Toitoi - Christian Nicolson

Experiments with Toi Tois, A Hundred Trees and being a bit of a Goon. His full name is Christian Brennen Paul Nicolson Charles Douglas Wray Superman Spiderman Steve Austin. That's what he would tell people when they asked. And among a hundred other things he makes art for people to remember.

"I am a creative person and that's it. When I was young my dad always said I had a free spirit and that's the way things are. When I was 18 months old I went missing. We lived down the beach at Milford and Mum couldn't find me anywhere so she was panicking. She had to call the police and they eventually found me down the beach playing in the rock pools after I had scaled an eight-foot high fence.

But anyway, I might try and run for Prime Minister at one point or something like that," he says with a grin and a nod of the head.

Christian Nicolson could be the weirdest and most wonderful character you have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He's like an irreplaceable and priceless find on the rack of a second hand clothing store. Striking, unique, brilliant, a bit strange, and hidden from the eyes of most of the people passing by on the street who don't bother to look.

But those who make the effort; find the prize.

An artist with a love for nature, music, lamb chops, making unforgettable statements to the world, and getting nude. He tells me it's not that easy to find a hundred dead trees. About 120 actually. But to then lug them from the Waikato to Takapuna, paint them all blue, lug them then to Piha Beach, and set them up as an artistic instalment is an ordeal of hard and gruelling work.

Nicolson was commissioned to do an installation at Piha beach by Lopdell House. He sat at the beach and decided he wanted to use the landscape as his canvas and knew that he had to do something big enough to incorporate the surroundings as part of the piece. The beach became a facet of the art. And the dead trees were brought back to life.

"I love the shape of old dead trees and I thought it would be cool if I made a big forest of them on the beach, I decided to paint them blue so it looked like an enchanted and magical forest and was totally out of context with what would normally be seen. I didn't want it to get mistaken for someone who had found some driftwood and put it up in the sand."

He then photographed the landscape and painted it on canvas. His exhibition 100 Trees is the result and was shown from 20th November- 3rd December at Satellite Gallery.

I find him the day after he returns from a trip of discovery and musical advancement (he is also a singer/songwriter). Morocco, London, Germany, France. Switzerland, Holland. And eight hours in San Francisco. He played two live acoustic shows in Europe and bought a drum and two hats in Morocco. He accidentally stands on one of them and half crushes it while he is looking for something in his basement. "Ohhhhh noooooo!" he groans. He looks up at me and asks if I think it will be ok. It's for his girlfriend, and he looks a little worried. I tell him it will be fine. He walks around a bit dazed, and mutters on the odd occasion about honey, moving house, or anything that pops into his mind.

The jetlag didn't get him on his trip, but he has a sniffly nose from surfing in the cold water of San Francisco in only his underpants. "I noticed there was a good surf running and my bottom lip started to quiver and dribble was coming out of the right hand corner of my mouth," he laughs "Some guy was coming out of the surf with his board and I asked him if I could borrow it and he said... 'Ok. Sure.' I just happened to come across the right guy I think. He understood. I didn't have a wetsuit so I had to go out in my undies and it was really cold so everyone else was in wetsuits and booties and hoods. Then there was me paddling out there in a pair of old briefs and I looked like a real dork with my white bum poking out." "I had been wearing them for a couple of days because I was travelling and they were a bit baggy. You know how undies loosen up if you wear them for a few days?

Anyway, every time I caught a wave my undies fell down. And I was trying to surf and also pull my undies up, so that was fun. Anyway, the point to the story was: I went surfing. It was cold. So that's why I have a cold. And I have to sing tonight." Sing with his band Goon that is. They're a great band. He writes songs about love, the beach, dogs, seagulls, vans, aliens etc. He's managed to squeeze in making an album amongst his other endeavours. They've almost finished, but that's a story for another day.

Back to the art. His first installation piece was The Toi Toi experiment which he started back in 1994. Please note the proper spelling of toi toi is toe toe, but to save confusion Nicolson spells it with an 'I'. It has been his odyssey and the work he is best known for. It was his first experiment in the landscape with pieces of art and was concocted when he would drive to work on the motorway in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Looking out into the fields and dreaming up sculptures and interesting pieces of art that he could put amongst it all, he one day decided to do something. "I thought rather than spend six months building things and then find out that if I put them up they're going to be taken down within 24 hours by the authorities I'll choose to use something that's easy and free.

That's why I started to use toe toes because I thought it looked really cool but they were a natural resource that was easy," He began with installations of toe toes around the Auckland Harbour area. They were stuck in the ground and spaced at even distances apart. He had begun, but it didn't have the impact he envisioned. Trial and error over a number of years, and periods of losing interest, using not enough toe toes and growing despondency almost cursed the Toi Toi Experiment.

