Whats Happening with Wendy: Massive Post..

This is a huge post, there has been so much happening over the past two weeks.
So make yourself a cuppa, pull up a chair and make yourself comfy, this may take a while.

Thursday 17th October 2013

Today was a HUGE day, I took the day off work to spend the day traipsing around Auckland checking out the art works.
First off I went to the Auckland War Memorial Museum to see the Moana - My Ocean exhibition.

Auckland War Memorial Museum

This was incredible, you travel through five zones from the shores of the East Coast through to the unknown waters of the Kermadec Trench up to the Kermadec Islands.

You first enter into a room showing the smallest of underwater creatures, projected onto the walls and floor

From here we learn about the migrating birds of the Miranda Foreshore and the impact earthworks have on the environment. Then I went to watch a 3D movie of the underwater life at Goat Island, below is the 'room' they showed the movie in, quite neat beanbags scattered around the floor so you could watch this as many times as you wished.

Next up was a movie room showing a 'Boil Up' (Click the 'Boil Up' link for the actual simulation shown at the exhibition).
Next we move onto the Sharks!

Thresher Shark

Mako Shark

Great White

We are moving further down into the ocean now, where there are all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures.

King Crab
We are now at the bottom of the Kermadec Trench where new species of life are continually being found.

Marine Snow - This is the only food at the bottom of the ocean.
Particles of dead animals and plants continuously fall to the ocean floor

Coral and Marine Snow

The bottom of the Kermadec Trench

This represents the swirling of the ocean at the end
of the exhibition

Next up I headed into town to check on the Tiffany Singh exhibition at the Art Gallery.

Passing through Kingsland I bumped into Ralph Hotere.

Next up, it was out to Pah Homestead, to view the Wallace Art Awards entrants, only a few are shown below.

Save the Bloody Money (Wei Lun Ha)

The Army of the Dead: The Jackson Experiment
(Mark Curtis)

(Un) Containment (Nadine Spalter)

Sardine Row (Sharon Singer)

The work below is by Patrick Tyman called "Beautiful Death", all yours for $15,000. I have added some close up shots so you can see the detail in the work. Amazing really.

I went home after this, as tonight Malcolm and I are going into the city to visit the Art Galleries and other installations featured at Art night.

So..we went into the city, parked Downtown and caught the free bus uptown. (We are getting pretty good at public transport nowadays!)

Firstly we went to Lorne Street, in between the old St James Theatre and the Auckland City Library. They had food trucks and music and the top 100 photos from the "Love your City" competition.

Below are some of the images, displayed in Lorne Street

The doors of the St James Theatre

..and the sign on the van says it all!!

From here we went to the Gow Langsford Gallery Kitchener Street, to look at some Dick Frizzell paintings, the exhibition called "The Dance of the Hooligans", great work but very, very, very expensive. I couldn't get photos so you will have to make to with a photo of the catalogue pages.

We then wandered down to the second Gow Langsford Gallery in Lorne Street, where there were some more of Dick Frizzell's work on display.

The actual size of this painting is 2,500 x 7,200mm.
It is a sort of Scrapbook painting

From here we went to the Antoinette Godkin Gallery where she was showing work by Lianne Edwards

OMG what amazing work, it is all done using used postage stamps and stamp hinges.
Sorry the images are not that great, I could not take photos so they are photos taken off the computer.
The prices for these works are thousands of dollars!!

24c NZ Stamp

20c Paua Stamp

Various Bird Stamps

21/2d + 1d Health Stamp, Kakariki

World Postage Stamps

Phew, carrying on now, we head back down to Britomart, and saw this High Street, art installation.

Stopped off for a bite to eat, as it is getting quite late by now. Found a place called the Pie Face, quite a neat place.
We are nearly at Britomart now, checked out this in the window of the Stanbeth House, 'For the Love of God' (the picture in the link is better, I could not get a photo without the reflection of the lights.)

