Glass sculpture, with a twist

One year after a translucent three-and-a-half metre tower of glass and its shorter twin sprouted among the vegetables in a Mangawhai Head’s backyard, another unusual ‘kinky’ sculpture has also sprung up.

For the last month bottle art creator, long-time local Neville Dowson, has been posing bottles, fiddling with thick wire, affixing mortar and fine-tuning his new spiral creation which includes an array of outdoor Christmas lights.

Sitting in between Neville’s first two creations, a 2000 coloured bottle tower and a smaller 600 ‘white bottle’ sculpture – the vortex of 44 beer, wine and liquor bottles some dating back to 1926 – is another addition to Neville’s collection of garden bottle eco-art, which also features a wishing well and mosaic wall. Needless to say, when struck by sunlight the sculptures become brilliantly illuminated.

Neville admits the motivation to create yet another glass sculpture actually came from an annoying bit of household maintenance.

“The gap between the two bottles was awkward to mow between so this makes the job a lot easier,” he says. “The spiral design itself just came to me one day though I’ve been thinking about it since last year. I just wanted to make something a bit kinky really.”

Initially, Neville’s inspiration to create bottle-art was seeded 40 years ago after visiting Queenstown’s ‘bottle-house’ while on a South Island family holiday – a two-storied building with walls infused with a range of coloured bottles.

The glass sculptures, along with the colourful garden he shares with his wife Ann who has an artistic flair of her own, has also featured in Mangawhai’s annual Garden Ramble.

With two bottles and now a helix-shaped design, are there any more sculptures to come?

“Well, I’m nearly running out of garden,” Neville says. “I say ‘no, that’s the last one’ but... still got some old bottles tucked away in the shed...”

Neville Dowson’s new helix-shaped sculpture captures the afternoon sun. The three creations plus other bottle garden sculptures have reused over 3000 wine, beer and spirit bottles and stand as an inspiring sample of eco-art.

“The spiral design itself just came to me one day… I just wanted to make something a bit kinky really.”