ArticleGiant's House

Nature is the ultimate Artist that is perfect by definition. Man can but strive for perfection - yet, since time immemorial there have been remarkable individuals trying to emulate Nature... 

Simply put, the Giant’s House has all the makings of a fairy-tale, starting with its very name. Of course, there has never been a Giant there but a little girl thought there was one: “Look, that house is so big. It must belong to a giant!”. The child was wrong but…she was right at the same time: Josie Martin, the owner of the 19th century house, used to be a conventional painter when she found a few pieces of broken china in her garden and used them for her doorstep. The result of that little experiment encouraged Josie so much that she decided to add china to the list of materials she would work with. Gradually it turned into the material, and a transformation of the artist was complete. Soon enough she became a true giant of the art of mosaic. While giants or other mythical creatures, children and transformations are all traditional components of a proper fairy-tale, one might argue that its key ingredient is magic – and ultimately that is exactly what draws people from all over the world to the shrine of mosaic art in Akaroa. It seems that the old house itself, some trees and flowers – not even all of them! – and visitors are the only substances in the garden that are not made of china. Everything else there is a rolling feast of wildest imagination possible where objects of all shapes and colours compete and combine to dazzle, amaze, wow and spellbind every living being that happens to be in the area.