Week One: Settling into this Residency
“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” – Pablo Picasso
I’ve completed my first week in Rawene on an artist’s residency I applied for nearly a year ago. With four weeks still to go, I’m happily focused on my painting plan. Yet — typical me — just before I started writing this, I painted over everything I did yesterday - so as to let the paint dry while I write my thoughts and offerings after settling into the quiet rhythm of ‘Residency’ life – an experience I feel extremely honoured to have been offered.
I knew I’d paint over my efforts, in the morning before I went to bed last night, up above the vestry — a delightfully and cleverly designed annex off the nave.
Before being my usual ‘rash Capricorn self’ this morning, I showered, made an egg on toast, and brewed a fresh strong coffee, took a deep breath and ‘did it’ before analysing it too much!
I’ve met a few colourful, interesting locals and have been made most welcome by these folk. John and Steve wandering on past while I unpacked the jig-saw of stuff I’d shoe-horned into the car that morning. Wardy, at the green-grocer, come hot and cold prepared meals man and ‘everything else; shop. Jade at the Boat Shed, an out on piles into the waterstructure and as pretty as-a-picture café – serving wonderful coffee and picturesque colourful Ponsonby-like- plates of deliciousness and generousness. Chantelle and her family’s ‘artist whanau collective’ with their creative talents for sale in the old Butcher’s shop, also on piles over water, and between the Café and the well-stocked 4 Square where Renee welcomes and engages with just everyone. and Liz who owns and runs the Fish ‘n Chippy. The food is spectacularly good and generous. Tina and her son Josh who own and run a vintage-type Gallery of contemporary collectables and clothing at very reasonable prices from a gallery room within the Gallery ‘Number 1 Parnell’ on the corner at the bottom of the main street, Parnell St, and opposite where the cars line up for the car ferry from Rawene to Kohukohu.
Number 1 Parnell Gallery is now just open again after an extensive refresh for the local folk and the coming summer influx, and so too is the Café within, being operated by a new team. Here you can also relax comfortably in the same-type chairs from the 60s, enjoying your café coffee and yummy delights while observing those getting out of their lined-up cars awaiting the next ferry or the disembarking cars, of locals and visitors coming over to Rawene from further north. Here I should mention that the Gallery and the Residency are owned and operated by the same extraordinary community benefactors, a couple that presently operate Satellite2 Gallery in Devonport, Auckland.
The residency itself is in the early settlers’ Wesleyan Methodist Church, which is halfway down the hill from the hospital at the top of the hill as you drive into the town. This lovely white wooden, bright red-roofed and simple early settler style structure is on the right, just before you arrive at the village proper. This church had been abandoned let to rundown and sadly had badly deteriorated before its thoughtful restoration and new lease-on-life as a residency for creatives.
It’s peaceful here — cosy and beautifully equipped — with a mid-century modernist yet retro vintage feel. The furniture has quite actually stepped straight out of the 1960s and my 1970s university flatting days, and arrived in ‘situ’ here by ‘Tardis’ for my comfort ...
All types of creatives come here — to reside for however long they need — to reach inside their personalities and their talents, to compose, write, design, or create their myriad planned projects.
For me, this week has been about quiet beginnings, a few false starts, and finding my rhythm in the hush of this old church by the waters of the Hokianga Harbour and all its myrid inlet and tributaries and this delightful village, Rawene.
Linda Gair week 1 October 2025
