AstroDataBlog: New Zealander

Showing posts with label New Zealander. Show all posts

Monday, 21 November 2016

Witi Ihimaera (New Zealand author)

* Witi Ihimaera was the first published Māori novelist. Ihimaera is of Māori descent (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki) and Anglo-Saxon descent through his father. His stories generally portray Māori culture in modern New Zealand. His work often focuses on problems within contemporary Māori society.

In 1995, Ihimaera published Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a semi-autobiographical work about a married father of two daughters coming out. He had come out to himself as gay in 1984 and began the work, but out of sensitivity to his daughters, did not finish or publish it then. Nights In The Gardens Of Spain was filmed in 2010 with changes to the book, making the central character Māori rather than Pākehā (European) to more closely reflect Ihimaera's life. His story The Whale Rider was also made into a film.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler, 7 February 1944, 09:50 (9:50AM) NZST (-12), Gisborne, New Zealand (38s40, 178e01). ASC: 9 Aries. RR: B. SOURCE: Sy Scholfield quotes date and time from "Māori Boy: A Memoir of Childhood" by Witi Ihimaera (Vintage, 2014): "7 February 1944 ... I was born on 7 February ... According to my mother, I was born around 9.50a.m."; and place from news article: "Gisborne was where he was born, at Cook Hospital, in 1944, and where his parents were farmers and shearers" ("Witi Ihimaera's charmed life" by Diana Dekker, 8 June 2013).

Monday, 10 June 2013

Philip Clairmont, 1949–1984 (New Zealand painter)

* Philip Clairmont ― a Bohemian artist with Venus in the first degree of Scorpio ― painted intense images and eventually committed suicide.

Philip Clairmont was born in Nelson in 1949 and attended Nelson College from 1963 to 1966. He studied in Christchurch under Rudolf Gopas, graduating from the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1970. In 1973 he received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council grant, and by 1977 he was painting full time in his new home city of Auckland. Clairmont's work was informed by the works of Vincent van Gogh and Francis Bacon, and was also influenced by his close relationship with fellow artists Tony Fomison and Allen Maddox.

Clairmont's work is usually classed as expressionist or neo-expressionism, using strong colours and distorted forms, often with domestic interiors as subject matter. His early work tends to be focussed and detailed. During his final decade his work has a tendency to be looser and less intense.

Clairmont epitomised the stereotypical bohemian artist lifestyle, feeling that this form of life was necessary for him to regard himself as an authentic artist. Clairmont committed suicide in Auckland in 1984, at the age of 34.

A biography of Clairmont by Martin Edmond, The resurrection of Philip Clairmont (Auckland University Press, 1999), was a finalist in the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Read more from his Wikipedia biography.

HOROSCOPE NOTES

"Clairmont's work is usually classed as expressionist or neo-expressionism, using strong colours and distorted forms." Sounds like arty Venus in the first degree of intense Scorpio in the 12th House of distortion.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Philip Rex Haines, 15 September 1949, 09:00 (9 a.m.) NZT (-12), Nelson, New Zealand (41s17, 173e17). ASC: 20 Scorpio. RR: B (from biography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Martin Edmond, The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont (Auckland University Press, 1999), pp. 103 and 107: "Philip Clairmont was born Philip Rex Haines on 15 September 1949, at Nelson;" "Rex didn't go in with her; a neighbour drove Thelma to Nelson. It was a difficult, eight-hour labour, a forceps birth. At nine a.m. on 15 September, Philip was dragged out into the maelstrom of his parent's [sic] disintegrating marriage."

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Captain Athol Rusden, 1918-2012 (New Zealand writer & adventurer)

* Athol Rusden, the New Zealand seafarer who titled his autobiography "Rascal of the South Pacific," had the mischievous Aries decan of Sagittarius on his Ascendant, ruled by adventurous Jupiter in watery Cancer.

Rusden wrote of his maritime experiences in an autobiography which recounts a colorful life in the South Pacific. Over a period of 50 years he captained some 28 vessels ranging from cruising yachts to luxury motor yachts and larger cargo vessels. He provides valuable insights into the life of numerous South Pacific societies (including the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Toanga Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Galapagos Islands and many small atolls), in the era before mass tourism and modernization. According to an online tribute Rusden died on 19 June 2012 at the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, aged 93.

HOROSCOPE NOTES

Ahoy! Check out Mars in the Pisces decan of Scorpio in the 12th House of seafaring at the apex of a T-square with Uranus and Saturn - providing plenty of impetus to set sail.

NATAL DATA and ASTROLOGY CHART

BIRTH DATA: Athol Richard Rusden, 15 September 1918, 10:00 (10 a.m.) NZT (-11:30), Auckland, New Zealand (36s52, 174e46). ASC: 14 Sagittarius. RR: A/B (from autobiography). SOURCE: Sy Scholfield (c) quotes Athol Rusden & Brian McNiven, Rascal of the South Pacific (Self published: Auckland, 2005), p. 13.

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