The elegant fountain in the courtyard at Woollaston Estates was made by Nelson-born sculptor Andrew Drummond. The powerful column with its serried cups – a ceramic high-voltage insulator, imported for the purpose and re-glazed to Andrew’s specification – contrasts with the richly gilded bowl and pedestal. The Cascade plays night and day – generally stopping only when readings or other performances are taking place in the courtyard.
Andrew also designed our elegant ‘dumb-bell’ spittoons which were made in his Christchurch studio. Now based in Christchurch, Andrew Drummond graduated in 1975 with an honours degree in fine art from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He began his career as a performance artist, using his own body as a canvas for experimentation and creative discourse in line with the 1970s Body Art movement in Europe. This focus on the systems and endurance thresholds of the body soon shifted to an exploration of the connection between humans and the land, the management of our environment and the conservation of natural resources. These themes are evident in a number of large sculptures held in private and public collections throughout the country and overseas. He has exhibited widely, received a number of major awards, and has been artist in residence in galleries and universities in New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain.
Overlooking the vineyard in front of Glenn Schaeffer’s strikingly modernist house is Andrew Drummond’s eye-catching sculpture Vertical Form, Counter Rotating. Taking the distinctive shape of a kowhai seed pod as his inspiration, Andrew has produced an elegant, slender shaft of contra-rotating wind-powered vanes in bronzed stainless steel, interrupted with flashes of gold leaf as they turn – lazily in a gentle breeze or frenetically when the powerful south-wester blows. While Glenn’s house and grounds are private property and not accessible to vineyard visitors, there is a great view of the sculpture from the tasting room courtyard.
