Anyone who looks at a shovel and sees an implement for shifting dirt, or a metal pipe and sees a means of channelling water, doesn’t think like artist Adrian Worsley.

To his eye and in his hands, a shovel can become a motorcycle seat and a pipe – carefully cut and bent – its tyres.

Old fuel cans were used to create this high-flying sculpture.

Exquisitely executed
Despite strong demand, Adrian says running both the workshop and business took him away from what he loves doing best: creating artwork. So he scaled back the business to a one-man operation and now works on commission pieces, and sculptures created largely for his own pleasure and for sale.

His Historic Creations business occupies three sites in Rewi St, Te Aroha. One is a gallery (which is currently closed while Adrian works to re-stock it); the second a storage
area for his raw materials and the third is his workshop.

Walking through the storage area is like entering an enchanting museum of almost everything that generations of Kiwis have cast aside over the years. Each item is sorted into various categories and neatly stored in boxes, or hung above and alongside a neat boardwalk, which winds backwards and forwards through the maize.

There are ring spanners, sockets, deep boxes of washers, bolts and nuts, tilly lambs, chains of all sizes, pots and pans, Singer sewing machine tables and pieces of cast
iron furniture, kitchen scales, old tin bath tubs, saw blades, wooden cartwheels and much, much more.

The artwork is constructed in Adrian’s immaculate workshop where the floor is clean and clear. There’s nothing superfluous lying around – in fact, I think his motto must be “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

Not one to make things easy for himself, Adrian didn’t use motorcycle parts to construct the replicas in his workshop. Instead, among other ingenious adaptations, a shovel became the seat, Vise-Grips the hand controls and hinges part of the petrol tank.

Gothic – one of Te Aroha sculptor Adrian Worsley’s latest artworks.

Horse-bike
A recent commission was to create a sculpture for a couple’s special wedding anniversary. “She loves horses and he loves motorbikes.”

What evolved was a half-horse, half motorbike.

The “horse-bike” was constructed of motorbike parts and the motorbike end from horseshoes and harnesses.

“That was a great piece to work on because they were such neat people. When I do a commission I like to get to know the clients well, so I have an understanding of what they will like.”

Adrian claims he knows nothing about horses, which is why he made a very close study of them for one of his latest pieces “Barrel Brumby”, a life-sized horse whose body is made partly from a wine barrel.

“I took to watching horses in paddocks and followed a few around to observe them move before I started on this one.”

It’s a sculpture full of movement, accentuated by the horse’s outstretched legs and its “wind-blown” reinforcing rod mane and tail. It’s currently for sale at $25,000.

“Barrel Brumby” – This Adrian Worsley sculpture is on display in his Te Aroha gallery.

Elongated dog
Adrian’s also working on a bike rack for Te Aroha’s main street, designed for cyclists enjoying the Hauraki Rail Trail. Of course, because it’s Adrian’s work, it’s clever as well as functional – multi-functional, in fact. In the body of the very elongated male dog is where the bikes can rest and at its head will be a drinking fountain and a tap for filling water bottles.

On the ground by its tail is a metal bowl with a tap to provide water for dogs. It’s all appropriately plumbed, from the waste pipe for water to the drinking fountain – finding out where that goes is bound to entertain youngsters of all ages.

Visit his Facebook page, Adrian Worsley Gallery, for more information.

This elongated dog will serve as an innovative bike stand in Te Aroha’s main street.