Paul Beavis Mrs Mo's Monster Muirs Bookshop
STORY TIME: About 30 parents and children gathered at Muirs Bookshop to hear Paul Beavis read his first published picture book Mrs Mo's Monster. The story follows a stubborn little monster with a one-track mind who meets his match in an elderly lady named Mrs Mo. With her help and patience, the little monster is surprised to discover he can do more than he ever thought.
Author and illustrator Mr Beavis said reading to the audience was a bit nerveracking, but the second time around he had help from the voice talents of audience members Maddie Wilson, 12, who played Mrs Mo, and Liam Barbier, 8, the little monster. Maddie and Liam show-off the monster drawings they created as part of the drawing demonstration at the reading.
Filmed and Edited by
Ben Cowper
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Waka Ama Young Paddlers Gisborne
YOUNG PADDLERS: There were plenty of fun challenges on the water during the Year 5 and 6 Waka Ama regatta at Anzac Park.
Early European explorers saw Māori using waka ama (outrigger canoes). German scientist Johann Reinhold Forster, who sailed with Cook in 1773, described waka fitted with outriggers (ama, amatiatia or korewa). Already rare in Cook's time, waka ama had largely faded from memory by the early 19th century (Howe 2006:87). However, the term 'waka ama' occurs in old stories, such as the story of Māui published by Grey in 1854 and in a few old waiata; Tregear also mentions the waka ama as 'a possession of the Maori', adding that 'It was beneath the outrigger of such a canoe that the famous Maui crushed his wife's brother Irawaru before turning him into a dog. Both the double canoe and the outrigger have entirely disappeared from among the Maoris, and it is doubtful if any native now alive has seen either of them in New Zealand' (Tregear 1904:115).
Two outrigger floats were found in swamps along the Horowhenua coast of Cook Strait, and another float was found in Moncks Cave near Christchurch. All three floats were short, suggesting that Māori outriggers were small and used only in sheltered waters (Howe 2006:240). The Māori words for the parts of the outrigger, such as 'ama' and 'kiato', recorded in the early years of European settlement, suggest that Māori outrigger canoes were similar in form to those known from central Polynesia.
Since the 1990s, waka ama racing, introduced from Pasifika nations into New Zealand during the 1980s and 1990s, using high-tech canoes of Hawaiian or Tahitian design, and supported with the ingenious support of work schemes, has become an increasingly popular sport among Maori, often performed as part of cultural festivals held in summer.
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Ben Cowper
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The Fish Story Book - Wainui School
INSPIRATION to write a book for children came from his mother, says first-time Gisborne author Stu Potter. The Fish Story, written by Mr Potter and illustrated by Miri Britain, is part- creation story, part-morality tale, with themes of staying true to who you are and the need to care for the environment. It tells a story from the beginning of creation when three identical fish ruled the ocean.
Two of the fish want power and respect to reign over the ocean, one through admiration, the other through ferocity. They approach the creator Atua, who transforms them — and the two big fish become mortal enemies as a result. The book’s warm, colourful ending resonates with the Gisborne and East Coast.
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Ben Cowper
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Text and technology in Chorus cabinet art
EAST Coast sky and the sea feature in three out of four completed designs by local artists for Chorus cabinets. The odd one out is a sophisticated, typography-based “throw-up” while the design for a fifth cabinet is a work in progress.
Amie Coker’s work on the Stanley Road cabinet is a stylised depiction of Turanganui a Kiwa-Poverty Bay. Curling Kaiti Hill and Te Kuri a Paoa-Young Nick’s Head landforms embrace the bay which is painted in paua shell colours. Koru forms flow along the landforms to the horizon. Alongside the sinuous road through the city centre, rows of grape vines grow in red earth, crops sprout from burnt orange earth and a line of sheep on a green runway flow past pine trees towards the bay. “A lot of my landscapes end up with a circular wrap-around style,” says Coker. “I like to have a few focal points but I keep them flowing into each other.” The self-taught artist has a love of bright colours and an illustrative style of painting. Her choice of greens for Kaiti Hill, pinks for Te Kuri a Paoa-Young Nick’s Head is bold but Coker wanted each side to be distinct from the other. “Kaiti Hill has all those bright, bold colours in it. They all tie in. I tend to steer away from the ordinary. Anything bold. I prefer that over natural tones. Pink is a regular part of my palette.”Julianne Poninghouse Standing on a seaweed-green Kaiti beach under brushed koru cloud forms, a solid Maori man in black shorts, and with a bone fish hook pendant around his neck, holds his son in the crook of one arm. The boy smiles at the bubu in his hand. Nearby, on the sand, and fresh from the sea, a live crayfish sits in a basket in a car inner tube. The dark blue sea is dotted with rocks that look like living forms. “When the sun hits the rocks in the sea they look golden and rounded,” says Poninghouse. A computer systems student at EIT Tairawhiti, the artist says Gisborne is a family-orientated place. “My painting is designed to encourage people to spend more time doing things like going to the beach to gather kaimoana with loved ones.” As a child she watched her father diving at Kaiti Beach. “Sometimes I still do. The boy in the picture is the man’s son. The man is like a role model. A son or daughter sees the father or mother and imitates them.” Poninghouse’s inspiration for the work was her brother-in-law and her nephew. “They have a really cool relationship. I thought it would be good to model the concept on them.” Troy Conole Digital technology, and a strong, durable plastic fabric, are part of Gisborne Herald senior creative artist Troy Conole’s artwork for a Gladstone Road Chorus cabinet. The artist designed his image of a surf break on computer and had it printed on vinyl that Dave Gooch Spray & Signs wrapped around the box. The scene is based on a view from a town beach but it is not necessarily a recognisable location. Conole drew on various elements such as the golden light that reminds him of a particular hour at the beach. “It is a town beach, with Young Nick’s Head in the distance but it’s not realism. The composition is abstracted from what I know it looks like. I had originally created the artwork but when I was selected, I altered the composition to suit the box.” This entailed factoring in the gap between the front panels and a plate in the top left hand corner. “I measured the box so I could see how the image would work — where the wave needed to be and where Young Nick’s Head needed to be. I adjust the composition in all the work I do.” While his early works largely feature waves and headland, Conole now includes features such as plants or trees in the foreground to create a sense of depth and contrast. More of Conole’s work can be viewed at Muir’s Bookshop Cafe. Kelly Spencer “A lot of my work is typography based,” says self-taught freelance illustrator, artist and designer, Kelly Spencer, whose vivid, typographical statement is spray-painted on a Tyndall Road Chorus cabinet. Painted in bold red, with shine on two of the letters, the name Kaiti bounces off its teal background. The black, purple, pale blue and green hand-painted outlines make the stylised word Kaiti pop even more. “I do a lot of sign painting so there’s often shine and drop-shadow in the lettering,” says Spencer. “The style I do is illustrative, not font driven.” Although now based in Wellington, Spencer was raised in Kaiti. “My intention was to make something the local community can identify with. People in that area have a lot of pride in living in Kaiti. I saw my design was effective because so many people stopped and talked as I painted it.”
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Ben Cowper
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