The artist and the chocolate maker

Transition Town Kaitaia has unearthed a unique link between a "radically different" Caribbean chocolate enterprise and Far North stained glass artist Kathy Shaw-Urlich (Ngapuhi, Ngati Hau).

When TTK secretary Gill Minogue researched the film Nothing Like Chocolate, the story of the famous Grenada Chocolate Factory (which it screened last week as part of an Oxfam fundraise) she found that Kathy had been commissioned to create a memorial window to commemorate the work of factory founder Mott Green.

"The Grenada Chocolate Factory is the only chocolate-making factory located in a cocoa-producing country," Gill said.

"Most of the world's chocolate is manufactured far from the countries where cocoa beans are grown. Unethical buying practices hold down the returns paid to cocoa bean producers, and have led to the use of children as slave labour by many cocoa plantation owner.

"Grenada locals were keen to help establish a chocolate-making operation that produced high-quality, organic chocolate for export, and which was based on fair prices for local cocoa bean farmers, employee-shareholders, alternative energy, and a sustainable distribution system. Since 1999 the chocolatiers of the Grenada Chocolate Factory have produced award-winning, hand-crafted chocolate which is exported by sailing ship to Europe, then distributed to shops there by bicycle."

Kathy received her commission after Mott was electrocuted in a work accident last year. She completed the glass sections of the window at Whatuwhiwhi, then leaded them after moving to the UK to undertake a commission for a chapel window for a school in Surrey, and to enter the Dylan Thomas centennial stained glass competition in Swansea, where she trained in the 1980s.

Design details include circles on the moth's wings to denote a ship's helm, bicycle wheels, peace signs, and a compass rose with a reverse electric warning sign on the moth's body, a reference to the cause of Mott's death. The frame, now covered with Grenada chocolate wrappers, came from a Kaitaia op shop.

When light shines through the window, several wing sections vividly refract the sun's rays, and appear as large eyes.

Meanwhile, Kathy, who last year was funded by Creative NZ to design and make windows for the wharenui and new wharekai at her marae at Whakapara and made the altar window for the church there in 1999, will stage a solo show of stained glass and paintings at Kaan Zamaan Gallery in Kerikeri in March next year.