The Steampunk Guardian
This is another sculpture that stands proudly behind the Loan & Merc building in the Victorian Precinct of Oamaru. I think one of the traits of a good sculpture is that it invokes its own sense of identity. This one in particular gives me the feeling that it is protecting something, is on high alert and is proud of the position that it holds. What I mean by that is that it is proud of having its job as protector.
It took me some time to get this shot as every time I went there to take a photo there were always tourists getting their photo taken with it. I also wanted to have a clear blue sky in the background as when it’s cloudy it’s nowhere near as imposing and we had quite a few cloudy days.
It is made of old car parts and other reused pieces of metal that had another job in a previous life. I bet if those pieces of metal could talk they would certainly have a few stories to tell.
The next 2 photos are of some dinosaurs that sit beside the old Oamaru Railway Station. The old railway station was an abandoned building in a sorry state of disrepair until one of the most prolific artists in Oamaru bought the building from the local council. The artists name is Don Patterson and the council sold it to him for a good price on the condition he spent a certain amount of money restoring the building. Don has created many of the wonderful sculptures around Oamaru and one day I will do a post dedicated to him and his work.
Here’s one of the dinosaurs.
As Don was restoring the building he uncovered a very old red brick wall and one of the ways he raised money for the restoration was to sell the bricks. You couldn’t take the bricks home however. The wall stayed where it was. But for $25 per brick you got the rights to write anything on your brick that you wanted. My wife and I bought 3 bricks. I wrote my name, job and the date on my brick. My wife did the same on hers and as it happened our grandson was born that year so we wrote his name and date of birth on the third brick we purchased. Although our grandson lives a 3 hour drive away, we look after him many times a year so each year we take him to get his photo taken in front of his brick.
Don eventually sold the Railway Station and it is now home to a Chinese restaurant. Don did however introduce me to the new owner and he promised to allow us to take our grandson George there in the future for our yearly photos.
The next picture is of the 2nd dinosaur that sits on the other side of the Railway Station and out of the two it is the dinosaur that I like the best.
I’m no dinosaur expert at all so I don’t know what type of dinosaurs these are. Nowadays I could imagine that most 5 year olds would know more about them than me.
So can anyone tell me what type of dinosaurs these are?
No body makes it harder to figure it out(pun intended)
If it wasn’t for these sculptures and the many others that grace the streets of Oamaru, we definitely wouldn’t get as many tourists coming here as we do now.
It has been a blessing having so many artists living here as they have certainly made a huge contribution to the local economy.
So does anyone else have any photos of Steampunk sculptures in particular that grace the streets of their hometown. I’d love to know if it was just an Oamaru thing or if other towns do it to.
