A rare artistic talent lost far too soon

Terrific beast: No time to pose as Chris Meder hurriedly unpacks Terry, his barely completed contribution to the Ellerslie Flower Show sculpture exhibit in March. A few heads must have turned as Terry travelled north on an open trailer.

Meder's birds have a quizzical individuality.

Chris Meder with a creation in his Dunedin workshop.

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Readers who recall the story on this page about sculptor Chris Meder's quirky scrap-metal birds, and anyone who saw his exhibition Hatched at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery last year, will be saddened to learn of his death, aged only 39, writes Rosemarie Smith in this week's Gardening column.

Meder's work was very suited to presentation in a garden setting, and struck an especially appreciative chord in a community with a close relationship with agricultural machinery.

The qualities of that work, and of the inventive mind behind it, are best represented in photos here in tribute to a very special creativity, and the good-natured helpfulness Meder gave to sacrificing time for that story.

However, art curator Peter Belton, who set up the Southland exhibition, is well placed to put something in words.

Meder was an artist of rare ability, but with a natural humility and terrific sense of humour, he says.

Many sculptors work in metal, and animal forms are a common theme, but he had never seen anyone else get anywhere near the lifelikeness projected in Meder's work.

"Chris had that extra ability to get gesture and expression, and also to choose the appropriate metal and use it in the appropriate way.

"His work stood head and shoulders above anything else of its kind in New Zealand."

Meder had a quality Mr Belton best defines as a perceptive casualness, being very focused, not given to talking much, and loving what he was doing.

"The best artists have a child-likeness and an ability to be themselves.

"Chris had this quality in abundance."

Mr Belton remembers their dealings over the exhibition with affection.

"He was a delightful character, if he fell off the back of a truck he'd hit the ground running.

"He was so easy to work with."THE other story of people who have featured on this page, and once more in the news, is a much happier one.

Two years after the publication Common Ground, their book based on an exchange of letters describing vastly different gardens and lifestyles, Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey are back with Common Table.

It's aptly subtitled An uncommon tale of friendship and food, covering a year of lively letters, seasonal food and astute observation.

Because both are such productive gardeners, much of this book also relates to gardening.

Marriott's instant snacks assembled for unexpected sociability often include grabbing garnishes from the garden, and she gives a lyrical description of growing Cliff Kidney potatoes and making the perfect potato salad.

Pawsey, when not feeding shearers, (or even when she is, such are the tastes of shearers these days), is concocting glamour food from her garden.

Her recipes include parsnip crisps, kinbi carrots with parsley, the courgette that got away, and blackcurrant sorbet, while the glamour rose and berry ice bowl she describes making for a fundraiser sounds stunning.

Her descriptions of North Canterbury hill farming life are as acute as ever, and Southlanders will identify with a great deal.

This time the reader gets more of a glimpse into Marriott's big city professional life, as she struggles through the year with mounting resentment at bureaucracy and the arcane pseudo-academic gobbledegook crossing her editorial desk.

There's much here that will appeal to readers of this page. Common Table ($39.99) will published by HarperCollins next month.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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