ahh, museums...

Today we went to the Tawhiti museum...quite interesting! Here's some info that I found about it.... The Tawhiti Museum is a truly unique enterprise. The creation of artist Nigel Ogle, its attention to detail is simply stunning. Widely acclaimed as the best private museum in the country, the museum uses life size exhibits and scale models to present our heritage in a series of super realistic and engaging displays. All these displays are designed and built on the premises in the 'Body Shop' and accompanying studios, which can be viewed as part of a museum visit.

In 1975 Nigel and Teresa Ogle bought the 70 year old Tawhiti Cheese factory. As a child, Nigel had delivered milk to the factory with his father in their farm truck, but he could never have imagined that he would one day convert that same building into a museum. What started out as a hobby and a small private collection, grew rapidly with public demand to become the focus of an impressive visual history of South Taranaki. The museum uses life size exhibits and scale models to capture the past in a series of super-realistic displays. All the displays - including the life size figures created from moulds cast from real people - are designed and built on the premises. In fact the 'body shop' - a series of three studios viewed as part of the museum visit - is Nigel's workshop where both scale model 'dioramas' and all the life size figures are built. Friends, relatives and local people have been coerced into allowing a casting to be made from their features - creating the very real images that have become a trademark of the Tawhiti Museum. Now with seven separate tourism awards to it's credit, the museum has become an important visitor attraction for South Taranaki as well as a valued educational facility.

Here are some of the pictures of my favorite people in the museum... (non flash, so sorry about some blurriness!)

This screaming young child is tugging at her mum, who is at the stove, holding a crying infant, and has curlers in her hair!


Caught with his pants down!

Josh checking to see if this little ole lady needed help.

More screaming children...seems to be a theme....

A rockin' old Harley!

The general store...

The gun fixer-er-up-er.


So all of these were life sized figures, and there are tons of smaller exhibits in the museum as well. It's hard to believe that this is the work of one single man! My favorite part was all the random little scenes that he incorporates...like the crying kids, or the man in the outhouse, or a scene in a kitchen where a girl has spilled a jar...but the scene is mid spill, so it's just leaving her hands! It's just like little tweaks of fun he put in amid the more usual museum fare. Good times.