Andy’s Art Legacy

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Walking through Andy Armstrong’s backyard is like exposing an artist’s mind.

Driftwood twists and curves into wooden figurines and stacked stones spark the imagination.

Everywhere you look, abstract sculptures are sprawled across the grass in a perfect cacophony of natural forms.

To the left, recycled metal, tired timber, and discarded sliding doors form a make-shift art studio overflowing with bits and bobs.

To the outsider, it may look like chaos, but to Andy, every curve, angle and shape is a verse in the poem of life.

A self-confessed “hoarder”, the 72-year-old father-of-three has been collecting “trash” for as long as he can remember and turning it into treasure.

You enter his backyard at your own risk.

“You need to breathe a little and keep calm,” he says with a chuckle.

Born in 1953, Andy grew up in Whangārei before moving to Auckland at six years old.

There, he worked as a builder’s labourer and a postman, before discovering his artistic side.

Having never done art before, Andy put together a portfolio of his paintings and enrolled at Auckland University of Technology.

After university, Andy worked at the NZ Herald in the art department and later as a studio manager at an advertising agency, before deciding to change tack and study teaching.

Graduating from Teacher’s College, Andy was offered a job at Tauranga Boys’ College as an art teacher where he stayed for four years before moving to Mount Maunganui College.

In his 40s, Andy extended his qualifications at the Waiariki Institute of Technology – now named Toi Ohomai – before landing a job at after school programme provider YMCA.

Five years later, Mount Maunganui College offered Andy a job working as a mentor for students facing expulsion.

There, he wrote his own “units” and on Fridays they would go kayaking, beach walking or boxing with extra padded gloves and no head shots.

“The success rate was just that they would turn up really and that we could talk through things.”

After seven years, Andy became a relief teacher at the college for a further six years before retiring at age 70.

“That was when I started trying to use some of my junk I had collected over the years to make artwork, to justify it,” he says with a laugh.

“They say hoarding is a disease…so it’s not my fault.”

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“Picasso could paint and draw like a master at the age of 16, but he spent the rest of his life trying to paint and draw like a child.”

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Andy finds inspiration from scrap metal and stones.

“The stuff that goes out to the dump is unbelievable,” he says with a glint in his eye.

“Lately, I’ve become fascinated with shells. I found a scallop shell once that had three perfectly formed red triangles on it. Ever since then, every single shell I pick up has a little message on it. It really got me thinking.”

He’s started adding shells to the dozens of his own paintings hanging on almost every wall in his home.

Admiring a three-dimensional painting he has been adding to the last few days, Andy recites a quote from the famous Spanish sculptor and painter Pablo Picasso.

“Picasso could paint and draw like a master at the age of 16, but he spent the rest of his life trying to paint and draw like a child.”

Andy says a child’s drawing almost always has perfect composition. “A child always gets it right.”

He believes there is an artist inside everybody.

“Just do it and stop worrying about what it looks like. Just get the paint out, smear it on your hands, have a bit of fun.”

Andy’s artwork comes together in the same way his poems come together – another pathway to his creative mind.

Andy didn’t put pen to paper until he started writing poems for life’s milestones, including a tribute to his late father and brother.

“It is very therapeutic,” he says.

“You can have two lines that are totally unconnected when they are read alone, but when they are read together, they can build something great.”

It also relates to how the very first artwork came about, he explains.

Cavemen, he says, would see a stone that looks like something shaped like an animal, for example, and that would have been the first work of art.

“There is certainly quite a bit of that in what I do. If I am putting together two or three bits of driftwood or material, I will start to see a face or a figure.

“I’ve realised I need another 10 lifetimes to do what I want to do, seriously.”

Andy has never sold his artwork for big money. Although, he did sell three sculptures to the Katikati Bird Gardens about 25 years ago for a small amount.

“I don’t know if they’re still there or not,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.

He hopes to display some of his works during the Tauranga Garden and Art trail in 2025.

Andy doesn’t do it for the money, he does it for the enjoyment. He hopes his legacy will be that his sculptures will one day be dismantled and recycled.

“Otherwise, I’ve just left a hell of a big mess,” he says jokingly.

“I would be so happy if my artwork were one day sold for charity.”

For now, Andy will continue finding joy in creating.

“I like being creative. I just can’t help building stuff. I think some of it is meditative,” he says.

“The human mind is developed to be creative and that creativity has also manifested as wonderful medical drugs, philosophy, psychology, space travel… the list goes on.

“The breakthrough will be if l don’t ‘meet myself coming back’, as my dear Irish Mum used to say all those years ago. Creativity might help with that.”

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GIFT FROM GOD

A poem by Andy Armstrong

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As he enters the studio

He checks himself in the mirror.

A hint of stubble comfortably

Affirms his gender

He wears his clothes well

Swears he’s not hard sell

Fiftyish, fit, healthy

Opinionated...wealthy.

He refers to himself as

Nothing in particular, but,

Knows he is an expert

On everything.

His finger on the pulse

Of ultimate truth.

Except it’s not.

He begins by undermining

Anyone with an intellect.

Every statement delivered

With a knowing look, spin

Manipulated with precision.

But the pattern smirk cannot hide

The hurt he feels inside when

He compares intellect....

This woman makes him seem…so small.

Worse, she has heart.

She cares about all those non entities

Who just need to find some purpose

Get a life.

Maybe, just maybe,

They could become as successful

As he is, then, they could have a say.

If he can do it, anyone can.

A year’s rent would

Buy the chequered bigotry

He wears with designer jeans

Boots made for trampling

Inferior beings into feeling shame

Except they’re not and they don’t.

When you are this influential,

You can say pretty much

Whatever you feel like and

Always be right.

Except that 87 per cent of the time you’re not.

Nearly time to head for his car.

Anybody could own a car like his,

If only they worked as hard as he does.

Except they can’t and they do.

Leaving the studio he checks

His appearance in the mirror

All he can see is smoke.

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Words by Zoe Hunter
Photography by Jane Keam

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