No craning required to see grand new stone sculpture

by Edith Symes

Whenit comes to garden art there’s one Raglan resident who clearly isn’t a man to do things by halves – in fact you could say he’s gone the whole nine yards.

A monumental stone sculpture last week manoeuvred by crane into place on the front lawn of a new build at Rangitahi is not only around nine metres high but weighs in at a staggering seven-plus tonnes.

It represents to the house owner, Marek, “a unique and magnificent artist expressing himself in stone”.

The artist is local sculptor Richard Page, another of whose works can be seen – alongside that of Tai Meuli –flanking the entranceway to the campground at Papahua domain.

“His (Richard’s) process fascinates me,” Marek says. To create such a shape – understood by the Chronicle to be a double helix – from a massive piece of stone without even marking it up is incredible, he adds.

The work has been a year in the making, Marek reveals, with the sculptor often putting in 12-hour days to complete it.

Marek – a Raglan resident for 15 years now – describes himself simply as the “facilitator” of the artwork. He says he decided even before he’d bought his property overlooking the new bridge to Rangitahi to commission something on a grand scale.

“It’s a great place for a piece of civic art,” he reckons. Richard