Sculptor sets Scottish migration in stone

John Edgar works on one of five pieces for his Ballast exhibition. Photo / Martin Sykes

When Waitakere sculptor John Edgar wants to tell a story, neither time nor distance can stand in the way.

Gripped by an idea to tell the story of Scottish settlers, he found eight tonnes of stone in the quarries and countryside of their homeland and had it shipped to his workshop.

Hundreds of hours' work later, five sculptures each weighing between 150kg and 300kg are nearly ready to be packed and sent back to Scotland.

They will be on show at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh from August 5 to November 30, as part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival.

The last New Zealand visual artist to have a solo exhibition at the festival was painter Colin McCahon.

"It's been an exciting process since it was proposed in 2005 and as you come down to the wire, the last pieces are the most difficult," said Edgar, whose equipment ranges from intricate detailing tools to a forklift truck.

Some pieces use New Zealand as well as Scottish stone.

"I'm using these to comment on the influence of Scottish culture in New Zealand and vice versa.

"But it relates back to immigration, with people coming to a different country and making changes to fit in to make a different culture."

For example, he used green serpentine stone from the Griffin Range in the South Island, which was mined by Germans between the wars.

"The stone came to me after 40 years and I'll combine it in here with Scottish pink and grey granites.

"By the time this piece is finished it will have a huge story to tell."

Another piece titled Compass is a mixture of the pale pink Peterhead granite from a quarry near Aberdeen and Southland black basalt.

This sculpture is like a hilltop trig station, which helps find a direction.

Other works bear symbols based on the cross of St Andrew, the crossing of pathways, a gorge cut by a river into the land and the passage across a wild sea to find a resting place.

Edgar, who has Scottish and English ancestry, has named the exhibition Ballast, after the big stones that were collected at Scottish ports and used to keep the immigrant ships upright on the journey half a world away.

Scotland is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of poet Robert Burns and its tourism industry is holding a "Homecoming Year" to attract visitors of Scottish ancestry.