IT started out with 8m-high, six-tonne sculptures but now David McLeod’s pieces fit on a finger.
The Dunedin sculptor-turned-jeweller’s career has covered large commissioned sculptures, small-scale carving, teaching, heading the jewellery department at Otago Polytechnic, gallery owner and jeweller.
For the past 40 or so years McLeod has been a constant presence in Dunedin’s art world, not just in person but publicly in the large sculptures that are dotted around the city from Crown Land Crown and Reflection on the University of Otago campus, to a marble sculpture at the crematorium.
Along with wife Anne Jackman, who over the years has worked in many of the city’s libraries and archives, McLeod also ran art gallery Quadrant in Moray Ple from 2007 to 2022.
Now the pair are settling in to what they hope will be warmer climes near their daughter in Manawatu where they have bought a new home.
"I was born in Dunedin and I’m still cold," Jackman said.
But leaving Dunedin is bittersweet for the couple. Jackman is a fifth generation Dunedinite, while McLeod moved to the city from Alexandra with his family as a child. They raised two children in the city as well as establishing their own careers here.
"Dunedin has been good to us."
McLeod’s journey began studying sculpture at Otago Polytechnic and soon after he began teaching and relieving at the art school. He worked in the sculpture and ceramics departments.
"I always enjoyed teaching. My father was a teacher so I was brought up in that environment although I vowed and declared I wasn’t going to be a teacher."
It enabled him to concentrate on what in those days were mostly large public sculptures not just for Dunedin but, coincidentally given where they are now living, for Palmerston North as well.
One of his largest pieces was installed in its town centre. Untitled, is a two-piece sculpture, one on a wall and the other freestanding on the forecourt telling the story of Whanganui and Rangitikei Rivers.
It proved a huge logistical exercise for McLeod to get 78 blocks of heavy marble that made up the forecourt sculpture and the cast terrazzo in black takaka marble chip from Dunedin to the North Island in the days of regular ferry strikes.
"The whole idea of it was when the Crown took ownership we lost connection with the body so we were both speaking from same page."
When McLeod was asked by the university to clean it up in preparation for a move to a new site, he asked for the words to be made permanent. The university paid for the words to be sandblasted into the sculpture.
"I’ve never met who did it. I have no animosity towards them. In fact I’ve done an exhibition called ‘yours, mine, theirs and ours’ — here is a gift someone has given me. I used it as a starting point."
The sculpture has most recently been moved to a spot in the middle of the Union St bridge, a site McLeod is more than happy with.
"It’s its best site yet. It is lit subtly at night, it changes from summer to winter depending on the light."
Another significant public sculpture he created was for Dunedin’s Crematorium. The Takaka marble column was reflected in its pool. But its design was reworked a couple of times as McLeod did not want it to be just about Christianity. It features a cross on each corner, each face and on top.
"I took a student there once. What he saw was a figure in the middle being comforted on each side, like a big group hug ... nice thing about public sculpture. It’s like sending your kid to school, it becomes a community project, it’s not just yours. It’s the same when someone buys a piece of my jewellery it takes on a whole new meaning."
McLeod’s work began to change in the late 1990s as he moved to smaller scale sculpture and then to jewellery when he moved to Melbourne to where he completed his MFA at Monash University.
He continued to work for the Polytechnic ending up as head of the jewellery department specialising in non-metal materials receiving a 30-year pin when he left in 2000.
"It is ironic as I work more in metal now more than anything else."
That same year he and the late Blair Smith, Hamish Campbell and Ang Jewiss set up Shed Workspace where they could all work on their respective practices.
"We’d all worked from sheds on our properties hence the name."
McLeod only moved out of that studio just before he left town having to sift through more than 20 years of things put aside to deal with later.
After considering and discarding the idea of buying a Wellington gallery that stocked his work, the decision was made for them by a chance chat with Ted Daniels who was rebuilding Bracken Court after a major fire. The plan was to divide the bottom spaces in to a cafe on one side and a gallery on the other.
"He asked if I wanted it, and the rest is history."
Quadrant Gallery, named for its place on Moray Pl and also as it sells art made of stone, glass, ceramics and metal, created an ideal work situation for McLeod who would spend time in Shed in the mornings and then spend the afternoons in the gallery.
"We built up a really good client base."
His jewellery continued to develop to working in metal and some stone such as ponamu, argillite and pearl shell.
"Things I can cut and shape myself. I do some set gemstones as well."
Over the years McLeod has also been involved in various projects including the restoration of the late John Middleditch water sculpture at Dunedin Hospital.
Jackman also spent time in the gallery when not working at various libraries around the city including the university’s public library and Dunedin Public Libraries.
While McLeod was studying in Melbourne, Jackman got a job managing a mental health library for a government department.
"That was my first foray into working for a government department."
But it was when she got back to Dunedin and got a job managing reference services at Hocken Collections she found her home.
She spent 12 years there until she moved on to manage the Presbyterian Research Centre at Knox College. Her job was to merge the library and archives into one entity with a more national focus.
Her next challenge was as regional archivist Dunedin for Archives New Zealand.
The main driver throughout the years has been making whatever service she worked for more accessible to the public. With digitisation that has become even easier with the likes of the National Library of New Zealand’s Papers Past giving access to past issues of New Zealand newspapers, magazines and journals.
When she was working at the Presbyterian centre a Chinese organisation paid for 3000 historic photographs taken by a Presbyterian mission to China to be digitised as its own records had been destroyed and they had no way of knowing what its city looked like before it was built up. The photos were then used on billboards across the Chinese city.
"It’s near and dear to my heart - it’s surprising how well they have lasted."
Dunedin was very lucky to be home to some of New Zealand’s most significant archival and historical collections, she said.
She hoped to do some volunteer work or consultancy once the couple were settled up north.
McLeod is downsizing his studio practice to work from their new home. They had planned to downsize their house in the move but have instead ended up upsizing after purchasing a 1920s bungalow with plaster ceilings and stained glass windows — not the small, energy-efficient home they had envisaged they would buy.
"Our daughter and partner have been inside. It’s going to be a reveal when we put the key in the lock."
He is hoping to continue to do some teaching as well and already has one artist keen for some lessons when she is in the North Island.
"I supply eight galleries around the country but I think I need to dial it back."
Having recently turned 69, McLeod said he had only so many moves in him left so it was a good time to take the step now. He and Jackman were looking forward to spending more time with family and friends and exploring the North Island.
"It feels like a new adventure."
