Annette's waka: a symbol of unity

Women’s health pioneer and businesswoman Annette Milligan is a legend in Nelson for her numerous award-winning initiatives, including the groundbreaking Independent Nursing Practice (INP). Annette sat down for a chat with Matt Lawrey about her love of glass and her favourite artwork.

Annette Milligan gets almost evangelical when talking about her favourite piece of art. A cast glass sculpture of a waka by Whanganui artist Greg Hall, the artwork isn’t just a thing of beauty, it’s an object that’s full of meaning.

“I love it. I think it’s incredibly elegant, it’s delicate but it’s strong, I think it’s beautifully balanced,” she said.

“The colour reminds me of Bombay Sapphire Gin and I love the sandblasting effect on the bottom and the glossiness on the top. It’s really tactile. I also love it for the intrinsic meaning that waka have, for me, anyway. It’s about a vessel that rides unstable waters, a vessel that can only really be managed if everybody on that vessel is paddling in the same direction.”

For Annette, the waka conjures up a sense of unity.

“I’ve often looked at it in terms of organisations and the importance of bringing people together in organisations; getting everyone on the waka and getting everyone paddling firmly and steadily in the same direction so that we can get to where we want to be.”

Annette says she’s “a bit of a lone eagle” by nature and for her to be part of a collective is something she has to work at, but that she knows from experience that you get “so much more done” if you have a group of people working together on a waka.

There’s a nice story as to how the sculpture came into Annette’s possession. In the mid-1990s Annette won the Nurse Executives of New Zealand’s inaugural Nurse Innovator of the Year Award. It was an accolade that meant a lot to her as it represented recognition from her peers. Determined to buy herself something special with the prize-money that came with the award, she held onto the $500 for “quite a long time” until one day she spotted the waka in an Auckland gallery and thought “that’s it!” The price? $500.

The waka sits in a high-profile spot between the kitchen and the dining room of the sunny Victory home she shares with her partner, Chris Skinner.

“I see it every day, several times a day, and I still find myself touching it and looking into it. It’s always changing depending on the light.”

Annette and Chris’s home is full of art, much of it cast and blown glass. Annette says she has always thought there was a magic in glass and, as a child, used to spend lots of time looking at the patterns in stained glass windows in church.

“When I went to Europe in the late seventies and went to a lot of churches, I was just utterly enthralled with the stained glass.”

Annette’s passion for glass hasn’t just given her a lot of pleasure, it also helped fund her nursing studies. When she came back from Europe, she did a stained-glass making course in Invercargill and, when she moved to Nelson to study, started making stained-glass gifts and selling them at the Saturday Market.

“I made native birds and fruit mobiles and Winnie the Poo things, and other quite small things.”

She also did windows on commission and spent a fair bit of time hanging out at Hoglund Art Glass. In fact, she showed so much interest, the company offered her an apprenticeship.

“I think I was the person who lurked most often while they were blowing glass but, at that stage, I was too far through my nursing course to abandon it.”

Annette, who was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to health in 2019, sold INP and retired from nursing in 2019. Today she’s the Patron of the Nelson Women’s Centre, the Chair of Te Ramaroa and the Chair of MEDSAC (Medical Sexual Assault Clinicians). She’s also throwing herself into photography and putting the finishing touches to an album of shots from a recent trip to Fiordland. She’s also keen to start on a collection of photographs of Nelson at night.

“I like the idea of seeing things that we don’t usually see. When we’re driving around at night, I’m always scouting for locations.”

Annette misses the people, the buzz and connectedness of running INP but doesn’t miss the stress that went with running a business.

“I’m really interested in aging and where we go in our lives and I made a determination a long time ago to enjoy and relish wherever I was in life, so I don’t look back with regret, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. There’s plenty to do. Life is great.”