Marcus Lush - a travelling man with passion for the arts

By FRANCES GRANT

Marcus Lush has moved to Bluff where the world's his oyster. The radio host and television presenter now calls Southland home but he's still a traveller.

When telly work calls, it's up sticks and off into the great yonder, whether it's up the road to central and northern Otago to explore a landscape rich in artistic imagination or far away to the exotic crush and clamour of Cairo.

"The most exciting thing about TV is being with someone different and coming into their life for a while, whether it's a guy who farms and sings in the Maniototo or an 80-year-old camel trader in Egypt."

Lush takes us to the Maniototo as part of the new season of TV One's arts series, Mercury Lane. The arts show has no linking presenter or studio interviews and debates, but is made up of documentary-style reports on artists in their own environments.

This season, the 10-part series opens with a story on Bill Sevesi, the 79-year-old king of Polynesian steel guitar. In the second instalment Sam Hunt visits writer and poet Alistair Te Ariki Campbell. Other programmes include a look at the work of theatre group Indian Ink, painter Jan Nigro and jazzman Nathan Haines.

Lush's Mercury Lane contribution is a visit to Ranfurly, a small Otago town with an artist population disproportionate to its size and the Maniototo, that plain put on the map by novelist Janet Frame and the mesmerising landscapes of painter Grahame Sydney.

The Maniototo is indeed a state of mind, says Lush. He goes in search of artists famous and less well-known and looks at the kind of creative people drawn to life under the big southern skies.

"It's a spectacular part of the country and hopefully a part of the country that doesn't become ruined by the great capital gains land grab."

His own artistic interests are burgeoning, too, on the wide and windswept southern shores. "The art thing is a bit of a passion, something I can really relate to. More and more as I get older, I think it's the only thing that matters."

Lush describes his relationship to the arts as consumer and practitioner. "Just let's say I'm a practitioner. I'm not sure what final form it's going to take."

What is taking shape though is his plan to open an art gallery in the coal shed at his place in Bluff. Who might come looking for art in the small fishing and oystering town he admires as the "last of the ungentrified seaports in New Zealand"?

"I don't know. It's a bit like that movie 'we'll build it and they'll come'. We'll see what happens. I just had a lot of space left in the coal shed and I thought 'well, let's chuck some art up there'. It'll be good art though."

Lush says he's already received expressions of interest in exhibiting from the Northern Hemisphere from artists attracted to a geographically special place. Could his be the southernmost gallery in the world? "You do the math. I don't know what's happening at Gallery Patagonia."

Speaking of far-flung places, Lush is just back in Bluff after spending three weeks in Egypt for Intrepid Journeys, a new travel show which takes celebrities to adventurous destinations and puts them through their paces. "It was tremendous, real boots'n'all travel where you're pushed out of your comfort zone."

The travel show's aim is to encourage New Zealanders to think about venturing to more adventurous destinations in search of life-changing experiences.

Lush's trip to Egypt included a night out under the desert stars with Bedouin people as well as the famous tourist spots. With war threatening Iraq, it was an interesting time to be in the Muslim world, particularly in Egypt which is so dependent on tourism.

"Egypt seemed empty. It was an amazing time to be there - just before the war. There's a sense of impending doom. And what came out for me was, even though the pyramids and everything are amazing, the actual living culture there is amazing as well. It's a culture we hear many extreme opinions about and to be there is so unextreme."

Lush says he did not suffer any culture shock swapping little old Bluff and Invercargill for the hustle and bustle of Cairo, with its 18 million people.

"For me when I'm there, I'm there and that's the way it is. I was in their world and they seemed content with it and it's not really my job to comment or to get culture shock."

But he can't resist one comparison: "Cairo seemed to function pretty well. Auckland has one million people and can't even get their roading worked out."

No, Lush suffered no culture shock either moving from the big city in the north to Invercargill to work on a community radio station as a breakfast host. The only adaptation required was to take care to not seem to be trying to impress.

When Lush left Auckland last year he famously remarked, "There are houses with ballrooms for sale down there for what you would [pay for] a beaten-up ex-state [house] in Birkdale."

The property market down south couldn't be better, thanks. He bought his place in Bluff "wide views of the harbour" for less than $30,000. "Write that in and that'll get them. Half-acre section, sheep in the backyard."

And a ballroom perhaps? "No, I've got no interest in that."

Still, there's probably no one in Auckland who can boast an art gallery in the coal shed. "And there's no leaky buildings. The weather's great - crisp blue clear days," he says.

In the grey humidity of a fume-laden, rainy Auckland day in the middle of the America's Cup doldrums, it sounds terribly tempting.