Help Grace, Mastertons town Angel of love, creating a special place of love,safety and peice for the people of masterton.

THE CREATION OF GRACE

This town needs a whole lot of loving and I want to start by creating an Angel of

Love for the whole community. The purpose of this life-sized angel is to provide a

place for anyone to gather at any time and for any reason. It may be a time of

sorrow or a time of celebration.

The angel will have a waterfall trickling at her feet and will be surrounded by

concrete kowhai's with crevices in the rock work where you can place tea-light

candles. You will be able to light a candle for any reason; the loss of a loved one,

your birthday and you have no one to celebrate it with,the birthday child who now

lives overseas and you cant be with them or a funeral overseas that you cant

attend. You can send a photo of your candle and the angel telling them your

thoughts are with them.

My promise is to create an angel that will radiate the love this town so desperately

needs. We are going to turn this town in to one of hope, self belief and inspiration.

Heart and soul comes from within all of us, we just have to dig it out. We are a

community that needs to show love to each other and open our arms to receive it.

We all have our guard up. Life, or our response to life has created this, but that

shouldn't change the way we can be kind to each other. The response could be

amazing. I believe many friendships will be created at the base of this monument.

It is a place to let your guard down and be yourself. We are all walking our own

road and crikey it can be bumpy sometimes. This is a place to talk to the person

next to you and find strength and support from others. It is one sculpture children

are encouraged to play on and is one hundred percent child friendly. I want

children to enjoy the angel and feel included.

I have scraped together a living as an artist for many years. There are many of us

in the Wairarapa, we come out and show our work then get slapped with a wet fish.

We retreat with our confidence shattered, then we go out again to face the damn

fish. This is about the time the artist gives up and just potters along.

Seventeen years ago I decided I wanted to make personalised headstones which

would reflect a persons life, their loves and beliefs. Early on in my journey a funeral

director told me that hundreds of people had tried this already and I would never

succeed. I never gave up, and the more I got a fish slap the harder I fought. Today,

my Dedication Stone business is a success and my headstones can be found all

over the Wairarapa. It is my involvement with so many families in the Wairarapa

who have lost loved ones through tragic circumstances that helped me realise the

need for an angel of love.

This project is a big boat to row on my own and I feel very fortunate to have the

support of a core group of women who all understand the need for an angel, as

they have all been through life changing tragedy themselves. Their strength is

admirable and they show that there is life after tragedy. It can be different and full

of sorrow, but they all now have somewhere to go in times of sorrow to light a

candle and gain strength from their community.

I have decided to call the town angel Grace, as we have some beautiful Graces in

our community and the hurt and strength that some of them and their families have

been through is exactly what the town angel is all about.

Let the Angel of Love become part of your support team. If you're on your way

home from work and you've had a bad day, go and sit at the monument for ten

minutes. Take a breather, turn your day into a positive and be thankful for what you

have. Then go and open the door to the family home.

The message I want to portray in the angel of love is to believe in yourself and love

one another. Two angels with broken wings stand together to form wings that can

fly.

Any money raised will help greatly towards the est $15,000 it will cost to compleat grace and it is elaine's aim for her to stand proud in the hosking garden so she can be seen by all.

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