Art Week and other Amusements

Art Week followed on the heels  of Heritage Week and as  we were still in the spirit of getting out and about we joined a walk round Ponsonby Galleries led by the knowledgeable Edward Bennett who did a lot of the local heritage week walks and talks we attended. 

We started off at Black Asterisk which had an exhibition of sculptures and large framed photographs of flowers, one of which of hydrangeas appealed to me.  

We moved on to Objectspace a few doors along which had a memorable retrospective display of Ruth Castle baskets.  I once did a basket-making workshop in the 70s when I was in the Handweavers Guild and still have a little basket I made over at the bach on Waiheke.  

There was a display of paua jewellery of earlier decades when brooches were popular souvenirs.  Must get back there and take a photograph of them.  There must have been a couple of hundred examples. I remember having a paua shell cross on a gold  chain myself. 

Across the road we looked at the murals on two sides of the old reservoir.  This is a photo of part of a new mural.

Then into Studio One, formerly Art Station, formerly Outreach.  There was a bit of art in the downstairs gallery  which we looked at, then toured the various outhouses which served as the cells for the Police Station in a previous century.

Onwards to Western Park which has some interesting sculptures and pebble mosaic paving then on to Whitespace Gallery which had a good exhibition of artworks created from sheets of stamps featuring fish and other aquatic creatures, drawing attention to marine ecology and pollution.  By this time I was feeling cold and tired so we snuck off and got the bus home.