When I was trying to work out how I would curate or collect my ideas together to try and make a cohesive collection, I decided on a title - Coast to Hedgerow. I was specifically thinking about my native NZ coast, which has some of my favourite plants and images held in memory, and the hedgerows and natural spaces around my home in North Devon. But of course there is a lot of coast around North Devon and a lot of other unique flora and fauna in New Zealand. And lets face it, our environment is a never ending source of inspiration and design…
So, I’m going to start with my favourite coastal piece. This is inspired by New Zealand coastal regions
There is the west coast of the South Island - if you stand on the beach at Hokitika – and look one way out over the Tasman Sea, sort of towards Tasmania, and then turn around and the start of the Southern Alps kind of slap you in the face – they look like they are rising up from your feet. There are the beaches of the east coast of the North Island where I grew up – the cold pacific ocean of Waimarama (where I foolishly read Jaws while staying with a friend one summer – no more swimming that year!), Ocean Beach and Te Awanga - where I still love to go when I’m home.
One of New Zealand’s most iconic native plants is flax (Harakeke) it grows pretty much everywhere and the native birds love it, and I can’t think of NZ coast without it being there - and in the gardens, and the wetlands and everywhere else - but when I look at photo’s from around the coast it’s always there… and often with old weathered gateposts. I love old gateposts (I have one at the bottom of my own garden, which I include here, because it makes me laugh). The wood turns to a lovely soft shade of grey, it’s cracked, and worn – usually full of critters – and just adds atmosphere somehow. Maybe it’s ghosts, or just a visual reminder of time passing, I don’t know, but I do know I love an old gatepost!
New Zealand has amazing clouds – now don’t get me wrong – the whole world has amazing clouds… and in North Devon we have more than our fair share of cloud. But something I have noticed in travelling around is that clouds are different in different places, and they provide very different qualities to places, whether it’s the light and colour tones or just atmospheric changes – I don’t know, and to be honest it doesn't really matter – but I do find it fascinating. Anyway, there is cloud, quite a lot of it on the west coast, and it can be beautiful!
So, these are some of the images that are often in my mind. Trying to pull them together into a picture that can be called a design, and then be turned into ‘something’ that is decorative and functional, and hopefully means something to someone else – that just takes cogitation, mulling over, daydreaming, musing, ruminating … and all that.
This is where I got to
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