In 2000 after using 400 toe toes, he thought he'd done it. Properly. But alas...It still wasn't quite right. "But I thought 'shit, I've done my best, I'm going to leave it.'" You can hear in his voice the frustration he experienced at the time. "But then I bumped into someone at a beach and for some reason it came up and she said 'Yeah I remember those. They looked awesome. I used to look forward to seeing them everyday on the way to work on the bus.' And because she said that I thought 'that's cool, people actually notice.'

So then I decided to go back and do it again. And this time it was going to be in the harbour and the only way I knew it would work is if I upscaled and made them giant." So he did. Some time in 2002 in the middle of the night Nicolson installed 54 giant Toi Tois across the Auckland Harbour.

He worked with the tide and in the dark as to surprise the public. Home made with lengths of bamboo and 30 toe toes strapped to each piece he trudged the 54 five-metre long sticks through knee deep mud, gunk, and sand, dragging only about four or five at a time. He worked all night. And in the morning, they were still up. And he knew he'd done it the way it should have been done.

Nicolson decided he wanted to have an exhibition based around the toe toe instalment. He went on to do a whole lot of different ones and photograph them. Karekare, Muriwai, Te Arai, Mangawhai, even one at Milford, which he preceded to set on fire. "Toi tois don't burn anywhere near as well as kerosene. I love kerosene. The locals loved it too. It was much better viewing than Coronation Street I think."

He photographed them all, had his exhibition, made a video to go with it, featured music he had written, and compiled it all in a book. The Toi Toi Experiment. His crazy project, and one that he is immensely proud of, despite the ordeal. "Doing the trees and the toi tois? I hated it. It's not much fun getting up at one in the morning and dragging a whole lot of toi tois out through the mud until 5am. That's painful, it's horrible and you don't know if you are going to get any recognition at all. And the trees.

Trailer load after trailer load, to the Waikato, to my house, to the beach. They were huge exhausting jobs. I'd rather sit down and do a painting. But at the end of it all, it's fantastic. It really is. You can talk about things or you can do them. I decided a long time ago that I actually have to do things, and that's what I do."

On his various journeys to places far and wide he has tried to promote himself and his work. It's been an uphill battle. Trying to get through the bureaucracy of the art scene is like sifting through waist high rubbish. There's a 'process' of getting your work seen. Although plenty of 'No's!' were the answer to his questions,

Nicolson has befriended a gallery owner in San Francisco who wants to help him. Because he looked like one of his best mates when he was young who got shot and killed, he let Nicolson talk to him for a bit longer. Found out he was a kiwi, was a bit more sympathetic, and when he looked at the work he was extremely impressed. "He's told me he would consider having me in his gallery, and it's a big gallery. So that was good.

Some things can happen. Nothing for me happens easy but with the art, things have started to happen. I'm in the Parnell gallery, which is big. It's a good one. In the space of four years I've exhibited a lot of times. I've been firing ahead as quickly as possible and I'm just starting to actually get good at what I'm doing.

My painting seems to be finding its way a bit more, but there's SO much I want to do, and there's SO much I haven't done and I'm just starting to scratch the surface." He strolls everywhere in bare feet. Or jandals. He's been wearing the same particular type of jandal for 16-20 years. He's a jandal man, and unquestionably bound to the beach, summer and nature. His favourite meal is still chops.

Chops, mashed potatoes (fried), and peas. He used to go to his Nana's every Tuesday and she would make that. It was his favourite meal growing up and it still is. He has a little bit of tomato sauce on the chops and the potato, but he quickly admits that he can't cook them like his Nana used to. He's 34, used to work in advertising and is still a part time freelance graphic designer so he can pay his bills. But his dream is to live from his art. "In an ideal word I would be able to do just whatever I want.

At the moment that's not the case but it's possible. I am trying really hard to make it as an artist as I'm trying to make it as a musician and at the same time I'm thinking of making a movie next year. I tend to be a little bit more spread out which is probably not the best way to do things. I sent it off to the New Zealand film commission this year, and they rejected it...So that means I'm going to do it," he says with the determination of the under dog. And another big grin. "I don't want to look back on my life and think 'Gee, I did a whole lot of great ads for mobile phones or chainsaws.' Cos who gives a damn?

It's just an ad. It's nothing that anyone is going to remember and you'll never go down in history for doing brochures and ads for lawnmowers. I'd rather be putting my energies into my own stuff, which is what I think I'm meant to do. I guess we're all meant to do something but it's just what you choose to do." His dad told him he has a free spirit. And that's the way things are.

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