Bus shelter art project launches fulltime career

Published on 02 June 2021

Claire-Bell-with-kiwi-landscape.jpg

Artist Claire Bell with one of the Taupo Quay panels 

Whanganui artist Claire Bell, who engraved the glass art panels for the Rangiora Street bus shelter in Castlecliff last year, says support from the Eleanor Burgess Trust and Whanganui District Council’s Public Art Fund has enabled her to launch a career as a fulltime artist.

Since completing the Rangiora Street bus shelter word has spread about her work and she has gained a number of private commissions throughout New Zealand. This includes engraved powder room mirrors for an avant-garde New Plymouth new build which is positioned on a revolving cowshed platform to maximise sunlight.

She has also recently presented online for two international glass societies – one in the United States and another in the United Kingdom – after images of the Rangiora Street bus shelter “went around the internet” when the artist shared them with an English colleague.

Claire Bell says producing public art is appealing because it’s so accessible.

“Instead of having to choose to go into a gallery to view art, people can admire it in the public domain – it brings that artistic energy out into the open.”

She has a second public artwork in the pipeline, with engraved glass panels set to be installed in the two Intercity bus shelters on Taupo Quay this month.

Claire Bell says the idea for the Taupo Quay shelters “came about during the COVID-19 lockdown, when I was cycling up near Golf Vue Road in Castlecliff and saw a family of hares in a field.

“I had been thinking about family pets at the time, particularly George, a pet tortoise my great nan found on a bombsite in England after World War II. Seeing the hares in the field paired the two creatures in my mind, as in the classic Aesop’s fable. 

“So one of the Taupo Quay bus shelters features a daytime scene with a tortoise travelling through the Ruapehu region to Whanganui, and the other features a night-time scene with a hare resting by the awa. Inspired by the race in Aesop’s fable, my idea is that there are different kinds of visits to our city, fast and slow, and both kinds of visits are enjoyable.

“The hare and the tortoise represent the visitors or travellers in the design; the rest of it features the local flora and fauna they encounter on their journeys.

“For the river bus shelter, all of the plants and creatures can be found within 2km of the bus shelters from Bedford Avenue in Gonville to town.”

Claire Bell says she went on walks around the region taking photos of flora and fauna to incorporate into the design.

For the artist, the plain double rāranga weave design running around the bottom of the bus shelters defines them as safe spaces to hold people as they wait while in transit. As part of the project she learnt the basics of weaving rāranga and harvesting harakeke through Community Education Whanganui.  

She says she’s also inspired by Whanganui’s strong Arts and Crafts Movement history.

“I’m told students at the art school established in Whanganui in 1892 were encouraged to use local New Zealand flora and fauna in their Arts and Crafts-style designs and my design is a “tip of the hat” to that.”

Everyone is welcome to book to attend the blessing for the new artwork at the bus shelters at 23 Taupo Quay on Saturday, 12 June at 2.00pm. After the blessing the group will move across the road to a classroom at UCOL where the artist will give a short presentation about her glass engraving.

To book, contact Anique.Jayasinghe@whanganuiandpartners.nz

 

Tagged as: