It All Started With A Sketch..

Eight weeks, incredible volunteers, and a dream that became real!

As many of you know I love making art from old things; upcycling, saving treasures, turning ‘random’ objects into art, and telling stories through these things. Over the past 6 years, I have been collecting old windows: stained glass, coloured glass, and giant colonial windows…Driving around the south island loading up the trailer with glass and wood, having fun in meeting the interesting characters who are selling them!

Early starts - A collection of some of the window pieces.

The busy summer season of hosting was over, but as my brain never takes rest time, there were drawings starting to gather all around my lounge of dreams and ideas. But how do you figure out what to make first? Why do you choose what to make first?Some people encourage me to put on my business hat first, while others encourage to do what pulls on your heart strings the most. As I was listening to Rick Rubin’s Creative Act whilst landscaping my pathway, his words were floating around in my head:

“Follow your biggest dream”... 

“Trust Your Inner Signal and Follow the Energy”...

“You do not need to see the entire journey mapped out before taking the first step; the path reveals itself once in motion”

And wow, did that last line truly take over and deliver.  

I had three fabulous volunteers with me…I had a drawing...and I had a dream.

The drawing and the dream!

And 8 weeks later, the drawing was a reality and my mind and heart were blown apart! I still can hardly believe it happened. At peak time we had 8 of us, with emails coming in from even more volunteers wanting to join us. But we had the dream team, “Team Awesome,” and we all wanted to see it through as far as we could since we had all become obsessed!

We spent weeks immersed in stripping back the old paint on the windows, uncovering delicious native timbers below, lovingly sanding back the last dabs of paint. Stripping, sanding, painting staining. One team doing this and another outside digging foundations, pouring concrete, erecting the first poles…

Here are a few progress photos for you to see. There’s still the roof to go on, some glass to infill, lots of dirt to move about, stairs to build, and then comes the fun of planting it full of delicious fruits, veggies, and herbs that will feed my guests for breakfast!

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The occasional newsletter will start to come out now with behind-the-scenes stories, creative projects, upcoming events, and opportunities to get involved.

If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, we'd love to invite you to join as I am forever grateful for your support, it allows my creative brain to flourish

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With love and wild creativity,

Sonia