Greig. Tandi Wright plays a liberal, lesbian priest who has survived a horrific attack on her local choir by a disaffected young man. Her journey to understand and forgive him culminates in a face to face meeting in a prison. Beulah Koale not only plays the young man, but all the other characters, including Claire’s partner. Each performance welcomes a different local choir onto the stage. The choristers have not seen the play previously, so their reactions to the events are spontaneous. There’s plenty to think about in this 80 minute piece. As an added bonus, the 7pm show got me onto the 8.45 ferry without too much running down the hill.

Short & Sweet Theatre

Short & Sweet Theatre Festival – Auckland

I’ve been writing, developing and directing new plays in the UK for many years now, so it’s with considerable excitement that I find myself directing a short play in New Zealand for the first time since 1976.

I’d heard of the Short & Sweet Festival and duly did the google thing, sent in a brief list of directing and dramaturgical work and was delighted to be asked to join the festival. The next thing that happened was the arrival of a zip file containing 28 ten minute plays to be read. My task was to choose five plays and list them in order of preference and to my surprise my first choice came back to me.

In the Pound by Judith Cowley spoke to me so strongly that whichever way round I arranged my list of five plays, this one always came out at number one. Another google and I found that Judith has just completed the MA in Script Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University, Wellington. Here’s what she wrote at the beginning of the course.

My family have always been story-tellers. A family motto could be ‘Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.’ Although my head was filled with stories, I avoided the call to write for years. The call, like a determined suitor, didn’t give up. I gave him many excuses. I am too busy, too tired. I have to have a real job. It is not my forte. He waited, watching from the other side of the dance floor.

A year ago I fell over a cliff. My injuries were minor, scratches and mild concussion. But the fall woke me up. When the call to write next came, I took his hand and said, ‘Let’s dance.’

In the Pound is indeed a dance. The ties that once held Bevan and June have broken. The characters dance around their emotions which rise and fall as they argue, laugh and cry. Can Bevan charm his way back with memories of the good times or will their failure as parents win out?

It’s a privilege to be directing this first play by a new writer, because I know Judith is going to be an important voice in New Zealand’s cultural future.

Sheena Irving & Mike Howell play June & Bevan

Casting actors is always a tense time. Will I get the right ones? Will they be available? Short & Sweet organised audition sessions according to age so I went to two, Men over 40 and Women over 35. It was slightly strange; directors sitting in a row watching actors come in, introduce themselves and perform a monologue. Ahi, the co-ordinator got them to do the monologue in a different way, to show off versatility and ability to take direction. There weren’t many actors, but amazingly the two I needed turned up. I offered and they accepted. We are now in the rehearsal process, delighting in Judith’s characters and dialogue. Everything we need to know is in the text and we’re all looking forward to the performances.

The way it works is that there are two groups of plays. In the Pound plays in week one and if we get enough votes from the audience, we will join the best of week two on the Gala Night.

Here’s how you can help.

If you are in Auckland, book tickets for any date in week one & vote for In the Pound.

If you know anyone in Auckland or nearby, forward and share this post.

Visit the Short & Sweet Facebook Page . In the Pound will soon have it’s own page with info, pix and stuff (if I can manage the technology).

The Waiheke Winter Arts Festival

Queens Birthday Weekend 30 May – 1 June

I never really understood why we celebrate QE II’s birthday at this time, when it’s not really her birth date. Probably the actual day is inconvenient for the spread of holidays. The upshot is that we have three days to explore the variety of artists who live and work on this island and there are 40 open studios and galleries to choose from. Its $15 to get the map and entry badge, each one individually made from recycled fabric and beer bottle tops. There’s also a wine and cheese soiree included on the Sunday.

Church Bay Sheep grazing

I study the artists and mark those I’m interested in and set about creating a systematic route. It’s a stunningly clear day as I arrive outside the studio/house of Gabriella Lewenz on the west end of the island, overlooking Church Bay. Sheep (a rare sight now in New Zealand) graze safely on the hillside, back-dropped by the sea. I’ve timed my start for 10am but there’s no one about as I enter the high airy studio.

Gabriella’s Studio

You can’t rush abstract art and Gabriella’s sea inspired work gradually draws me in. My attention turns to a work in earthy tones, standing out from the crowd of blue.

These are pictures you can live with, stress busting after a hard day at the office, they demand space to breath. I want to buy a card and fortunately Gabriella arrives. We get into a conversation about the art galleries of Boston, where she studied and I leave just as the next visitors arrive. Barbara Robinson is on the way back to Oneroa. An art teacher from Christchurch, she finds inspiration from the earthquake and Waiheke. She’s brought her father’s South Island landscapes with her to create some remarkable collages by cutting them up and rearranging them to reflect both places. It may sound sacrilegious, but her father’s work has had new life breathed into it.

