Neville can’t keep creativity bottled up

 

BY JULIA WADE

Tall, translucent and created from over 2000 coloured wine, beer and spirit bottles, a three-and-a-half metre bottle sculpture has finally been ‘capped’ by its talented local creator, after a three month labour of love. When struck by sunlight or orchestrated lighting, the tower transforms into a myriad of luminous colour and stands as an inspiring example of eco art. 

The impressive outdoor art is born and bred local Neville Dowson’s newest creation, joining a wishing well and bottled mosaic wall among the flowers and vegetables of the Mangawhai Heads garden he shares with wife Ann, who also possesses an artistic flair. The couples colourful garden and glass sculptures have featured in a number of Garden Ramble’s over previous years. 

Neville says he was first struck with the idea of creating with bottles after visiting Queenstown’s ‘bottle-house’, a two-storied building with walls infused with a range of coloured bottles, while on a family South Island adventure over 40 years ago.
“I just thought it was genius, such a wonderful thing to do,” says the former volunteer firefighter and St John officer. “Ever since then I’ve had the desire to build something with bottles.”

It took another thirty years before Neville was able to transform ideas into reality, but ten years ago ‘in between raising calves, milking cows and general farming’ he created his first work of art, a four metre bottle-tower at the Dowson’s previous Hakaru home. 

Besides some strategic planning and a ‘bit of guesswork’, Neville admits there is some tedious preparation involved in designing the pieces, such as peeling labels off the multitude of bottles, an arduous task that he thought he had found an easy solution to.

“Some snails got into a box of bottles once and I realised they liked to eat the labels, so I left a whole lot of boxes of bottles outside thinking the snails will take care of the problem,” he says. “However of course the snails decided, besides giving them food, that the bottles also made a good home and it took me so long to get them all out, I decided to go back to stripping the labels myself.”

Where exactly all the bottles come from is a question Neville says he often gets asked. 

“I tell everyone my wife has a drinking problem,” he jokes. “But really I just get given them. Our niece-in-law, Belinda (Bee) put a call out on Facebook recently for people to donate empty bottles… and she turned up with a truckload.”

Currently the former farmer retiree, in between being an active member with Mangawhai Museum’s Historical Society, Hakaru RSA and two local churches as well as fitting in a bit of fishing, golf and crooning with the Mangawhai Singers, is halfway through another bottle tower, this time made entirely with the clear glass of Corona empties. He is also already thinking of his next project, another glass tower but this time with a twist.

“When I was building the last one I noticed the spiral shape inside and wondered about a double-spiraled tower,” Neville says. “I can’t help it, I just like to make things out of bottles, and that’s what I enjoy playing around with.”

“I just thought it was genius, such a wonderful thing to do. Ever since then I’ve had the desire to build something with bottles.”

It was over 40 years ago that Neville Dowson was first inspired by the use of bottles in buildings – it took another 30 years to turn his first artistic ideas into reality. (PHOTO/Julia Wade)

A kaleidoscope of colour; light creates the inner wonder of the bottle tower. (PHOTO/Julia Wade)