Of Art and the Artist

If you get to stand between god and man, 

Whom will you choose if you can?

The Art that glows with heaven’s play

Or the Artist, who plays anew each day?

 

It was not even six in the morning, but I was waiting at the Taupo Marina, hoping for a tourist boat to take us to what is perhaps Taupo’s biggest man-made attraction, if not that of all of North Island – a 14 metre tall, rock carving of a tattooed Maori face at Mine Bay. The haunting face on the wall is accessible only by boat, hence my conundrum.

I was in Taupo, a small town in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. It is nestled by an eponymous lake, which is the bejewelled country’s largest lake by surface area, and also one of the largest freshwater lakes in all of Oceania. Situated in the volcanic heart of New Zealand, Lake Taupo has filled up a caldera – a collapsed volcano that erupted with great violence about 26,000 years ago, that still holds the record for the most violent explosion on earth for the last seventy millennia. The hiccups have subsided with time, but the entire region is still seismologically sensitive. The Taupo Volcanic Region stretches all the way to the northern end of the North Island and includes Rotorua, world-famous for its sulphurous environs, steaming fumaroles, searing mud-pools and sizzling geysers, providing raw ammunition to this side of the Pacific’s Ring of Fire (and you thought there was just one ring to New Zealand, huh?) The region’s last major convulsion dates back to sometime around the third century A.D. when Chinese and Roman historians recorded their skies glowing red due to the spectacular volcanic activity in this part of the world. Today, all that remains visible is a periwinkle-blue lake blessed by the mountain spirits of Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe – three beautiful snow-clad peaks standing as sentinels, far away, yet always keeping a watchful eye over the lake and the town.

But there is more to this place than just geology: the anthropology is just as fascinating. The last country to be settled by man – about 800 years ago – New Zealand or Aotearoa in the native tongue, was inhabited by the fiery Maoris, descendants of Polynesian islanders. But even with their stone-age tools, their artistic deluge in the form of wood carvings, stone sculptures, and jade ornamentation besides their celebration of nature (let us leave aside the cannibalism for some time) will overwhelm your senses. The Mine Bay Maori rock art was yet another modern- day feather in that prestigious cap. Which I failed to see. With my usual good luck.

I had been to Auckland and Hamilton (read LOTR movie sets) and for my short tour, it was good enough. I still had some time before flying over to South Island and hence drove on to wriggle my toes in the cold waters of Lake Taupo (and feel the geothermally warmed waters seeping up from below in that disturbance). I had been to a geothermal spa that evening and felt rejuvenated in its hot waters, watching the steam dissipate in the evening sun. It was when I talked to the locals there that I was enlightened of the Mine Bay carvings – it was too late to book a tour in the evening, which meant I had to take my chances to catch a boat early next morning (I had to return to Auckland for my flight that day). Which I did, but in vain.

So, there was I, the next morning, scurrying between boats to check if any could ferry me to the rock arts. There were just a couple, and they were both booked. In the early morning hours, there was hardly any other tour operators or people in sight. I had given up until I saw a boat with a single guy in a blue jacket and black headscarf. Maybe he was the captain, maybe he had room for a stowaway. I boarded the boat and asked unabashedly if he were operating a tour that morning and if he could take me. He told me politely that that boat would not be plying that morning, and that he was no captain – in fact, he was waiting for the captain himself.

I thanked him, while noting an inked A3 sketch of the Mine Bay carving in his hand. It was a beautiful and exact replica of the symmetrical rock art on paper – those blanked yet enigmatic eyes, that plumed headdress, that fluffy nose and pairs of toothed lips, all held together by the lined tattoos on the face.

‘Nice job,’ I commended the artist, ‘looks like a very good replica.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘The artwork in your hands…’

‘Oh yes, the captain asked me to draw it so he could put it up on this ship.’

‘Yes, nice pencilling, very close to the original.’

He gave me a blank stare and repeated the first question, creating an annoying circularity in our conversation, ‘What do you mean?’

 ‘It looks very much like the original,’ I tried to clarify.

‘Yes of course, I made it…’

‘I know you made it, that’s why I am saying it’s a very good replica of the original.’ I was beginning to doubt the smartness of this man, little knowing that perhaps he too was thinking on similar lines.

‘No, no…’ he continued to annoy me, ‘I made it myself…’ he pointed to the open waters of the harbour. It was then that annoyance gave way to wonder, overwhelm, shock and dropped jaws.

‘I made that rock carving. I am Matahi…’

The last name made me want to dig a deep hole and bury my face. It took me a few moments to absorb the facts, regain my composure and speak again.

(Photo: newzealand.com)

For Matahi Brightwell’s name was splashed on every tourist brochure and webpage that I had poured onto the last evening. Taupo’s most popular Maori celebrity, the master carver had toiled for 4 years to create his imposing rock-art, to fulfill his grandmother’s wish, consolidate their family claim to that ancestral land and also pay homage to their Maori forefather, Ngatoroirangi – master navigator and high priest, who had guided his tribes to Aotearoa from Polynesia many centuries ago. Matahi had neared the completion of the rock art in 1980 but was bullied by other Maori tribes and Europeans due to the land disputes and the distinctive form of the art, so much that the artist had left the work incomplete – leaving the eyes blank among other details.

‘You are…. Matahi…You don’t look that old, not one bit.’ I stuttered. That Matahi was in his late 70s seemed unbelievable. Maori genes? Who knew?

Matahi smiled while I continued, ‘Your work is amazing – I was desperate to see it before leaving for Auckland today, unfortunately I couldn’t get to it…but fortunately I have met the artist,’ I couldn’t help beaming, while a part of me began to wonder what was more important – the tangible art that would stay for decades to come back and revisit, or the artist, the true inspiration that breathed life into that work of art. If you had to choose between Man and God, whom would you choose?

Matahi walked alongside me on the boat as I asked him what led him to create that rock-art. He narrated his grandmother’s request.

‘I was a carver trained in our legacy. My grandmother had asked me to make something on wood as a totem to remember our ancestor - but I was unable to get the right kind of wood. It would also perish with time. It was then that I was boating around the estate when I saw the rock face of an alcove and I wondered – what if I could make a totem on rock, it would be grander, larger, and would stay on for centuries to relive the tale of our ancestor. I could already imagine how it would look like, and I knew I had to carve it out…’

‘And it took you four years?’

‘I was supported by a few boys, and we only worked in the warm summer months.’ He tried to sound humble. He then spoke of his desire to repair the 40-year old sculpture, maybe make those eyes he had left behind, and even train the future generation in the ways of the Maori art form.

As I left the boat ready for my trip back to Auckland, he genially tried to remind me, ‘Do not worry about the rock-art, anyone can make it. Anyone can see it. But if you leave this place with a bit of inspiration in your heart, then the ancestors have blessed you and the journey was worth the effort.’  

I smiled, as the morning sun began to dazzle the white snows of Ruapehu on the horizon. He had spoken like a true master. For a good artist inscribes, but a great artist inspires. And that great artist had made my day that morning.