Whale watching over summer

Readers may recall the Cow Parade charitable art project a decade or so back, with a herd of life-size white fibreglass cows each supported by a sponsor and painted by an artist and displayed around the city. It was a colourful event and when the cows were auctioned-off the herd raised a lot of money for charity.

This summer a similar event is taking place, only this time it’s the Whale Tales, involving an 80-strong pod of tall, whale tails, which will be sighted all around Auckland, making for an engaging whale watch exercise over 12 weeks from 24th January 2022. The artistic whale tails will be auctioned off on 2nd May 2022 with proceeds going to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and their efforts to protect and restore Aotearoa’s marine environment, and in particular the Hauraki Gulf.

Stuart Carlyon are proud to be sponsoring one of the whale tails. We have been assigned an artist, Jeff Thomson, famous for his artwork employing corrugated iron, and it will be interesting to see what he comes up with. Unlike the other tails which will be in fibreglass, Jeff has revealed his concept to us:

I’m making it out of used corrugated iron that still has paint on it. It will have reds, oranges, greens, yellows and blues all over the structure. - Jeff Thomson, Artist

“I’m making it out of used corrugated iron that still has paint on it. It will have reds, oranges, greens, yellows and blues all over the structure. Every piece I use will be curved in varying degrees to create the shape. I have an old manual curving machine dating from the 1890s that I’ll use to make the tail It’ll all be riveted together using an estimated 1000 rivets”.

His particular whale tail will be on show at Fraser Park, Parnell Rise, not all that far from our office. That is no accident. But it is a fluke.

For more information and updates, go to www.whaletales2022.org, and enjoy the sculpture trail with a pod of your friends and family.