Kathy Shaw Urlich 1954 – 2016

Northland’s renowned Māori stained glass artist Kathy Shaw-Urlich has died peacefully after a long battle with cancer. 

Kathy preparing panels for the wharekai at Whakapara marae in March 2013

Kathy was born in England, but as the daughter of Ron Shaw an English aircraft engineer and Desiree Joan Browne, a former Miss Northland, she affiliated to Ngāti Hau and Te Uri o Te Aho o Ngāpuhi. She made her first visit to New Zealand at the age of 26 to visit her Māori grandmother, and as a proud descendant of Patuone she eagerly explored her Māori heritage and especially her connection to her grandmother’s whānau of Ngāti Hau and Whakapara marae.

Although never one to promote herself, Kathy in fact achieved considerable success. She topped her class and won a national competition as well as a scholarship while studying at the Swansea Institute, in Wales, before completing a Masters in Fine Art at Central St Martins in London.  In 1990 she exhibited glass panels at New Zealand House for the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi and held another solo exhibition, Te Po me Te Ao (The Dark and the Light) at the Commonwealth Institute in London.

She was commissioned to design the inaugural window for the prestigious Human Genome Project campus near Cambridge. Her tribute panel to Rahera Heta Windsor, kuia of Ngāti Ranana in London, was one of 100 pieces selected by the Corning Glass Museum in New York, from 2,500 international entries, to feature in New Glass Review, the world’s leading journal of innovation in glass art. 

Wharenui window, Whakapara marae, March 2013

In 2007 Kathy married Rev. Rapata Urlich and moved to New Zealand, where she and Robert established a home and a studio for making stained glass artwork at Whatuwhiwhi. Kathy connected with the glass community in New Zealand, and made many friends, personal and professional, both locally in Northland and nationwide. 

She exhibited her work in solo exhibitions and in group shows.  Most of her public commissions are in England, but she made a wonderful suite of work for St Isaac’s church, the wharenui and the wharekai at Whakapara, the latter made with the support of a Creative NZ Te Waka Toi grant. She designed a wonderful Passchendaele memorial window for All Saints Church in Kaeo, though sadly she did not live long enough to complete the commission.  

Altar window, St Isaac's church, Whakapara, 1999

Her works are held in many private collections in New Zealand, as well as England, Wales, France and Iceland. News of her death has been greeted with a great sense of loss by those who are proud to own her work and by all those who loved and admired a warm and wonderful woman who bore her increasing illness with strength, faith and courage. 

Moe mai rā, e hine, te tohunga karaehe.

Pouakai Pareora, 2016

Spring is Sprung

The supermarket this morning was full of daffodils.  I began a ritual in 1980, which I think I have repeated each year since.  I had just bought a vase made by Mel Simpson, and it is perfect for tall stemmed flowers like daffodils.  Most of the year it sits with other pieces in my collection, but come spring it is given pride of place with a bunch (or several) of daffodils, jonquils or erlicheers.  It's a fairly simple cylindrical piece, distinguished by an applied band that spirals up to its rim (or down from the rim, I suppose).  It has a lustre, something that Mel used a lot over the years, but it appeals to me because of its simplicity - it doesn't compete with the flowers.

This was one of the first pieces of glass I bought after moving to Auckland in 1979 and 'discovering' that New Zealanders made studio glass.  I didn't record where I bought it - from memory it might have been the Whitecliffe gallery that used to be at the top of the Parnell shops for a while. Mel was unusual at that time in that he usually signed his pieces - this is signed Mel Simpson 8/80. It's 19cm high, and I paid $39 for it.

Kathy Shaw-Urlich Stained Glass

While I'm on the subject of architectural glass (a relatively new area of interest for me, though I've loved mediaeval church windows since first seeing Sainte Chapelle in Paris), I should mention a recent acquisition, a small panel by Kiwi/British artist Kathy Shaw-Urlich, who now resides in the small rural Far North settlement of Whatuwhiwhi.  Kathy exhibited this at a small gallery in Awanui in April 2011, and I was delighted to acquire it.

The work is titled Maunga Tapu, or holy mountain. Although she was born and brought up in the UK, Kathy's Maori heritage has always been important  to her. She has whanau links to Whakapara, north of Whangarei, where another of her windows may be seen.  In 1998 her whanau asked her to make a window for behind the altar at St Isaac's Anglican church.

I am delighted that there is a connection between these two windows, since Kathy has told me that the glass she used for the maunga in Maunga Tapu was a piece left over from the maunga that appears under the bird's wing at Whakapara.

New Michel Androu Window for Northland

Auckland glass artist Michel Androu has made a window for the new Mangamuka Clinic of Hokianga Health which opened in April 2011.  The window depicts the mountain Maungataniwha and the Hokainga Harbour.  It bears the inscription 'He ika koriparipa me he tangata toitu', which has the sense of 'a healthy fish can swim against the tide, and a healthy person can overcome anything'.

 

The window is placed to be seen from within the entrance foyer.  The clinic is currently open only on Wednesdays from 9.30 to 2.30, but staff are very welcoming if you want to view  the window during those hours.