BARRY BRICKELL READER: SELECTED ‘WRERTINGS’, MEDITATIONS, OUTBURSTS, DECREES AND DIVERSIONS
Edited by Gregory O’Brien
Photographs by Haruhiko Sameshima
Afterword by David Craig
Published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa in association with Rim Books.
Rim Books is absolutely ecstatic to be associated with publishing this book of ‘wrertings’ by the maverick New Zealand artist Barry Brickell.
Known for his decades of pottery making and mountain railway in Coromandel, he has dedicated his life to ceaseless art-making of all kinds. Less known but perhaps more revealing of his inner workings, are his passions for writing and reading, and his life long association with ideas.
This book chronicles Barry’s ‘wrertings’, edited and introduced by another New Zealand cultural/poetic icon, Greg O’Brien, to whom Barry entrusted his manuscripts before he died in January 2016.
Moyra Elliott, commentater on all things pottery in New Zealand in her blog ‘Cone Ten and Decending’ reviews this book:
“This is an anthology of Barry’s writing. Much of it might well be labelled ‘poetry’, or possibly doggerel, even prose – of a sort, but he’d prefer ‘wrertings’, one of many words coined by that fertile brain to express his disdain, among other things, of art-speak, corporates and institutions, politicians, bankers and celebrities, bureaucracy, certain individuals, health supplements, ‘Zuit’, advertising, speculation, ‘consumeritis’, fashion, religion and Roads of National Importance. This collection also records his veneration for engineering, the uses his hands might be put to, Colin McCahon, clay, anxiety-free old age, his Dad, classical music, virgin native forest, steaming clinker, useful pots, roast spuds with lashings of gravy, Maoridom, trains and railways and coal- fired kilns, National Radio, Helen Mason and good wine.”
A must-read if you are interested in New Zealand art, pottery or railways, and if you ever wondered where the Nationalist discourse that fermented through Colin and Co has gone in the arts, you will find them in Barry’s wrertings.
STEELE ROBERTS AOTEAROA in association with RIM BOOKS.
ISBN 978-0-947493-34-9
March 2017
168pp, soft-cover with flaps, perfect bound, uncoated paper, 205x165mm.
RRP NZ$30 inc. GST
For all orders and requests info@rimbooks.com