Ralph Hotere was an artist of international repute with a career spanning more than five decades. But he was also a resident of a particular location, Port Chalmers. This week Bruce Munro talked to some of those who knew him as ''just Ralph''.
Home could have been anywhere. Born in 1931 in a raupo whare in an isolated Northland settlement perched between forest and sea, Hone Papita Raukura ''Ralph'' Hotere became an artist of rare versatility, power and range, taking on the mantle borne by Frances Hodgkins and Colin McCahon before him, and earning a distinguished international reputation that would have seen him welcomed in many countries.
But he chose here - Port Chalmers, Koputai, the sacred place of the very high tide.
And conversations had in and around ''Port'' this week reveal the extent to which this hill and harbour-hemmed hamlet became his turangawaewae, his standing place; and the extent to which the people of this area received him as their own.
''He was fairly quiet, but you could have a nice time with him,'' Bev Forgie (70), of Sawyers Bay, says.
''And when you had a laugh with him it was a really good laugh.''
Mrs Forgie is sitting at a small round table in the clubrooms of the Port Chalmers Golf Club, a good kilometre up Reservoir Rd, in rural Sawyers Bay.
The room is full of mushroom-coloured tables and matching metal-framed chairs spread across the 1970s living room-style red and orange patterned carpet and spilling on to the small varnished wooden dance floor. The wood laminate back wall bears decades of honours boards and competition shields, while a long shelf above the bar is heavy with cups and trophies. The view through the large front and end wall windows is of the 18th hole, blue gums and pine trees.
It is here, on the undulating golf course and in the clubrooms, that Hotere spent many Saturday afternoons after joining the club in March of 1979.
He almost always wore his trademark black cap adorned with a Cuban badge, often complemented by a well-worn jersey, Mrs Forgie says.
He enjoyed golf, and liked to win, but was always the gentleman, she says.
Once, when they were part of a mixed foursome competing on their home course, Hotere offered to attach Mrs Forgie's trolley to his battery-powered one to make it easier for her to manage the long march from the eighth hole to the start of the ninth.
''He linked them together but somehow let go, and the two trolleys headed off up the path on their own,'' she recalls.
''They ended up in the shrubs ... he thought it was very funny.
''When he laughed he had a lovely smile.''
Back in the clubrooms, Mr Hotere would often sit quietly in among the chatter, enjoying a whisky or a beer, occasionally offering a comment or responding to a question.
''In the early days we didn't know much about him as an artist, just as a person,'' Mrs Forgie says.
''It was later that we realised how well known he was ... But to us here he was always just Ralph.''
Yes, a real nice guy, adds Ray Harwood (81), who is seated next to Mrs Forgie and her husband Laurie (72) for these midday reminiscences.
Mr Harwood first met Hotere when the artist was playing for Otago Golf Club, before he joined Port Chalmers.
''He was very reserved, but he didn't suffer fools,'' Mr Harwood says.
Not that he would say anything, ''you could just tell'', Mrs Forgie says.
When Hotere did join the Port Chalmers club he brought with him two young men, Ben and Simon Gallie. These days Ben is the golf professional at Millbrook.
''He mentored them in golf, but in more than that too,'' Mr Harwood says.
Mrs Forgie mentions a man she and her husband met recently who said he played softball with Hotere in Dunedin in the early 1950s.
If that is correct it would likely have been during his first stint in the South.
As a boy Hotere, one of 15 siblings, took instinctively to drawing and sketching. He attended St Peter's Maori College (Hato Petera College) and Auckland Teachers' College before moving to Dunedin in 1952 to study art at the former King Edward Technical College.
During that time he also did compulsory military training as a Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot at Taieri Aerodrome.
It is at this point in the conversation that Mr Harwood drops a bombshell.
''I'll tell you something a lot of people don't know. I bloody near shot him down in an airplane,'' he says.
''We were in the army, the CMT [Compulsory Military Training], and Ralph was a pilot out at Taieri. And we had a live shoot, out at Shag Point.
