First a disclaimer. I know the author. We’re Facebook friends and we’ve even met in unpixellated life. We worked on a common project without knowing each other, and met subsequently. Her coffee is great, and was it pecan pie? Something magnificent. Aotearoa New Zealand is a small country.
So small. Years ago I worked in Rust Ave, Whangarei. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to me that it was named after someone (Alexander Rust) or that his descendant would be the subject of a book that I
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Yvonne Rust, QSM, was raised in the 1920s at Te Hapua, New Zealand's northernmost community, and this led to an extraordinary affinity with the area. As the only white child in an otherwise Maori community, she learned from young Maori to see the landscape and to revere the natural world in precisely the same fashion in which Maori did. She painted Te Rerenga Wairua (Cape Reinga) many times. Here is another version painted in 1987.
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Yvonne Rust, QSM, was more than a painter and a pioneering potter. She had the gift of human connection, so much so, that people invariably felt that she was their special friend, and this made them open to her.
Once a student was open, Rust could create the space for extraordinary learning, and it was in this way that she inspired so many of today's artists, potters, jewellers, architects, theatre directors, arts educators, sculptors, and many other creatives, many of
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“Art is the collective dream of a culture, and when understood as such, makes both all the more sublime, and at the same time, coherent,” says Peter Geekie. “A culture deprived of artistic expression is short-lived. An individual deprived of dreams soon becomes insane.”
Peter Millington, aka Geekie, emigrated from England to Australia in 1964, then to New Zealand in 1966. He qualified as a psychiatric nurse in 1970. His 15 year nursing career included, among many roles, recreation
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In 2004, Michael Rowland and his wife, Jan, abandoned Mt Eden where their lives had been centred for many years, and moved to Oratia on Auckland’s West Coast. For Michael the move constituted a shift to full-time painting, while Jan, who worked as a primary school teacher, supported him, and continues to provide the emotional sustenance supplied by a muse. Rowland hasn’t looked back, though he notes ruefully that as a painter, an earlier era might have been more financially rewarding.
“I
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