beauty … The kowhai around Ranui are in full flower now, and visited daily by dozens of tui which hurtle with aerobatic skill through branches, and chortle and warble their spring invitations. Piwakawaka – including a rare pale cream one (leucistic is the technical description) discovered by Earthsong resident Melody – flutter around the trees in […]
Artist in Residence
August 19, 2014 by 2 Comments
We are delighted to be hosting at Earthsong our friend and artist, Nic Moon, from Nelson. She is creating an amazing indoor Earth Forest on the walls of the new Ranui Library currently under construction. Each day we marvel at the different phases of the project, starting from the gathering and mixing of local clays to […]
Atiu Island
August 19, 2014 by 1 Comment
We’ve been lucky to spend a week of our winter on Atiu, which is a small island three-quarters of an hour’s flight north-east from Rarotonga in the southern Cook Island group. It’s a volcanic island 11 million years old, with a central plateau slowly rising from the sea, a raised fossil coral border (makatea), and a […]
Arts on Atiu
August 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
We discovered amazing artistic talents on Atiu. While chatting to an elderly couple at the local store, Nga and Paiere Mokoroa, we were invited to visit and see Nga’s exquisite heritage tivaivai (a type of patchwork quilt developed in the Cook Islands). We also visited Andrea Eimke, a German woman who set up Atiu Fibre Arts studio […]
People on Atiu
August 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
We met several interesting locals during our stay. We visited Mata Arai in her coffee plantation, and then her home, where she showed us her hand processing of the beans and served us a pikelets with a brew of freshly ground coffee. Birdman George (George Mateariki) took […]
Matariki …
July 19, 2014 by 1 Comment
Matariki, a time for reflecting on the past and planning for the future, has given us helter-skelter weather in Tamaki Makaurau since the 28th of June. Fogs to help us see old Ranui street signs in new ways, sunny days to encourage the garlic shoots, still mornings to frame spiderwebs, wild storms to drive us inside. We tried to walk at Te Henga […]
More Matariki Moments…
July 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
We’ve been to several exciting events. Uku Tatai Whetu (“Earthbound to the Stars”), at the Nathan Homestead- Manurewa Community Arts Centre, included many stunning works. We especially liked these: in clay by Noelle Jakeman, recycled materials by Bethany Edwards, and muka by Tuaine Strickland. On the last day of Floral Art at Fresh Gallery, in Otara, we were given […]
Ranui…
June 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
We love the colour and friendliness of the wider Ranui community. Children play after school in the little park outside the library We meet friendly new people: Mary, of Croatian ancestry, has lived in Ranui for more than thirty years, and is now 100 years old. Lema, from the Republic of Congo, is a refugee who crochets the vibrant […]
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