Putting the bright into Brightwater
Dani Hedges enlisted the help of Brightwater School students to liven up the underpass next to their school. Photo: Jo Kent.
The weather may be cold and dreary this winter, but the same can’t be said about the Brightwater underpass which has just been given a vibrant makeover.
Community partnerships coordinator for Tasman District Council, Yulia Panfylova, says that the project was funded through Creative Communities.
“The suggestion to brighten the Brightwater underpass came from one of the residents via Facebook and received a lot of comments and support.
“I recommended Dani Hedges for this job because she has worked with youth on art projects before, working with children on the underpass in Motueka and painting a road mural in Takaka with the school.”
This time, Motueka-based Dani enlisted the help of students from Brightwater School.
“We worked together with shapes and colours, each student from a select group creating their own designs for the underpass. We then merged all the ideas into two funky designs.
“We went with a geometric pattern to keep within time constraints and make the most of the colours we had available.”
She says it’s sad that just a few weeks after the mural was created, someone had chosen to graffiti over the top at one end of the tunnel.
“It’s such a shame as it’s not been up long, but the school has painted over the obscenities which had been written in green paint. It’s pretty disrespectful, so I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
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As a secret gift to the children, Dani decided to paint a kea inside the tunnel in one of her unique designs.
“It wasn’t part of the mural as such, but I wanted to paint something inside as a little gift to the community.”