Mad Seagull Lady
Sometimes an idea pops into my brain of something I really MUST make. There may be a vague rationale, or not. In this case, the something I MUST make are seagulls. There's more than seagulls, in fact, there's a whole gate-load in process. What I am supposed to be doing is readying a rental for occupation – tidying the garden (tick) insulating the ceiling (tick - miserable job), getting new windows installed (tick), getting a new heat pump installed (tick), prepping and painting the very sad timbers on the outside (2/3 tick). What I want to be doing is making a decorated gate.
We have planted a hedge and planned a gate across the opening to add privacy to the bedroom side of the house, which faces the road. We planned a slatted gate. Then I felt the gate was begging for one or more surfboards. A few more mental iterations and the surfboard was joined by fish swimming in the ocean below. Next idea was to add clouds in the sky above the surfboard. Finally, icing on the cake, I envisaged seagulls crowding the top of the gate, looking down at passers by.
For anyone into handicraft, you'll know how many tasks a flock of seagulls involves. First I glued pine boards together, including thicknessing and biscuit-jointing them. Then I repeatedly filled and sanded the joined boards. Next I used a jigsaw to cut out seagull shapes after creating a cardboard template seagull to draw my outlines. Then I sanded the seagulls, filled more holes, dropped seagulls on the floor a few times, broke off their tails and heads and glued them back on.
Once the wooden seagulls were ready, it was time for more fun - painting. One coat of primer, two coats of white on either side. Red for the beaks and feet, grey for part of the wings, coming up will be the black ends of the wings and the final step will be eyes – in the picture above I'm still trying out different eyes by drawing them on paper and cutting them out. I can already see the seagulls sitting on top of the gates Chris is picking up in Cromwell as I write.
This isn't the first time I've had a sudden beautification urge. An early one was at Richmond Hill Road in Sumner when the adjacent walkway collapsed and the Council plastered concrete everywhere to prevent more erosion. I MUST make a pukeko mosaic, I thought. Then I learned how. Over time, the pukeko became the centre of a larger mural and I tackled the next wall down as well.
When people ask where I used to live in Sumner, I say, "Have you seen the mosaics on the Richmond Hill Rd walking track?"
"My children love those mosaics," is a common response.
Nearly twenty years after making the mosaics, it's heart-warming to hear of people still enjoying them.
I also started a thing with fish when I was at Richmond Hill Road, which has migrated to pa harakeke. Here we have the corrugate fish by the pond which sprang to mind when we were talking with our friend Tony, who is a keen fisherman.
Some sheets of zinc-alume, a nibbler, and many tiny metal crescents all over the floor later, I had four kingfish and an alfonsino to mount on posts by the pond.
I often ask myself why I do these projects. They eat into time I could do more worthwhile activities in. Of course, craft shouldn't need any excuse. However, for me it's more than the craft activity, it's the opportunity to beautify a space, to give other people enjoyment out of something decorative and interesting.
I feel we don't place enough emphasis on beauty in our built environment any more. Once upon a time, houses had ornate and intricate features, both inside and out. They were time consuming to make but people weren't as obsessed by getting things done fast. Sgraffito is an impressive example of not doing things fast. Sgraffito (etymologically related to 'graffiti' from 'graffiare', 'to scratch') is a form of house decoration created through applying multiple layers of different coloured plaster then scratching letters or patterns down through the layers. In eastern Switzerland, whole villages have houses decorated with sgraffito, which was popularised in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries but is also common in Africa.
In New Zealand today, we focus on the size of our spaces, rather than their beauty. In gardens, the mantra is 'easy care' (as much as that is a joke to anyone who really gardens). We don't aspire to beauty, we aspire to minimum time input.
Perhaps this is the mental clash I wanted to work out in this blog...why do I, as someone who focuses on efficiency, choose to undertake time-consuming and highly inefficient projects? Every coat of paint on my seagulls must be repeated four times – twice on each side. There's no efficiency in that! My impulse art projects allow me to justify being inefficient; taking the time to learn new skills and the time to carry out the detailed work.
The street in which our rental sits sees a constant flow of people. As we have improved the garden and painted the house sea-blue, we've had lots of people stopping for a chat about what we're doing and how much nicer the hundred-year-old house is looking. Every second house has children who walk, scooter or cycle to school.
I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing their reactions when we install the new gates. Stand by, in November, you will get to see them too.
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