From the start of her final year at Wakatipu High, head girl Sofia Taquet had in mind her year group should leave behind a lasting legacy ‘‘for a school that’s done so much for us’’.
Thinking a bench would be something everyone could enjoy, she approached Arrowtown sculptor Shane Woolridge, who’d done some work for her family.
‘‘I wanted to work with a local artist because I wanted it to be more like a community project as well as a school one, and I didn’t want a random bench you could buy from a store.’’
Sofia says Woolridge ‘‘completely understood my vision’’.
He got to work on a 180kg stone seat he’s called ‘The Benchmark’, sourced from 11-million-year-old columnar basalt, which he acquired from around Dunedin about two years ago.
He says the stone was misshapen, ‘‘but I could see it had the width and the length to make a nice seat’’.
‘‘I didn’t want to over-polish it, I wanted to make it look like it’s been done by nature.’’
The stone’s been worn by water.
‘‘As you approach it, from about 10 metres away, it kind of shimmers, just like water.’’
Woolridge says he decided to gift the seat to Sofia and her fellow Year 13 students — ‘‘karma’s a good thing’’.
Sofia’s blown away by Woolridge’s generosity, and his artistry.
She’s hopeful future cohorts of Year 13 students also consider leaving a legacy, maybe in the form of other sculptural pieces along the path ‘The Benchmark’ is on.
‘‘Hopefully in 10 or 20 years’ time it will be like a beautiful pathway that is, like, every graduating year’s gift to the school.’’
