Clever critters have quirky appeal

BY ROSEMARIE SMITH

Continuing the search for the southern garden moa and finds a whole nest of oversize avian inventions.

A firm belief that birdlife and sculpture are important elements of gardening leads to some interesting adventures.

This one started with Dunedin sculptor Chris Meder's recent exhibition, Hatched, at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.

His cleverly contrived critters built from recycled heavy-duty metal have a quirky appeal on many levels.

While these birds, insects and lizards were all magnificent gallery pieces, and intriguing to see as a collection, they begged to be taken out into a natural habitat.

Not a reasonable request at the gallery, so it was off to Dunedin to track down the creator in his workshop.

This was a bloke-in-shed encounter worthy of a story in itself, let alone the subsequent tour around north Dunedin tracking down birds that have flown the coop.

Although perhaps waddled off into the world would be a better description, for, as Meder explained, most of those within a handy radius were all early works, and much more folksy than the streamlined latest exhibition specimens.

It was interesting seeing the progression, beginning with the piece that really took him down the recycled track, a model train made as a music video prop.

Its success suggested an alternative career to the high-stress demands of a movie industry, and Meder moved back south and began and building beasts.

His first bird was a vulture for a cafe, made from old petrol tank, with valve-housing nest, while his first, rather goofy, moa inhabits the cafe courtyard opposite the Dunedin railway station.

The greater sophistication of more- recent work owes a lot to putting time into studying the real thing.

"You might think you know what a penguin looks like, but until you study their features they're hard to make," Meder says.

Birds' feet, for example. "If you really look at them and how they work they're really weird things." Now he can cut and weld to get the curves that actually look like joints.

As the exhibition animals showed, not only is the anatomy correct, there's attitude, and even character, which is what really engages the viewer.

That's one reason that, unlike many artists, Meder welcomes visitors to the workshop.

"I could work at home but the reactions of people going past is a big thing, the comments and the compliments," he says.

He recalls the childhood fascination of visiting old guys in their sheds, and hopes to create displays that children can interact with and get excited over.

A bonus of the open-door policy is that people drop stuff off, or pass on tips where potential treasure can be found, down banks and out in the scrub.

Meder watches Trade Me, and tours recycling shops at landfills, and is especially fond of old bikes.

And cogs.

They make great lizards.

But basically he's after anything that rusts anything that can be welded.

Foraging, dissecting and storing materials is time consuming, and it would actually be cheaper and easier to work from new metal, even using off-cuts, but Meder says he likes the colours and textures in old machinery, and the idea of converting something that would otherwise go to waste to a new purpose.

Besides, older metal is much nicer to work with, and the new stuff rusts much faster, he says.

The creatures evolve by two quite distinct creative pathways.

Sometimes he will have an inspiration, make a drawing, then go through the his collections looking for things to fit the shape.

Getting the right feature colours can be harder than you might think, he says.

The process he prefers is when an object begs to be a birds head, or foot, and goes from there.

Meder's Dunedin North workshop, Recycled Realics, is in Moat Street, a small lane at the very top right-hand side of Great King St.

He's usually working there Thursdays to Saturdays, or not too far away, but it could be best to check through contacting him on 021 702170.

His website has more photos of his work.

- © Fairfax NZ News