Two positives and one negative makes our lives go ‘round.’ Water, that necessity of all creatures, needs our care and attention. And it will give us beautiful natural colours with life in return.
Environmental artist Jeanette Scharing recently, as part of her upcoming Tauranga Art Gallery exhibition, offered a workshop: Rethinking Food Colour Water at the Historic Village Incubator. Writer and photographer Lee Switzer attended the event.
Early arrivals for the workshop sat down with the Jeanette where she answered questions and discussed her H2O philosophy.
The group moved to the central area of the building where Jeanette showed slides and provided commentary. Rivers flowing with combustible effluent from factories; bathing bodies in stinking water. We must cleanse the worlds system.
To make dyes, water may be heated, or left in jars to disseminate the essence of, for example a banana peel.
Jeanette has been in many countries working with groups of children, adults, scientists. She teaches the constituent properties of water. How it can be destroyed, how it can be used to heal us, and Earth.
Eat your food, then peel and put into water to develop colours in the dyeing process.
Or use flower pedals, coffee grinds, tea, Sometimes she will soak plants for months before using the resulting dye.
Colours can be altered by adding vinegar, laundry soap or baking powder. The new ingredients alters the PH value.
Jeanette Scharing’s Tauranga Art Gallery exhibition. Whose Water Are You? opened 14 April and runs through to 15 July. 
Jeanette assembled water samples brought to the gallery by local residents. She numbered the donations, made notes and the stories associated with each specimen.
SORRY BUT ALL THE PLACES IN THE JEANETTE SCHARING APRIL 2018 SCHOOL HOLIDAY PROGRAMME AT THE TAURANGA ART GALLERY HAVE BEEN FILLED. KEEP AN EYE ON THE GALLERY WEBSITE FOR WORKSHOPS, FLOOR TALKS AND GENERAL EXHIBITION INFORMATION. https://www.artgallery.org.nz/
Othe articles and photographs by Lee Switzer can be found at
You can read a recent review by Lee Switzer in Kupu & Word, WORDS
The Treaty of Waitangi in Tauranga Te Tiriti o Waitangi Ki Tauranga Moana by Debbie McCauley, Maori translation by Tamati Waaka, illustrated by Whare Joseph Thompson. Mauao Publishing, 2018. Reviewed by writer and photographer Lee Switzer.
AND TAKE A LOOK AT THIS:
alchemy
SPOKEN WORD POETRY
Join us every second Wednesday of the month,
6.00pm to 8.30pm
at the
Black Sheep Bar & Grill
Cnr SH2 and Plummers Point Road, Whakamarama
Read your own poems or poems by your favourite poet. Enjoy the power of the spoken word!
Phone: 07 571 8722 021 145 5810
ARTbop
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And don’t forget the next Affordable Art & Artisan Fair will be on the last Sunday of April 2018. The Fairs are held within the Black Sheep Bar & Grill complex. There is heaps of parking, clean toilets and wonderful food and coffee. There’s live music. We’ve got a Harvest Hamper to win and that “how many in the jar”! If you would like to join us as an exhibitor/retailer of your original creativity you can contact us at aaafair17@gmail.com
We are sign posted along SH2 with signage to the turnoff of SH2 and Plummer’s Point Road.
