All posts filed under: nature

DIY for Birdlovers

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I’m not sure if it’s our New Zealand heritage and national mascot – a flightless and defenceless forager, but Jane and I both adore birds. We fawn over anything feathered that chirps and warbles in spite of our relatively urban upbringings. Nowadays during lunch breaks, we’re delighted when we’re visited by kookaburras in the garden of our WHT workspace, even though it’s not our friendship they are necessarily after. So when they fly away home, start creating some tweety reminders of the good times.Rock, wire and branches complete the materials for this simple wall sculpture. Find DIY instructions on similar pebble art here. Don’t ditch your holey gumboots, they make a perfect birdhouse for nesting tweeters. Warm, waterproof and hence inviting, my Dad’s size 13’s were always at the back door and were occasionally a shelter for large wetas. Instructions for creating a raft of hidden-holes for your friends can be found here. Materials are a few pairs of old gumboots, a sharp knife, scrap wood, screws and some bolts. Too easy.Vintage dictionary pages make a fantastic …

Environmental Artists | Nature meets waste

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At WHT we love nothing more than artists who can produce sensational bodies of work using naturally occurring materials or even waste products such as plastic bottles, ocean detritus and outmoded CDs as their primary resource. American stick work artist Patrick Dougherty studied hospital and health administration before returning to North Carolina University to complete a degree in art history and sculpture. Using carpentry skills, he began exploring tree saplings as a sculptural material. Starting with single trees, his work soon evolved to a monumental scale and over the past 30 years, Dougherty has produced more than 250 giant scale artworks and become internationally acclaimed. Two beached fish on Botafogo beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were the marketing tool chosen to promote the UN Conference on Sustainable Development at the Rio+20 in 2012. Made entirely from plastic bottles, the enormous installations were backlit at night to create a vivid light display. Scheduled 20 years on from the original Earth summit in 1992, Rio+20 was “a chance to move away from business-as-usual and to act to end …