Then headed to the Scout Performance, the installation SCOUT is brought to life. It changes colour when touched, by heat, wind or your hands.

..and that puts an end to the night, a couple of photos as we walked past The Cloud, and of course it was a great night so had to get a night shot of our great city.

Monday 14th October 2013

During my lunch break today I wandered over to Karanga Plaza to view the finalists in the National Geographic Photographer of the year competition, amazing photos. This year the photos were on display in these containers. If you would like to see the better images of the photos click the link below.

Photographer of the Year 2013

After this I went down to the Silo to check out the Portage Ceramic Awards.

OMG, these were expensive if you were looking to buy!

Vanishing Lines ( Kate McLean)
$2500

White Trash #10 (Mel Ford)
$3500

Dawn Chorus (Kirsty Gardiner)
$6000

Mountain with Snow (Sangsool Shim & Keumsun Lee)
$12,000

Bye, Bye Birdie (Tatyanna Meharry)
$1800

Optimo Obscura (Bronwyn Mohring)
$1250

Pioneer Pets (Chuck Joseph)
Kupe's Dog, Joseph Banks' Greyhound, Captain Cooks Goat
$6000

A headstand with Lloy in 1986 (Sam Ducker-Jones)
$2400

One Dozen Wall Brooches ( Katie Gold)
$850

Time and Tide ( Mel Ford)
$4000

The more I look - the more I see.
The more I look and see, the more I know...
how little I know. (Robin Ranga)
$1500

Commemorating Stamps (Georgina Caulton)
$560

On the way back to work I saw this temporary bus shelter.

After work today I went to the PWC building, as they were unlocking the doors to their art collection. The collection was on the 22nd floor. What an amazing collection they have, there are paintings, sculptures, bronze work, pottery in fact so much art we only saw a small sample of what was there.

View from the 22nd floor

Two views of the Neon Work outside the PWC building

Sculpture on the ground floor

Below are a few pictures of some of the pieces inside the building.

Atmospheric Optics (Megan Jenkinson)

Admiral Tangaroa (Reuben Patterson)

Beetroot Sign (Dick Frizzell)

Window in Spain (Ralph Hotere)

Lo Negro Lo Oro (Ralph Hotere)

Pie Chart (Billy Apple)

The Bosom of Abraham (Michael Parekowhai)

Mode (Denise Kum)

PWC have a dedicated team with its own budget which go out each year and procure new art works. Its not unusual in this building to see a Ralph Hotere piece hanging over a photocopier, or a Billy Apple over a rubbish bin.

The past few days have also seen three Chinese Navy boats in port.
The People's Liberation Army Navy Task Force involves the destroyer Qingdao, frigate Linyi and supply ship Honsehu.
They are taking part in an extended Pacific deployment.

There was even a man with a gun!!!

Sunday 13th October 2013

Today we had a date with 'Alice' the Tunnel Boring Machine. (TBM), along with 20,000 other people.
Alice is the world's 10th biggest machine of its type, and the biggest TBM ever to be used in the southern hemisphere. She weighs a whopping 3600 tonnes. (The same as 750 elephants!)

The TBM will be boring 2 tunnels underground as part of the Waterview Connection Project.

As they were expecting so many people we decided to use public transport! We have a bus stop right outside our house, so jumped on that which was only a 10 minute ride, and then we had a 750m walk.
Much easier than trying to find a car park space that's for sure.

Transporter that will carry one complete ring at a time to the TBM

Spoil Conveyor, this is 700 metres long, the belt itself is 1.2m
wide and is capable to moving 1600 tonnes of spoil per hour.

The TBM is on the right, and the borer is already underground.
The picture in the circle on the left is where the borer will come
out on its return journey, so making 2 tunnels.
The first tunnel will be completed in 2015, it will then turn
around and come back the opposite way.
When the borer finally comes back through the mural on the tunnel
on the other side it will be the end of 2017