This is it – draft but enough – calling all mad creators and high idealists, seekers of metaphysical meaning, and art, love and beauty!
Here’s the PDF:
In Lifegym.nz, I posted how we need to buy the property to secure it for the future…
Well… what a long gestation! We must be giving birth to an elephant here at Dreamspace…
While I have been feeling my way into the Dreamspace and its establishment in seemingly chaotic fits and starts, I have been blessed with a few good friends, all of them informal, some casual, some giving a lot of things to the workshop – lathes, tools, timber, bits and pieces, food, beer, and friendship.
But late last year a developer came looking for the owner (not me, alas!). This shook me up – I realized how much setup we’ve done in three years and how much it would cost to do it all over again, even if I had the heart to try!
So now we are on a mission to buy the building, to make it secure for all, including the participants in a planned School and folk factory I’m calling Renaissance Workshops.
So I have started asking all friends and relatives of this dream to consider signing up to rent a space under the Lifegym plan. A desk/workbench plus shelves is going for $25 a week – this includes all the shared facilities and tools and equipment in the whole of Dreamspace as well; and $50-75 a week for a lockable room, or some other arrangement to be negotiated. Rental contracts we will be able to get a mortgage to own the property and save it from developers who would demolish our beautiful old lady and (no doubt) put up soulless units in her place! And the Dream would be scattered.
So… do you want to be part of the Dreamspace experience and help save it for posterity? I am now 65 and must think about the future when I can’t be here….
As at today, 29-1-20, we have three good people who have agreed to sign up – we need at least three more. Space is of course limited, so if you have an idea of what you could do at Dreamspace, message or ring me now. It could be for arts, crafts, woodwork, metalwork, concrete, bookbinding, etching, or whatever hobby or small business you are passionate about and need space, tools, inspiration and synergy to take to the next level…’
So… email me at wizardofeutopia@gmail.com or text/phone 0223326568
Great things are afoot! Elephants? 🙂
wizard workshops poster from visionary arts poster
The Philosophy and was where I got to before night fell and I was called away…:)
This is the business card, fun to design a new one, building on old ones like my ‘Wizard of Eutopia’ card. So, the main thing we do here now is make things in the Arts & Crafts Renaissance spirit, and hold workshops, or ‘apprentishops’, for others to learn how to make them, and become (some of them) Masters in one or more of the multiple skills fostered here…
And the First workshop is as described below in the flyer:
Wizard Workshops First FREE workshop/talk/korero At the new Round Table, Dreamspace, 61 Carnarvon St, Saturday 23rd February 7PM :
On Coming Out as a Creator and even making money in the coming Arts & Crafts Renaissance.
Led by Peter Harris of Dreamspace Gallery, builder of Cafe Eutopia in Northland, who has been coming out, or trying to, as an artist, craftsman, visionary and writer for the last 20 years, with many learnings, fears, failures, and scattered triumphs along the way.
Before that he started, ran into the ground, resurrected and finally sold a frame manufacturing and wholesaling business and got an MA in philosophy.
He now wants to share the agony and ecstasy of the art-business-life balancing act, and a new way forward with kindred spirits here in Gisborne as he offers a workshop space for dreaming, discussing, creating and making, at the ‘everything workshop’ of Dreamspace, 61 Carnarvon St.
At Dreamspace there is a Round Table in a round Library room for the discussion and brainstorming workshops, and many ‘playstations’ for renaissance-level creations, including: printmaking, bookbinding, blacksmithing, coin striking, painting, casting cement and plaster, mouldmaking, jewellery making in pewter, stone carving, woodcarving, woodturning, joinery, ferrocement building and sculpting, glass work, stained glass, framing and board mounting of artworks, writing, meditating, recording, conferencing and brainstorming.Phone/text Peter 022 332 6568 email wizardofeutopia@gmail.com
After 17 or more years thinking I should build a Round Table for creative discussion, I’ve finally done it – or the prototype, last week. The catalyst was Nathan the young American man from Waiheke who appeared at the gallery one day, and roused many of my wilder dreams from their shallow graves by being even more otherworldly and mystical than me… He was fasting and praying. . He saw the 4phase tree of life as a way of uniting people in the most noble and knightly quest for the holy grail of community. I bought some props in the form of silver spoons and forks from the Salvation Army stamped with the mark ‘community’. Representing the Status Quo in the centre which feeds us as we enter the dynamic phases of new Love Beauty Truth and Freedom… And walking the beach I found a rubber ring which resonated even more when I painted it gold. It’s a great symbol I think of true community – flexible and strong, pure gold but with a black interior like obsidian, representing the ability to absorb and neutralise negativity. And it’s too big for one person to wear like Sauron’s One Ring of power.
And Nathan? He caught a cold, stayed with us a few more days, then slipped away again. I hope he made it safely back to Waiheke… He did work magic with me here.
Soon we’ll be able to use the room of the round table for all kinds of meetings and creative workshops… in the rainy weather I’ll be able to do the finishing touches. ..and make the next, smaller, round table, for a group of brainstorming children. But that’s a story for next week…
L
I hope these photos say more than the many words I don’t have the time to say right now about the wonders, the synchronicities of new friends, wizards, Gods in hiding etc… Come and see if you are in Gisborne. 61 Carnarvon st. ..or follow this blog! And join Lifegym our ‘dojo for creative misfits’… http://www.lifegym.nz It’s transformational stuff! And even …dare I say it… fun…
Some photos taken in the middle of life/work/play/agony and ecstasy in the big shed as I renovate and make the walls for the exhibition space. Visitors, well-wishers and helpers of all stripes invited! (And thanks to those who have already helped to make it even vaguely viable!) Also inquiries for studio spaces small or medium-sized for craftspeople or artists who love the vision of an Arts & Crafts revival.
The vise pictured is on an old bench with three vises I bought from a nice retired builder who said it’s from Cornwall he thinks, where his (and my) ancestors sailed from in 1860. I LOVE the quality and heavy blacksmith’s grace of this tool – it feels like a symbol of what we yearn for here. The old wooden floors also – nearly 100 year old rimu. To think that the building permit was applied for in 1917, while WWI was still raging! So there is ALWAYS hope for freedom, and peace to tend to good things and make good things. This is what our grandfathers fought and died for… I want to cherish it, and be worthy of them, as we continue the ancient struggle to manifest the Good and defeat the Bad…
Dreamspace Gallery and Workshops 