With a gallery and studio opening on Arrowtown’s main street, Fiona Garlick feels she’s finally finding her feet. She tells PHILIP CHANDLER about her long journey to becoming a sculptor and what she thought of the local landscape to begin with

Arrowtown sculptor Fiona Garlick’s having quite the week.

On Thursday, she officially opens a streetfront gallery and studio on the town’s main Buckingham Street thoroughfare, in front of her newly-acquired home.

‘‘It’s just my dream come true, really,’’ she says.

And early this week she installed her largest bronze yet — a giant beech seed, weighing about 700kg, commissioned by a Lake Hayes property owner.

Garlick’s work’s held in private collections across New Zealand and Australia, and has also been shown in several outdoor sculpture shows.

Interestingly, however, the 54-year-old didn’t start pursuing the challenging art till she was 37.

Though born in England, at about two months old she relocated to Kenya for six years, then had two years in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, before her parents, wanting to put down roots, moved to NZ.

‘‘Like the brochure said, ‘NZ for a new start’.’’

The family made an early splash, arriving on an immigrant ship with a Combi van with roof-top tents, which they initially lived in when they
arrived.

Growing up on Auckland’s North Shore, Garlick says she studied art at school but gave it up ‘‘because we had a pretty lousy teacher, and mum and dad said, ‘keep it as a hobby’.’’

She couldn’t get into art school as she’d not advanced beyond school cert art, so decided to become a filmmaker, instead.

After taking English literature, drama and film studies at Wellington’s Victoria University, she had two years in the NZ film industry, specialising in the art department.

She then travelled extensively, including ski bumming in Aspen, in the United States, and working on boats.

‘‘Then at the age of 25 I realised I was supposed to be having a career.’’

Garlick went to London and worked mainly on TV documentaries, progressing from researcher to assistant producer to director.

But just as she became a director, she ‘‘lost the love’’ for the industry and went to London’s Camberwell College of Arts, intending to become an illustrator.

‘‘But I realised I didn’t want to be directed by anybody — like the film industry, it was telling a story someone else has asked you to tell.’’

Instead, she hit upon sculpture — ‘‘and I was like, ‘this is it’.

‘‘It was quite a late time to have this enlightening moment — scales fell from my eyes.’’

Big plans: Fiona Garlick’s latest work, a giant beech seed installed at a Lake Hayes property this week, is her largest bronze to date

She then moved to Falmouth College of Arts in Cornwall, for a change of landscape.

She had a great tutor and won a student prize for a bronze medal she made, which is now held in the British Museum.

‘‘Falmouth reminded me I needed to be by the sea, and I ended up moving back to NZ.’’

Garlick acquired first-class honours at Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts, then, ‘‘though I was doing quite well there’’, moved to Arrowtown as her then-partner had a job down here.

At first, she says she found the local landscape ‘‘incredibly overwhelming, I didn’t relate to it at all’’.

She then had another stint in Auckland before returning again and feeling more at home.

Living now with ex-Exponents bass player Dave Gent, she calls herself ‘‘stranded in paradise, as my son’s dad is here and we share him 50/50’’.

Much of her work centres on the tension between Arrowtown’s introduced species, like the trees that give the town its famous autumn colours, and native flora and fauna.

‘‘The overarching theme is ‘charming invader’ — I consider myself one of those, as well.’’

An increasing focus has been public art so people don’t have to go to galleries to see her work.

‘‘Having said that, I’m setting up my own gallery, but most of how I support myself is with my large outdoor work.

‘‘A lot of people have amazing homes here and once they’ve done the home, they buy art.’’

She’s also planning to put a sculpture garden around her gallery ‘‘in which I can showcase my bigger works’’.

Garlick says she’s delighted Arrowtown’s becoming more of an art destination.

Reflecting on the ‘First Thursdays’ initiative, involving Queenstown CBD galleries, she muses: ‘‘We’ll have to do our own one in Arrowtown — ‘First Tuesdays’, or something.’’

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