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School library arrives on the crest of a wave
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Wainui School principal Nolian Andrew and architectural designer Chris Shaw checking progress of the new library in November.
A stunning new library building shaped like a Wainui Beach wave is fast taking shape at Wainui Beach school.
The $186-thousand project certainly has eye appeal and everyone at the school – teachers, students and parents – are totally excited.
The concept is the work of school parent and local Wainui-based architectural designer Chris Shaw of Pacific Modern Architecture.
“The Wainui School library is more than just a place for books,” Chris says. “It’s the centre of technology, research, reading and learning. It’s also a link to the playing fields and the front deck will act as a the focal point for outdoor gatherings at the school.”
The original plan was to build a new classroom for the school but a concept was put together to turn the old library into a classroom and make use of the 78 square metres freed up in the school’s building area allowance to create the dedicated new library.
Using three curved laminated beams as the basic structure of the building Chris was able to create a wave-like design. The roof area, which covers surrounding decks, makes the building look much bigger than it really is.
Two sides of the building beneath the wave structure will be constructed of glass from floor to ceiling with the library shelves built into the walls so books can be seen from both inside and out.
The roofing iron has been moulded to follow the wave shape and will finish overhanging a landscaped rock garden where rainwater will flow unimpeded by spouting with a waterfall effect.
Chris says the design was inspired by Wainui with the concept that the wave-shaped structure conveys the school’s strong connection with the sea, which is considered part of the wider school learning area.
He says its also a bonus that the children are being exposed to creative architectural design and can observe the building’s construction.
Principal Nolian Andrew says everyone is very pleased with the project with the board seeing the value of the creative design which has been delivered economically thanks to Pacific Modern Architecture and the builders D. Stevens Ltd.
Nolian says the school will be starting off with a role of 202 pupils next year with a ceiling at around 230, so any families in the school’s zoning area with children of school starting age should let the school know as soon as they can.
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Designer Lauren moonlights on the fashion runway
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Lauren Marriott models for Sera Lilly during Fashion Week 2008. Runway modelling has become an interest, rather than a career, for this local girl.
“Modeling was not really something I was very interested in initially, but when I finished my studies I found myself with a lot more spare time and after some persuasive words from friends I thought I’d give it a whirl,” says Wainui girl Lauren Marriott.
Lauren (23) grew up at Wainui Beach, the daughter of Cliff and Lyn Marriott of Douglas Street.
She is currently living and working in Auckland where with friend Charl Laubscher she runs her own design company called Super Et Cetera.
“Currently we are based, in-house, at TBWA/Tequila, an ad agency in the Wellington CBD. Notable clients include Adidas, Playstation, ASB among others,” she says.
“I was first involved as a model in Fashion Week in 2008. Being my first year I was not expecting to land many shows, if any. In the end I walked for seven designers (World, Sera Lilly, Stitch Ministry, Michael Pattison, Ana Steele, Duechar, Sable and Minx) and was involved over the weekend in all the public shows.
“It was full-on, but a lot of fun. I actually made some great connections for my design work also as the place was crawling with photographers, designers, media etc.
“Fashion week was on a much smaller scale this year with several designers opting for group shows to save on costs. I was only involved in one group show – walking for Barbara Lee, Starfish and Mild Red.
“I was always used to being on the other side of the lens in a more creative or directive role – so to be the object of focus was an interesting and exciting change. In retrospect I haven’t actually been what you would call a hard working or full time model – I tend to just take jobs that engage my interest and will fit around my work.”
Lauren’s younger sister Ana, who recently celebrated her 21st birthday, is back home for summer having graduated with a university degree in dental hygiene and dental therapy.
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Move to stop foreign fishing
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Okitu man and fishing consultant Daren Coulston is so outraged at the current direction of the New Zealand fishing industry he has started a national campaign to bring about change.
The campaign is called “New Zealand Fishing – Keep It K-iwi”. The aim of the campaign is to create a nationwide groundswell of opposition to the foreign crewing of New Zealand fishing vessels and the processing of New Zealand caught fish in foreign countries.
Daren has registered a trademark for the campaign which is the "flag" the growing group of discontented people are rallying under.
Daren says New Zealand is the only developed country in the world that allows foreign-crewed factory trawlers to catch the bulk of its fish.
“Around 45% of all New Zealand’s deepsea quota is caught by foreign-crewed vessels, nearly all of Iwi deepsea quota is caught by foreign crewed vessels and about 65% of all New Zealand fish caught is processed in China and Thailand.
