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PLAYPLAY -- fu lfu l ll n e ssn ess [Noun : LIGHT[Noun : LIGHT -- h e a r t e d n e ss]he a r t e d n e ss]

Once upon a magical summer, circa 2015/16, some strange objects popped up around Mairangi Bay village. With stifling pressures of the school term vaporised in the El Nino heat, and the shimmering re-emergence of time to invest in being curious , our family set out to discover what was afoot! Granddaughter Grace led the way down to the village centre’s southern traffic circle, where earlier in the day we had spied an incomplete helix of dark blue plastic buckets, held together with zany coloured tape. On closer investigation, we discovered the sculptural object on the grass beside the brick walkway was in fact an incomplete project! The buckets divulged the story of their complicit involvement in this intriguing project, in a cryptic graphic narrative that read:

“Ran out of time and buckets back 2 moro

chris b”

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“Aha!” I announced assuredly to my husband (Peter) and Grace, “that must be Chris Berthelsen, who has some Creative Community funding to try innovative stuff in and around the Mairangi Art Centre (mac) and our local community.” And so, with our curiosity whetted, we headed up the hill to mac, where we encountered some colourful inducements to come on in! We did just that, wondering what we’d find!

Inside mac there was HEAPS of stuff and space to explore the stuff and even though Grace was feeling pretty miserable because her braces had just been tightened and her mouth was sore, we became distracted by the SUMMER Art offerings and our interactions with the objects and each other.

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Grace’s discomfort dissolved ...

… whilst we conjured up a Llama family on the back wall and enjoyed looking at Jonathan Milne’s ’go! the art of change’ textbook which had been gifted to mac by the author a few days prior to our visit. I returned to mac later in the week, to supervise young primary school pupils, so that their holiday programme tutor could have a short lunch break. Most of that time was spent outdoors, in the upper reaches of mac’s gardens, where the children became completely absorbed in collaborating to construct a variety of shelters, using recycled material available in the SUMMER Art. Not School space. The social interactions during their unstructured play were fascinating, as they negotiated how to use and share resources, so they could articulate their design concepts to achieve a range of outcomes.

A few days later another excursion involved a Sunday morning trip to our local Mairangi Bay beach, where we encountered a swarm of local surf club nippers buzzing around Chris’ car. Chris’ open invitation to draw on his parked car proved an irresistibly magnetic attraction. Although the drawing was essentially a solitary activity, collaborative skills were needed to reach out of the way places, like the car’s roof!

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