by Ann Weir – Te Kowhai Alpacas
ALPACA
Te Kowhai Alpacas is a family business operated by Stuart and Ann Weir. We are located to the north
west of Hamilton City, New Zealand, equidistant between the small towns of Te Kowhai and Horotiu.
Te Kowhai Alpacas is a living art gallery with approximately eighty (80) kinetic installations - "living,
breathing, suri alpaca sculptures on the hoof". They are my inspiration.
Suri alpaca fascinate me with their
fibre-tossing moments; dramatic
bursts of speed and pronking around
the paddock, their slap stick comedy
routines when expressing joy, and their
inherent honesty of living in the moment
and communicating with refreshing
directness through their body language.
Being outside with the herd is my
“Happy Place” and as the song “Happy”
states, my “room without a roof”.
Residing inside this dynamic art gallery
allows me to attempt to translate
living kinetic installations into human
created art forms. My golden rule is,
if you want picture perfect, just take a
photograph. I don't create perfect! I try
to capture a feeling, an emotion and
transmit that in a creative medium.
Methods of choice include using knife
painting in impasto styled oils to create
what I have termed “rustic large format
alpaca”, pastel painting for a little more
finesse, pencil sketching for a quick
overview, photography to capture a
moment in time, and mixed mediums.
The creative process begins with
literally just being in the paddock,
being amongst the herd and enjoying
their company. “Channel surfing the
paddocks” and watching “Alpaca
TV”. There is usually a reality angle
parenting show, the odd soap
opera, an occasional drama, with
lots of serene familial documentary
thrown in for good measure.
Alpacas make me feel a raft of
emotions. They have taught me
many life lessons and their honesty
is refreshing in a world often marred
by human conflict and duplicity.
With an alpaca what you see is
what you get. Ignore body language
at your peril. It is this non-verbal
language that is one of the keys to
the “essence of alpaca-ness”.
Art work involving alpacas for me is
about expressing a glimmer of the
essence of the alpaca life force. They
are so refreshingly honest and direct,
so empathetic and yet at times bluntly
practical. To be accepted into an
alpaca paddock as a non-threatening
human is an awesome privilege.
There is (if you listen with your heart)
an inter-species empathy that can also
happen. When Mum died, the grief was a
melancholy that came in waves. One day
I was in one of the hembra paddocks
(approx 15 females) and I just sat down
on the ground and cried. A few noses
came inquiringly my way, and then the
strangest thing, was hearing, “whumph,
whumph” as the whole herd sat down
around me. I was completely encircled
and they stayed that way for about half
an hour, then one by one they got up
and got on with their lives. A salutary
reminder that grief is a universal emotion
and that it is OK to grieve, but that life
must go on. I felt the most humbling
feeling of connectedness with these
hembra. I felt a feeling of “one-ness”.
And that is what my artwork seeks
to capture, the magical and mystical
concept of “one-ness”. The range of
alpaca emotions and body language in
all its nuances. Photographs capture a
27
moment in time or an expression and
can be used for reference, but often I
just ‘down tools’ and go out into the
paddock to check the light reflection
in the eyes, the shape of an ear, or the
curl of a lip. Having life models in the
paddock is definitely an advantage.
What the “experts in the field” think
about my work, is my measure of
success. I literally go and display my dry
finished artwork in the alpaca paddock.
If an alpaca goes and greets one of
my painted alpaca on the nose, then I
feel that I have passed the test by the
most discerning art critics of them all.
As space in this magazine is limited,
further examples of my artwork can be
found under the heading “Alpaca Art”
on our Te Kowhai Alpacas website,
http://www.tekowhaialpacas.co.nz
The aim going forward is to create a
temporary “Alpaca Art in the Paddock”
installation for human viewing.
TOP LEFT: “Ignite The Light”, (a rustic large format alpaca oil painting) inspired by our brown suri female of that name,
created in black and white, impasto technique with knives.
TOP MIDDLE: Suri macho in oil painted impasto with knives. Large format painting.
TOP RIGHT: Head study of black cria. Medium: pastel painting wet and dry.
ABOVE: An “expert in the field” appraising a “rustic large format alpaca” oil painting.
30