On the other wall, her mother provides the materials. Barbara has made angels from old table linen, crochet and lace work which would otherwise languish in a forgotten drawer. Found drift-wood make up the arms and legs providing the perfect solution to every Waihekean Christmas Tree, to be brought out each year for generations.

Leslie Baxter has very recently deserted creative Melbourne for artistic Waiheke. He does dramatic kiln formed glass incorporating metallic oxides to great effect. I wish him well here in his new life. Emma Wright does abstract paining using resins to create three dimensional calming swirls. Peter Rees is demonstrating how to photoshop an image. He opens a very dark picture of sky, land and water on his computer and makes it look fabulous. They are an engaging couple in a dramatic house perched high amongst the Kanuka tree tops.

John Freeman’s Kauriart is worth a look. He has a stockpile of centuries old swamp kauri waiting to be turned into beautiful things from a huge sofa to small turned bowls.

I make my way over to Palm Beach to call on Alex Stone, another abstract painter and entertaining contributor to the Gulf News. I’m met at the gate by two large black dogs, who gently and silently escort me up the drive. His studio is packed with stuff but his non-abstract painting depicting the legs of First World War soldiers catches my eye. Alex wants to know about my blog and googles me on the spot. My book Twenty-two Eighty-four is on the front page, so he wants to know what that’s about. More people arrive and he demonstrates his technique of line making on the canvas. A great conversation from a well known Waiheke Bloke – you can look at his portrait at the Red Shed – see the blog before this. Further down Tiri View Road is Wendy Grace Allen, newly arrived in Waiheke. She’s spent time in Thailand producing bronze and glass casts of woven rice pots. She’s still finding her feet but her work inspired by Van Gough’s Irises is stunning. She’s painted her version of this very famous painting, photographed it and created an inkjet collage.

I’m starving now so a quick dash back to Rocky Bay for lunch is necessary. This lines me up perfectly to visit Gwen Rutter just along the road where I admire her vibrant flax flowers and pohutukawas for which she is famous. She tells me her husband hates flax and pulls it out at any opportunity. Ceramicist Kiya Nancarrow is also in Rocky Bay. She’s shivering in her south facing garage/workshop even though the sun is shining on the other side of the house. Her large sculptural pieces remind me of giant wood shavings or pasta. One piece is reminiscent of DNA. She tells me that some of her work was in a Christchurch gallery during the earthquake, but when she plucked up courage to call and find out the damage, all of her work survived.

Kim Wesney's studio — Kim Wesney’s studio

There’s just time to go over to Trig Hill Road, Onetangi where Kim Wesney is showing her dramatic and brightly coloured paintings inspired by grand South Island landscapes. I remember seeing these large works struggling to breath at the community art gallery. Here they make sense, particularly with the option to look at the photographs which inspire the work. Also here is Paula Richa, who combines fabric with paint to good effect.

The Strand Onetangi

It’s coffee time and The Strand at Onetangi is the perfect place to gaze out at sea and sky to reflect on the thirteen artists I’ve visited today.

Waiheke Blokes

Waiheke Blokes – part of the Auckland Festival of Photography (Fringe)

I’m always up for an exhibition of black and white photography. Back in the days of film I spent many happy hours in the dark room developing and printing, so I’m off to the Red Shed in Palm Beach for the opening of Waiheke Blokes – Environmental Portraits of local men, many of them local characters and each may be considered a work of art in their own right.

L to R Stephen Burn/Shelley Wood Ernie Ford/Jakob Legge Bob Edward Hiko/Kai Otte — L to R Stephen Burn/Shelley Wood
Ernie Ford/Jakob Legge
Bob Edward Hiko/Kai Otte

It’s dark when I arrive at five minutes past six on a Friday night, to find there’s a premium on parking. It seems that Waihekeans don’t do ‘fashionably late’ and the shed is packed. The eagle eye of organiser Linda Young spots my solo entrance; welcomes me and points to the ‘man in the green jacket’ who is dispensing drinks. So, clutching my plastic cup of Tui beer, I enter the ‘Man Cave’ where the work of 16 photographers, (two of them are senior art students from the High School) are displayed on recycled wooden pallets. Is there a typical Wahiheke look? I’ve been looking at people to try and work this one out without success. This exhibition has a good selection of the craggy faced and skinny with long hair and flowing white beard type of bloke. You can see younger versions, bare-footed and wearing shorts in the supermarket car-park in the summer getting ready to move into this slot. There are, however plenty of other character types like the bee-keeper, the classical conductor and my favourite, the coffee roaster.

