Sensory stimuli

The restored gates to the Botanic Gardens impressed my friend and me this morning when, instead of taking our usual beach walk, we decided to visit the Arts Centre. The new entrance is grander than the previous one which was tucked in beside the Museum.

The annual Sculpture Festival is on in the Great Hall. There is a wonderful variety of creative work: glass, metal, ceramic, some with political messages and many with environmental and indigenous themes and materials.

I love the energy of these sculptures:

There were more in the quadrangle.

We walked around the back of the Arts Centre where the renovations are still in progress. We peered into an large artists’ studio off this courtyard and considered the interesting (incongruous?) mix of metal air bridge, brickwork, geometrical stone paving, exposed pipe work and plywood.

It will be interesting to watch how this area develops. What will the paving stones lead to?

The design of the original Arts Centre buildings is neo-gothic. Quirky features such as stepped windows, curved corners, and circular windows fit this style – all in one corner. Even the drainpipes are ornate.

We cruised around a craft market admiring the ingenuity of the artists and held kauri gum shapes thousands of years old in our hands. After all that – plus delicious chocolate and strawberry muffins and coffee/hot chocolate – we felt our senses enlivened by the morning’s stimuli.

Home again, I feel I am looking with new eyes at the shapes and textures of the garden. Suddenly, it’s alive with sculptural shapes – and actual sculptures – which I had forgotten or taken for granted.