Page 96 - NZ Hereford Magazine 2023

Richard and Laura Morrison have started an artist’s residency at The Gullies.

THE GULLIES

A lifetime love of the arts has led Laura Morrison and husband
Richard to set up an artist’s residency on their Rangitikei farm
– a farm where you can see Mt Ruapehu, Kapiti Island and Mt
Taranaki on a good day, and where the picturesque Whanganui
and Rangitikei Rivers are only a short drive away.
Laura grew up on dairy farm near Whakatane, went to St
Peter’s in Cambridge, and then studied art history at Victoria
University in Wellington.
“It does bring me a lot of joy to be engaging with artists and
getting to know them. My soul food is visiting the cities and
the galleries and catching up with them all and sharing ideas.
There is an art to farming. If you want to go back to basics
and that innovative, resourcefulness side, or problem solving,
that’s how an artist’s mind can think too.
“It’s been cool uncovering those nuances, because the artist
and the farmer aren’t dissimilar in the work they create or the
product they produce; the commodity they have is not always
valued as it should be at the artist or the farmer end.”
The couple’s sheep and beef farming business is only three
years old. They took succession from a wider family business
in 2019, and called their farm The Gullies because of the
many deep bush-filled gullies that interspersed their 270
hectares. It came with unneeded shepherds’ quarters so they
transformed it into a B&B, which becomes home to a resident
artist once a year.
After launching the new project in July 2021, the inaugural
resident artist in 2022 was painter Andrew McLeod. The
2023 artist is Caroline McQuarrie, a contemporary artist and
photographer with a passion for the outdoor world and a
particular affinity for the West Coast.
Laura says the residency launched at the right time for
the New Zealand art world, as Covid has meant similar
opportunities are few and far between. The chosen artist
receives a stipend from The Gullies for the two-month
residency, sometimes with assistance from Creative A print of the artwork done by Andrew McLeod while on the
Communities, which contributes towards an artwork, which artist’s residency at The Gullies.

94 HEREFORD MAGAZINE Year 2023