ARTISTIC EFFORT AT TRENTHAM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 60, 16 August 1940, Page 3

ARTISTIC EFFORT AT TRENTHAM

Unit Names Outside Huts SPIRIT of competition combined with an outlet for artistic talent has produced some remarkable designs outside the huts of units in Trentham Camp. Here, in the small space available at the door to each hut, the wags, wits, and more serious soldiers have laid out the names of the units in all manner of material, from tiny pieces of coal and brick to the tops of bottles and broken crockery, Pride of place for artistic effort goes to a Hawke’s Bay Company. Small circular pieces of cleanly-sawn manuka have been driven into the ground, and the exposed ends painted white. The whole design, spelling the number and name of the company, stands out-con-spicuously above its sandy bed. The platoon of another Hawke’s Bay unit has achieved an effect almost ag, imposing by inserting in a bed of bitue men hundreds of the crown tops frong bottles of soft drinks-the name and number of the platoon and company gleam out from a shiny bed. For the next unit which occupies this hut when the present occupants leave there will be a problem to be solved with the aid of a pick. Some of the designs are amusing. One of the most elaborate is said to illustrate "A bird’s-eye view of a native pig by moonlight." The bird is a pukeko, constructed of tiny pieces of red and blue pottery and glass; the pig consists of fragments of broken beer bottles; the sickle moon has been made of tiny slivers of clear glass. Flanking this scene is a beer barrel made of more fragments of glass, complete with silver bands of paper from cigarette packets and the required number of X’s in clear glass. Nearby is a beer mug, made of the same materials. At the other end is a kiwi, in pieces of broken pottery, pecking at an egg-a pebble wrapped in more silver paper. Most of the designs have been made of tiny bits of shiny coal and broken brick, embedded in smooth sand. One of the units of the 2nd Training Battalion had achieved a shadowed effect by backing the red brick with coal. White-washed pebbles and _ green painted pebbles have been used by other companies and units most effectively. Another design, not yet finished, has been made of small square blocks of wocd left over by the carpenters. Tiny pebbles, each one wrapped in silver cigarette paper, make an arresting place name for a 25th Battalion unit. Another is flanked by tiny pots, each flaunting a sprig of greenery. Unit badges have been created by the use of minute fragments of any materials available — brick, coal, stone, pottery or glass. Hours of labour have evidently gone to the making of these designs, all of which combine interest with information,