''He was flying a Harvard from Taieri. And they used to have a drogue, like a big sock, behind it that we used to fire the anti-aircraft guns at.''
On this particular day the wind changed direction, pushing the target towards the plane.
''We were still firing at it, and then we got a radio message from the pilot to bugger off.''
It was not until years later, when playing golf together, that the two men worked out they were both involved in the near-miss that could have ended Hotere's career almost before it began.
''He said 'You buggers nearly shot me down','' Mr Harwood says with a laugh.
As it was, Hotere went back to Northland to work as an art adviser with the Ministry of Education. Then, with his talent gaining recognition, he received scholarships which allowed him to study and paint in England and France. He returned to New Zealand in 1965 and, having been awarded a Frances Hodgkins Fellowship at the University of Otago, shifted south permanently in 1969.
With a house in Careys Bay and a studio in Aurora Tce, Port Chalmers, this area was to be his chosen home until his death on Sunday, aged 81.
It was a home to which he gave generously, Lana Oranje (63) says.
Standing in front of Chalmers Pl, an attractively landscaped and terraced open space midway along Port Chalmers' main street, Mrs Oranje recalls she and her late husband Cor first met Hotere at the Carey's Bay Hotel about 40 years ago.
When Hotere said he was a painter, Mr Oranje, who was in the painting and decorating trade, said ''Oh, I could put some work your way.''
''I'm not a house painter,'' Hotere replied.
The friendship grew from there.
In 1993, Mrs Oranje, as chairwoman of Vision Port Chalmers, was trying to raise $14,000 to buy the run-down Chalmers family-owned George St property which she hoped to transform into Chalmers Pl.
Hotere's studio was due to be demolished as part of Port Otago's expansion, so Mrs Oranje asked him whether a final viewing of the studio could be held to raise funds for the beautification project.
''I asked Ralph, thinking he would say no because he was private. But he said yes,'' Mrs Oranje says.
He also designed the invitations. The two-day viewing raised $3000 - seed funding which enabled the committee to then approach local organisations for the rest of the money.
''We wouldn't have got that seeding money without his help,'' Mrs Oranje says.
''He never asked for any accolade.
''He loved Port Chalmers.''
Five years later, when Mrs Oranje was involved in fundraising for the $145,000 Mussel Bay Recreation Reserve children's playground adjoining Port Chalmers School, Hotere once again gave his support.
Before they could attract major funding, the project group had to show they were trying to raise the necessary money.
The idea was to get artists to paint, decorate or transform old wooden school chairs and then donate them for a fund-raising auction.
Hotere was ''the first person asked ... and once he said yes all the others were happy to exhibit'', she says.
Hotere's chair, painted black with nails jutting upwards through the seat, received the highest bid on the night.
''By this time Ralph was an international artist of great repute. He didn't have to do that for a community, but he was happy to do it for the community.
''He was generous, kind, gentlemanly.
''His generosity, his gift of artworks to people, was phenomenal.''
Back at the golf club Laurie Forgie also recalls the high standing in which Hotere was held in these harbourside suburbs.
''People had a hell of a lot of respect for him,'' Mr Forgie says.
''He did a lot for the community.''
But it is as a friend that Mr Forgie most warmly remembers him.
Even after Hotere's debilitating stroke in 2001 he continued to visit the golf club when special competitions took place, riding the course in an electric golf cart to watch games in progress.
The last time Mr Forgie saw Hotere was about October last year. The artist, wearing the Order of New Zealand medal - this country's highest honour, which was bestowed on him in March last year - attended a function at the golf club marking Mr Harwood's retirement as course convener.
''That day he came down ... I took him out of the taxi in the wheelchair and brought him in, and then [afterwards] I took him back out,'' Mr Forgie said.
''And when I took him out he said 'Thank you very much'. I near cried. I didn't believe he could talk ... as well as that,'' he recalls, tears once again welling in his eyes.
''If you made friends with him you had a genuine friend.''