"”This is the great New Zealand scandal, as New Zealand has the capability to catch all of its own fish – we don’t need foreign crews here at all.”
The Great New Zealand Scandal was in fact the title of a recently-screened television documentary which exposed foreign-owned factory fishing trawlers paying crews third-world wages while living in appalling conditions onboard the boats.
“These trawlers are chartered by New Zealand companies and quota-owners to catch New Zealand fish – forcing our own commercial fishermen out of their own industry,” Daren says.
Daren has created the Keep It K-iwi movement to give a voice and a focus for New Zealand fishermen and others who are concerned this “foreignisation” of the industry will bring about the demise of the New Zealand fishing culture.
“The scary thing is that if we let foreigners catch our fish for another 10 years we will loose the capability to do it ourselves. We will be trapped into foreign fishermen catching New Zealand fish for decades to come. Is that the way it is meant to be?
“NZ Fishing– Keep It K-iwi represents all the fishermen who went to sea in the 1970s and 80s on foreign boats to learn how to catch New Zealand deep sea species and how to operate large factory fishing vessels during extended voyages.
“We then used these hard-learnt skills to crew and operate New Zealand-owned vessels as the “New Zealandisation” of the industry began after the enforcement of the Quota Management System.
“But now New Zealand company owners have found ways to import cheap foreign labour to take the jobs New Zealanders have a legitimate expectation to hold. Some fishing companies have never employed a New Zealander in their offshore fishing operations.
“In the last 10 years the domestic fishing fleet has declined by over 50% depriving the New Zealand economy of much needed income taxes and ACC contributions and local economies are missing out on the millions of dollars of wages that would be spent every year by New Zealand crews and their families.
“A New Zealand factory trawler with a crew of 40 at sea has an annual wage bill of $4.2 million, whereas a foreign boat’s annual wage bill is a mere $800,000. But it’s not just wage revenue the economy misses out on. Foreign factory boat skippers are paid by the amount of fish that they catch, whereas New Zealand skippers are paid for the quality of the end product, ensuring the maximum benefit of our valuable fish resource.”
Daren says there is no reason, apart from greed, to justify the use of foreign boats and their crews to catch New Zealand’s fish resource. The practice just forces local fishermen out of the industry.
The jobs directly related to foreign crews fishing New Zealand deep-sea offshore resources is estimated at 1200. The loss of jobs in fish processing factories is estimated at 2000 plus.
“And it gets worse – several companies have applied to the Immigration Department to allow foreign crews on inshore vessels.
“We believe that the wages and social benefits to New Zealand of using local crews far outweighs the profits enjoyed by the eight companies who use foreign crews.
“This is a national disgrace being ignored by all politicians and New Zealand’s media. Only action from outraged Kiwis will force politicians to take notice and act to make it illegal to catch New Zealand fish with foreign crews. This is our resource for all Kiwis to benefit from, not just a selfish few.
“In a global recession, with unemployment soaring, with crime and the cost of the dole on the rise we cannot allow Kiwi jobs to continue to be taken by foreign crews.”
The NZ Fishing – Keep It K-iwi movement has a website at www.nzfishing.net.nz. Go online to register your support for the cause.
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Matty Clarke’s choice of home works out
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Douglas Street local and art gallery entrepreneur Matt Clarke and his Welsh-born wife Tracy, daughter Teifi (2) and son Roman (4) relish life at Wainui Beach.
It’s been five years since Wainui local Matt Nache Clarke and his friend Gene Paul started Gisborne’s PaulNache art gallery.
Originally The Pencil Gallery, Paul Nache (an amalgam of the two owners names) specialises in contemporary New Zealand painting and hosts frequent exhibitions by recognised local, national and international artists.
On October 23 they celebrated the gallery’s fifth anniversary and took time out to reflect on their success and the choice to base the business is Gisborne.
Matt Clarke – the son of Penny and Kerry Clarke – met Gene Paul at art school at Massey University where the were both studying design and fine art in advertising. Later in Wellington they worked together on the idea of creating an online art gallery. By chance Matt was offered the upstairs space above Mitchell’s Cameras in Gisborne and the idea moved to establishing a physical gallery based in Gisborne. The decision to try such a venture in the provinces was a bold one.
But for Matt particularly it meant he could come home to Wainui Beach with his partner Tracy and their little boy Roman where he could bring up a family in the beach environment he grew up in.
Matt says the concept of the gallery is to showcase art of the highest local, national and international level.
