Neil Miller Sculpture

Hamilton sculpture gets mixed reaction

Garden Place art work praised and damned

Love it, hate it, and Neil Miller's a happy man.

"It" is the as-yet unnamed 12-metre sculpture that grew out of the paved area in Hamilton's Garden Place yesterday.

Miller, the Titirangi-based artist who built the $110,000 work, is rapt that it's already being praised and damned.

Pedestrian Barry McKay's first thought was: "What the hell is this?"

After hearing that it symbolises the Pleiades constellation in the form of a growing vine, with the stars of Matariki forming the fruit, he loved it.

"There used to be an observatory here - Maori would sit on the top of the hill and wait for Matariki to rise," Mr Miller said.

"That would indicate when to plant the kumara [which were] planted in Garden Place - it's very much a motif for this site."

A nearby business owner said it did not matter what it represented because it was "so ugly". "Nearly everybody who's been through has had an opinion and none has been positive - even quiet people are angry."

Rototuna's Christine Parish called it "a horrendous waste of money".

The city council paid $100,000 for the project and WEL Energy Trust contributed $10,000.

Mr Miller took people's love and hate reactions as a positive sign. "You don't want that Mr In-between."

He said people came to respect public artworks over time, but there would always be the "odd idiot" who would try to climb it. "It becomes a conversation when a city develops a set of public artwork. It's my fifth major public sculpture and it's easily the best one."