‘Hold The Pose’
Hold The Pose
Tag: Statue
Blow Your Own Horn
‘Blow Your Own Horn’
…playing it strong and loud…
‘Valkyrie’ Vandalised
‘Valkyrie’ Vandalised’
I posted a photo of my favourite Auckland statue just a few weeks ago in Statuesque Sunshine , and some time ago in Statue: ‘Valkyrie’.
The statue, a fountain actually, had suffered losing its flow of water during a recent drought, and the gates to it had been locked for the past couple of years for reasons unknown.
But now this final indignity:
A local newspaper reports of the vandalism and ruin of the bronze and marble monument.
I was quietly stunned, and saddened.
Utterly pointless…
The statue may not be able to be repaired, the news article states.
I hope some restorative magic can be applied to the once lovely work, I really do.
If not, I feel that I have lost a friend of sorts.
Statuesque Sunshine
‘Statuesque Sunshine’
…all the better to ride with the sun on your back…
The Swan
‘The Swan’
Boy & Dolphin II
‘Boy & Dolphin II’
The frontal perspective of the sculpture that featured in Boy & Dolphin (where you can read a little more about it).I just love this statue! The facial expressions on the pair of unlikely companions; the sea-like stone beneath…
Boy & Dolphin
‘Boy & Dolphin’
Statue in Opononi, of Opo the dolphin, and a nameless child.
(Opo was a New Zealand version of Flipper – a super friendly dolphin who played with humans in the mid-1950s in the waters of the small Northland town,and became a local legend).
Statue: ‘Valkyrie’
‘Statue: ‘Valkyrie’
Mythic Valkyries ride in this fountain sculpture set in the greenery of the Auckland Domain.
Its a favourite, and evocative, piece of art.
The inscription in the the stone surrounds, partly visible, reads:
“When the best of the Earth are gathered to know the chooser’s mind”
The Statue ‘Spring’ In The Garden
Lunchtime In The Plaza II
‘Lunchtime In The Plaza II’
…general relaxation…
Sir Colin Meads Statue, Te Kuiti
‘Sir Colin Meads Statue, Te Kuiti’
(#2 in a series of shots of small town New Zealand)
Never The Twain…
“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
– Mark Twain
Pictured recently, yours truly, seated with a bronze statue of the great man (real name: Samuel Clemens). As close as I will get to meeting him!
I have long admired Twain’s wry humour and sage veracity.
Like the quote above – you laugh first and then the wisdom drags you in and sits you right down, as you reflect on hard life lessons.
I sometimes feel his writing gets me, rather than the other way around.
When I was a young man I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to New Orleans ( helluva long ride!), and the road more or less followed the Mississippi River south after St. Louis. My best companion on the journey was Twain’s ‘Life On the Mississippi’, published in 1883 . A great read – fantastic tales of diverse folk, working and up to all sorts otherwise, on the river back in the day (it’s well worth searching out).
It just made my trip feel damn boring by comparison though…
Seahorse In The Sky
Have you passed by a place a thousand times and never noticed something, and then suddenly you do?
I had one of those moments during the week ,when I had a few minutes up my sleeve and stopped on the way to my work shift up at the marae.
Okaku Bay is a lovely flat beach on the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland and the seahorse statue atop a column adorns the art deco changing sheds there. How I had never spotted it before I don’t know.
In my recent travel overseas I filled my photographic boots with all sorts of animalistic symbols – lion, wolves, and unicorns, to name a few, so perhaps had become attuned to seeing such things. Travel in new places causes us to look at home with fresh eyes, too.
It’s all about the magic in the mundane, where ordinary buildings and spaces come alive with images of fantastic creatures. The seahorse discovery transformed my routine day!
Blue Moses
A full scale marble replica of Michelangelo’s sculpture Moses sits in an inner city Auckland park ( it came from Italy with a replica David but that statue sorta went missing years ago).
Theologians and historians still debate and surmise about Moses’s achievements and even his existence.
All I know is that in this representation of the Jewish leader and prophet ,he just looks a little pissed off and, frankly, depressed.
Too long in the wilderness ,maybe…
…or possibly missing his buddy Dave?
Whatever the reason , I have made him up in blue to suit.
Makes me happy, at least…
Ebb Then Flood 