Now their reputation has elevated in the art world people are now buying online via the gallery’s website, but at first it was important to establish the gallery and the physical connections with artists and buyers.
Establishing relationships with art buyers, some in Gisborne but mostly in the main centres and some internationally, has been the key to the business.
“We’ve got good relationships now where we are the intermediary agents connecting artists to art buyers,” says Matt.
“It’s a game. While people are buying art for investment, they are also investing in the future of the artists they buy. They are usually people who have a passion, maybe an obsession, for buying and collecting art.”
Matt gets satisfaction from seeing top artists like John Walsh, who he used to study at school, now working enthusiastically with the gallery.
Matt and Gene look back on getting started as 23 and 24-year-olds in a gallery in Gisborne with no lights and no doors. But then this year they saw themselves mixing with the 'who’s who' of the art world at the invite-only Auckland Art Fair and being recognised amongst the leading art dealers in Australasia.
Their showing at the Art Fair has made valuable new connections with dealers and promoters from all over Australasia and that will lead to some really good work coming to Gisborne.
“It’s great to be in business in Gisborne,” says Matt. “We like Gisborne, we have our family and friends here, we can live the Gisborne lifestyle. The earthquake of 2007 (which badly damaged the gallery building) worked in our favour allowing us to reinvent the space, add on a balcony, uplift the whole image and totally rebrand.”
A real highlight this year was the showing of five works by Raymond Ching at the gallery.
“We are now operating at the same level as many of the bigger city galleries but we get to do it from this beautiful place called Gisborne.”
On New year’s Day PaulNache Gallery will be opening a new exhibition called Paper Money, a curated group show of works on paper featuring art by Damian Hirst (UK), James Aldridge (Sweden), W.D. Hammond, Gretchen Albrecht, Billy Apple, Rob McLeod, Matthew Couper, Mark Braunias, John Walsh, James Ormsby, James Robinson, Paul Hartigan, Rob Hood, Sanjay Theodore plus others.
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Troy's art turns a buck at the bar
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Artist and self-confessed Gisborne lifestyle lover Troy Conole with one of his original canvas mounted surfscapes.
Troy Conole has no plans to leave Gisborne anytime soon. This 22-year-old Pare Street local is proud to be Wainui born and bred and has a collection of successfully selling art work that testifies to the passion he has for the local lifestyle.
Troy has been exhibiting his unique artistic renderings at the Tsunami Bar for the last year. So far he has sold around fifteen pieces and demand seems to be increasing.
His pieces all have a surf focus conveying a certain “airbrushed” dream-like look of surreal surfing perfection – that offshore dream of a perfect day at a perfect location that, as they say, “only a surfer knows the feeling”.
The locations are not fantasies but local surf breaks like Wainui Beach, The Island, Makorori Point, Pipeline and often evident are the iconic headland backdrops of Tuahine, Makorori or Young Nicks Head.
Troy says he has been drawing these waves since he was about 7-years-old at Wainui School. They decorated the covers of his exercise books and any spare scrap of paper that came his way as he grew up doodling and sketching, later taking on painting and sculpture as his main subjects at Campion College.
He left school half way through the 7th form when he was fortunate in successfully applying for a graphic design apprenticeship at the Gisborne Herald.
Troy’s “paintings” are actually digitally drawn. He has adapted the design software Indesign to create digital files that, when printed on high quality canvas, look like they have been hand-painted.
Troy defends himself when purists say they are not real paintings. He says he has “done his time” spending years working with real brushes using oils and acrylics and making woodcuts of his beloved waves. With Indesign he uses his fingers on the mouse as he would a pencil or paintbrush to draw the perfect lines and create the soft blends that allow for the unique look of his works.
Anyway, what do the purists know. His paintings are selling – enough to have funded an Indo surf trip earlier this year.
Apart from a school trip to Japan the Bali trip was his first travel experience as an adult but it hasn’t fired a great desire to give up his career for the big OE.
Where many of his contemporaries had to leave Gisborne to attend universities or design schools, amassing huge student loans, Troy was paid to earn his graphic design credentials doing his apprenticeship in graphic design at the Gisborne Herald. At 22 he owns a car and a house in town. The plan is to keep working, keep surfing, go fishing and play “happy families” when his girlfriend and fiance Jessica comes back to Gisborne to live from Auckland.
Troy’s paintings sell for $280 and are always original. Even though they are digital files and could be reproduced over and over, he only ever makes one print of a drawing.
He also has a small enterprise selling drawings of classic cars from his website www.carillustration.co.nz.
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