Here is a list of subjects and their photographers:

Rhys Hughes by Gordon Cuthbert : Craig yw fy awyd ers cyn fy magu. Mae’r creigiau a’r yr ynys yn adlewyrchu y pobl, lliwgar, wythienau wahanol a elfenau manwl. Craig imi yw yr ysbryd, y Blwch, raid gwrando gyda dy fysedd. Craig yw’r ceidwad y cof, dwi’n teimlo fel llyfrgellydd!

Stone has been my passion since before childhood. Waiheke stone reflects the people here – colourful, full of elaborate seams and various elements. Stone for me is being the space, being present without thinking, listening to stone with your fingers. Stone is the record keeper, somedays I feel like a librarian!

Graham Hooper by Phillipa Karn: Eco Friendly Music Loving Photographer

Alex Stone by Richard van Kuyk: “The pen is mightier than the sword”

L to R Alex Stone/richard van Kuyk Robert Harris/Polly Nash Bernard Rhodes/Leah Beaumont — L to R
Alex Stone/richard van Kuyk
Robert Harris/Polly Nash
Bernard Rhodes/Leah Beaumont

Malcolm Philcox by Heather Arthur: “Waiheke has made me the bloke I am!”

Robert Harris by Polly Nash: “Working together for the common good”

Stephen Burn by Shelley Wood: Coffee ……. it’s a love affair!

Ernie Ford by Jakob Legge: Enclosure Bay local Ernie Ford is well at home in the water as his youth was filled with snorkeling and swimming in the Enclosure Bay rock pools. These pictures are taken at Divers Rock which is one of Waiheke’s classic hangout spots for teenagers.

Bob Edward Hiko by Kai Otte: An island resident for over forty years, Bob is always ready to help anyone in the community in need. He worked as a fisherman before he retired. Bob was 73 when I photographed him at the Rocky Bay Store, a place he visited frequently before it burned down.

Trevor Darvill by Carol Pearce: My Man Caves, two sheds on Waiheke Island! It was my romantic idea of living like Robinson Crusoe. Responsible for self-sufficiency. Planting trees, using wood to cook and heat the house. Providing my own water supply, food production, waste disposal, solar panels providing household electricity and charging my electric car.

Paul Stanley-Hunt by Graham Rook: “The Sunshine Man” enjoys the eclectic mix and eccentricity of the island people and their lifestyles. Endeavours to promote colour and wellbeing in people through his music and bring enjoyment and happiness to visitors and children.

Danny Shortland by Jan Robertson: One of the highest ranked honours you can have is to feed people. As you get older you may forget the names and the faces but you never forget the food.

Floris Roggeveen by Anne Robinson: Floris has worked as a chemist, and a potter, and he loves to engage with the elements, physically, mentally and spiritually. He enjoys the uniqueness, solitude and diversity of Waiheke Island. His light-hearted, joyous attitude was easily captured in this portrait.

Richard Melville by Rosemary Adler: Bringing his wealth of knowledge and years of experience, Richard takes a moment to pause and reflect before rehearsing Beethoven’s Mass in C major with the Waiheke Choral Society.

Bernard Rhodes by Leah Beaumont: Busily working I’m reminded of what Ratty said to Mole in “The Wind in the Willows”: “Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats” (Kenneth Grahame, 1908), and take time to enjoy the beauty of it all.

Paul Rhind by Linda Young: As individuals we work against the tide of our times, attempting to keep the balance between the hand of man and machines. Striving to maintain mans uniqueness, the individual mark we bring to our surrounds and pass on with our works has, in a small way, a dignity and distinction.

Glenn Fowler by Bob Scott: Visited Waiheke in the early 70’s, starting a love affair with the island, which continues today. Finally moved here in 2006. My dream job, a tour driver, showing our beautiful island to visitors. Each day someone will say ”Do you live here? You’re so lucky!” And yes we are!

This is a new group of people for me, so at first I can’t see anyone I know. Playwright, Colin catches my eye across the room and we talk about writing. He also paints and has sold a piece to a Russian, he tells me but sadly not one of those rich oligarchs. Then I spot Annette, who sells me her fabulous Te Whau olive oil at the Rocky Bay Hall on a Thursday. She is planting lots of native trees on their place, so there’s a possibility of finding homes for some of my seedlings which have germinated in abundance.

By now the crowd has dispersed and there’s room to take a closer look at the exhibition and chat to photographer Richard, who has captured artist and Gulf News contributor Alex Stone.

It’s on until June 21^st Sat & Sun 10am – 4pm. Well worth a visit and the prints are on sale.