Wednesday, July 29, 2020 Since Sept 27, 1879 Retail $2.20 Home delivered from $1.40 THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY Dancers delight P4 Every life is worth living, say Pup Chamberlain and Connie Quigley. PHOTO SUSAN SANDYS 280720-SS-017 Every life matters BY SUSAN SANDYS suicide in Mid Canterbury. Agencies working together and ap- [email protected] Following the signing and morn- plying their collective knowledge and Agencies working together have more ing tea, at the Ashburton Trust Event skills had more impact than agencies impact than agencies working alone, Centre, representatives workshopped working alone. say Lives Worth Living co-ordinators collaborative projects for a Mid Canter- “The establishment of the network Connie Quigley and Pup Chamberlain. bury Suicide Prevention/Postvention and signing of the charter is a great be- Yesterday, representatives from 18 Strategy and Action Plan. The network ginning,” Quigley said. agencies involved with suicide preven- will meet quarterly to review progress. “Every life in Mid Canterbury is a life tion launched the Mid Canterbury Sui- Quigley and Chamberlain said su- worth living,” Chamberlain said. cide Prevention/Postvention Network. icide could be a difficult issue to ad- They signed a charter, committing dress, especially in rural communities Oh so close themselves to working together to fo- which did not enjoy ready access to cus on promoting wellbeing and re- specialist services and educational op- CONTINUED P3 P9 siliency and reducing the incidence of portunities available in larger centres. Local news for local people Mid Canterbury’s only locally-owned daily newspaper Ph 03 307 7900 to subscribe! LOCALS SUPPORTING LOCAL. Choose the team who will stand by your side. Talk to us 03 308 0027 www.mcleodre.co.nz News 2 Ashburton Guardian Wednesday, July 29, 2020 www.guardianonline.co.nz ■ ASHBURTON ART GALLERY Diving deep into inspirational process BY SUSAN SANDYS [email protected] A funny anecdote kicked off an afternoon of artists talking at the Ashburton Art Gallery on Sunday afternoon. The exhibition opening and artists’ talk was the first major public event at the gal- lery since before lockdown, and more than 90 people attended. Michael Holland was opening his exhibi- tion Echo of Memories, while exhibitions by the other artists who joined him, Ben Lysaght and Anthony Davies, are nearing to a close. Curator Shirin Khosraviani was the mas- ter of ceremonies for the event, which be- gan with Holland’s talk in his exhibition space. She began by asking him how he, as a self-taught artist, began his artistic career. “It was quite by accident really,” he said. Holland said he had always been inspired by Vincent Van Gogh, and after seeing the post-impressionist’s self-portrait wherever he went, he felt as though the Dutch paint- er was talking to him. Never really knowing what he wanted to do in life, the spark came when he had to give a gift to a friend for his wedding, so he did a painting. However, his partner told him the painting was too good to give away, so they kept it and bought the Artists (from left) Anthony Davies, Ben Lysaght and Michael Holland entertained more than 90 visitors with tales of their friend, who was at the artist’s talk, some- works at the Ashburton Art Gallery on Sunday afternoon. PHOTO HEATHER MACKENZIE 260720-HM-0016 thing else. “I still have the painting,” he said. Jub Club. Khosraviani said she gave a big It was then into Disrupted Space, where ist where everything told a tale, he did not The afternoon became one where the art- “whoop whoop” when she heard later that Davies, visiting Ashburton for the first time, want his works to be a mystery. ists dived deep into the inspirational pro- he had decided to study fine arts, and last talked about his work. Art historian Warren Feeney was among cess behind their works. year he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Davies is a master printmaker, who the audience and asked Davies about Plight “You can sit there forever thinking what Arts with Honours. This was his first solo sourced his images for the exhibition from of the Innocent. The innocent depicted to paint, and nothing really happens until exhibition. surveillance cameras and international were children, animals and the elderly, and you start, the thing is to start, just start,” Answering questions from Khosraviani, agencies such as Reuters News. Feeney said the series highlighted some- Holland said. Lysaght delved into his inspiration for the “I have always worked in series be- thing very true and very real, and it was His bright and colourful oil-on-canvas exhibition, which culminated from a sense cause it’s the idea of having a theme and impossible to walk away not feeling con- works in Echo of Memories feature people of