There are many signs along the way promising Crafts, Galleries and other ephemera. Most are complete rubbish, such as Happy Hens in Otago, which is a shop full of pottery hens. But the Lost Gypsy Gallery of The Catlins is an exception. Recommended to us by a couple of cyclists we met on the West Coast, it was described as: I can't describe it, just go in. A description that was pretty much spot on, but for the sake of the blog, I'll carry on.
The sign outside the gallery (pictured) will earn you a decent squirt of water in the left ear. I didn't work this out first time as it was tipping down with rain and a mere earful made no difference. The gallery itself is squeezed into an old bus. Everywhere you look, is another thing to press, squeeze, wind up, or let go of. All with the same vein of humour. From the Flying Walnut: a nut with a propeller, regulated by an old scalextric controller, which you can fly up a foot or so and will return to its bouncy landing pad. The 'Tribute to the Uncoordinated', a couple of mechanical hands that will inevitably fail to grab the ball between them, no matter how hard you try.
Out the back of the bus are the larger works. Under 13's are banned from these more delicate pieces, but I abandoned the family for a quick look. They included a huge organ, complete with foot pedals, with each key letting off a different sound. Doorbells, telephones, old cassette players, or more physical noises like arms that hit cymbals, or spinning shells with water gurgling in them.
Despite the low tech resources, and the emphasis on the arbitrary and the absurd, Jay refers to the place as the Science Bus. The accompanying video doesn't start to show the depth of the place, but may give you a feel of the kind of claustrophobic quirkiness of the Bus.
No comments:
Post a Comment