Moffatts get creative at Kuku

Moffatts get creative at Kuku

Visiting Greg and Pauline Moffatt at Kuku shows how creative passion can blur the lines between home and workshop.

A knock at the door of the old homestead north of Ōtaki – built originally by Pauline’s grandparents early last century – goes unanswered. A phone call draws Pauline out of what can only be described as a huge shed near the house. She’s as welcoming as a grandmother looking to treat her mokopuna with home-baked scones.

Greg is inside, casually dressed as one would expect from a retired farmer and police officer.

“Welcome to our other home,” he says with a smile.

In explanation, he says it’s where the couple spend most of their time. Even mid-morning, with the chill of late winter still hovering, it’s cosy inside, aided by the blaze of a woodburner near a cloth-covered snooker table that doubles as a dining table.

Perhaps expecting to see a look of wonder at the sheer scale of their work space, Pauline suggests this is Greg’s kind of man cave.

“Man cavern, more like,” he says.

They also call it their museum, and it’s clear how it could be described that way.

It’s packed full of old – and useful – stuff, from old gramophones, typewriters and cameras to chainsaws and agricultural implements.

Some might call it cluttered, but it’s their space and that’s just the way they like it. It’s homely and personal, and conducive to the creative energy that has led to KukuCreative, the couple’s art business.

It’s based around the work Greg has been doing for many years while he was also working for the police. That 50-year career included as a beat cop, a jailer, a firearms vetter and mountain safety training officer.

Now retired, he can concentrate full-time on an eclectic range of art forms. He’s best known for his bone carvings, but there’s plenty else besides that comes from many skills and inspirations.

A 3-metre-high, dual-wheeled windmill along the Moffatt fenceline testifies to his aptitude in metalwork. A dragon in the workshop, made for a mokopuna’s birthday, is made of plywood.

Inspiration for Greg is spontaneous, never forced.

“When I’m starting to work on a bone carving, I don’t usually have any particular design in mind,” he say. “I’ll just hold it, and let that touch get me going. It all flows from there.”

Greg is deeply aware of his heritage, including whakapapa to Ngāti Huia, Ngāti Kikopiri and Scotland. Hence his designs have strong Indigenous and Celtic influences.

They feature in his sculptures, healing stones, pendants, earrings, walking staffs, hanging stones and conceptual objects. They reflect Taiao, the natural world – a space within which he is at ease.

It’s also a concept Pauline embraces. As Ngāti Tūkorehe, Pauline (nee Rowland) is strongly rooted in the whenua on which the Moffatts have their 10-acre block. Living in her grandparents’ house reminds her every day of those who came before her. It has also inspired her to delve deeper into the healing power of rongoā – traditional Māori medicine.

She’s in the last stages of a diploma in Māori medicine with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, and enjoying being part of a revival of Indigenous healing.

 “For probably two generations, the art of rongoā was lost,” Pauline says. “It was legislated out of people’s lives with the Tohunga Suppression Act, so there were very few people who kept using it.”

The 1907 act was intended to stop people using traditional Māori healing practices because it was considered to have a supernatural or spiritual element that didn’t align with the time’s Christian ideology.

Greg’s link to Scottish ancestry goes back five generations to when Henry Moffatt landed unexpectedly on New Zealand shores.

Henry and his family were on the City of Auckland when it was blown off course and wrecked on Ōtaki Beach in 1878. Whether they went on to Napier, their intended destination, is not clear, but they soon settled in Ōtaki and began a long line of Moffatts, a family well known in the district.

Greg’s parents, Ray and Joan, raised their family in Ōtaki and up Ōtaki Gorge, where Greg retains a large block of land he has happily allowed to regenerate into a native bush paradise.

A piece of marketing material Pauline provides sums up Greg’s art:

“Greg draws his inspiration and creativity from his life experiences – a farming background, inventive genius, engineering, social services and whānau relationships. His awareness of perspective, balance and insight into hauora/well-being for the whenua, animals, tangata/humans and the natural world is reflected within his artwork, which he sensitively encapsulates into aesthetic designs.

“Greg’s artworks are ‘genuine’. He intuitively develops authentic taonga that is indicative of the ‘number 8 wire phenomena’, provoking tantalising observations of our bygone era.”

To contact Greg or Pauline, phone 021 209 5912 or email kukumogs@gmail.com