the weird and bizarre while visiting the absolutely exhausting it,” he said. cerned. and landscapes with elements of symbol- Christchurch botanical gardens. Disrupted Space brings together three “Where else are you going to see these ism and surrealism. He said he could spend There was little green in the pictures, re- series of works – Surveillance, 2014, which messages apart from in a gallery?” Feeney years on paintings, and sometimes felt they flecting the artificial aspect of the plants in consists of 27 lino-block prints, and two asked. were never finished. non-natural spaces. Some of the paintings lithographic print series of Plight of the In- Davies talked more about related work Next it was into the gallery displaying had fought him as he spent much time on nocent. such as a series on cruelty to animals and Once a Wilderness by Ben Lysaght. Today, them, and he would work on at least five or “I think it’s quite hard to be an artist if you one on the sad plight of the Kaimanawa the Ashburton College alumni lives in Wel- six at a time. don’t have a clear identity, I think you are horses. lington, but spent his early artistic days in “I never so much consider them finished, searching for that your whole life.” “This (printmaking) is the perfect medi- the gallery’s walls as a student at the Jub as resolved,” he said. He considered himself a narrative art- um to be doing that sort of work in,” he said. YOUR APPLIANCE PROMPT WAS $1149 WAS $1219 WAS $1099 WAS $2999 HEATING NOW ONLY NOW ONLY NOW ONLY NOW ONLY FOR WINTER DRYER WASHING PANASONIC SAMSUNG 55” 4K COOLING FOR SUMMER $697 $798 MACHINE $825 40” TV $1798 $4.87 weekly $5.53 weekly $5.70 weekly $12.06 weekly SMART TV Phone 308 9019 Prompt Installation. *T&C’S APPLY. 12 MONTHS INTEREST FREE AVAILABLE. • 5.5 KG - Mid sized • 6KG good mid sized capacity • Soak option - helps * • Sensor drying - saves clean stains money • 11 wash programs • Front or rear venting - washa variety of *Unit only option - position in clothes • Smart TV = Enjoy Net ix and YouTube from the touch of • Smart TV = Enjoy Net ix, Disney Plus, Apple TV and much best place for you • 975mm h, 575mm w, a button more from the touch of a button • 795mm h, 600mm w, 642mm d IMMEDIATE IMMEDIATE • Full HD for great quality viewing IMMEDIATE • 4K for great quality viewing IMMEDIATE 560mm d DELIVERY DELIVERY • Satellite and UHF Freeview tuner DELIVERY • Satellite and UHF Freeview tuner DELIVERY [email protected] • 520mm h, 900mm w • 725mm h, 1250mm w [email protected] News www.guardianonline.co.nz Wednesday, July 29, 2020 Ashburton Guardian 3 ■ ASHBURTON DISTRICT COURT ■ SUICIDE Every life Electronic monitoring does bail bid denied matter From P1 Raymond Hemi, 27, remains in About 50 people from a wide custody following being denied range of organisations attended electronically monitored bail at the event, and those involved in the Ashburton District Court on signing the charter include rep- Monday. resentatives from Ashburton and The application by lawyer Rural Health Services, Ashburton Marilyn Gilchrist was opposed District Council, ACADS, Ash- by police. burton Senior Citizens, Comcare Judge Alistair Garland said an Trust, Fire and Emergency New active charge for indecent as- Zealand, Hakatere Marae, He sault related to an alleged inci- Waka Tapu, Hype Youth Health dent on December 25 last year. Centre, Mid Canterbury Prin- Hemi is alleged to have ac- cipals Association, Rural Sup- costed a woman after walking port Trust, New Zealand Police, up to her as she walked her Pegasus Health, Presbyterian dogs along the street, involving Support, Safer Mid Canterbury, behaviour such as holding her Mount Hutt College, St John and hand, and putting his hands on Waitaha Primary Health. her shoulders and kissing her on The event followed the publica- the lips and neck. tion of a new Lives Worth Living Hemi had been deemed un- resource called Suicide Preven- fit to stand trial and the matter tion, Simple Skills for Workplaces was adjourned for a Section 23 and Communities. report. Suicide is a significant public On June 10 Hemi was grant- health issue and one of the lead- ed bail and was living with his ing 10 causes of death across all mother and had an overnight ages. However, it is the most pre- curfew. ventable of all the major causes of However, on June 18 he is al- death, the resource says. leged to have offended again There is good evidence that “remarkably in a similar way to programmes consisting of mul- the previous incident”, Judge tiple interventions can reduce Garland said. suicide rates, it continues. These Two new charges relate to the include restricting access to lethal offending, one of unlawfully means; adoption of media report- getting into a vehicle and anoth- ing guidelines; restrictions on ac- er indecent assault charge.