Jacquie and I took a day trip recently with some cool friends. We left Auckland and headed for a vineyard about an hour’s drive north. Two hours if the driver is Jacquie.

Our destination was the Brick Bay Sculpture Trail at the Brick Bay Vineyard. “Art and wine entwined.”

For real. The five of us started on the trail. There was art everywhere. We couldn’t spit without hitting a piece of art. Believe me. We tried. But every time we saw a piece of art, we were compelled to spit on it.

The work we saw ranged from clunky to articulate to provocative to sublime. Exactly like me over the course of three hours at a bar.

I liked the spirit of Aika Root’s heliotropic Discs and Judy Darragh and Rachel Shearer’s eerie sound-installation, Girls in Trees. I also liked Neil Dawson’s Whare (pronounced Fa-ray with a soft r: the Maori word for “house”).

I also took pictures of a couple pieces I liked but, for whatever reason, didn’t get the name of the artist.

Note to my regular readers (or “Dear mom”): Basement Life will be taking the next week off. Not that Basement Life hasn’t taken time off before without notice, but I’m trying to get more “regular.” See you after next Sunday.