Making a $54,000 sculpture of a distinguished Ngati Ruanui woman in bronze was a dream job for young Wanganui sculptor Aaron Te Rangiao Gardiner.
The piece was commissioned by Te Runanga o Ngati Ruanui and unveiled at a dawn ceremony in Hawera yesterday.
It will stand at one of the two entrances to Hawera's new $23 million TSB Hub multi-event complex. Gardiner is hoping he will be asked to sculpt male ancestor Ruanui for the second entrance.
Ngati Ruanui initially wanted a 6m wooden carving of their female ancestor. Gardiner persuaded the tribe to have the more expensive bronze piece, because it would last 5000 years as opposed to less than 100 years for wood.
It was his first experience of working in bronze. He had previously carved stone for 15 years and organised Wanganui's eight-day stone carving symposium in March.
Working with bronze was quieter, less dirty and very enjoyable, he said.
He first built a model out of clay, over a chicken wire and steel framework. Then the work was cast in bronze, in 13 pieces, in Ross Wilson's Marton foundry.
Next the pieces were joined together and their surfaces smoothed and fettled, and finally he painted parts of the work with ammonium chloride and ferric nitrate to change its colour. The work took him six months.
Ruaputahanga is over 2m tall and will stand on a 1.7m plinth. She weighs 125kg.
Legend has it that she was an extremely beautiful Ngati Ruanui woman, with ginger hair and green eyes. A chief from Tainui fell in love with her and she went to live with him at Kawhia. But his brother tricked her into living with him instead. Then he started to favour another wife and she returned to her own people.
Gardiner is descended from Ngati Ruanui woman Rangimarie Pokau. He gave Ruaputahanga a shark's tooth (mako) earring because, back in the 1860s, a soldier cut off his ancestor's ear to take her mako earring.
She escaped by jumping into the Tangahoe River, holding the child he is descended from.
"If she didn't get away, then I wouldn't even be here today," Gardiner said. His first big commission after finishing a bachelor of Maori visual arts degree at Massey in 2001 was a stone sculpture marking the grave of 28 Ruanui people who died while imprisoned during the Taranaki land wars.
Tribute made to last 5000 years
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