Frank Film: Lyttelton: What makes an artist's town?

Arty energy is a hard thing to describe. Everyone knows it when they feel it, though, and there are certain places on the planet that carry a whole lot of this mysterious creative magnetism.

They are places to which artists have historically flocked, whether for the ineffable vibe, the presence of other artists or cheap rent. Leonard Cohen's Hydra, in Greece, was one. San Francisco was another. And, of course, there's Lyttelton.

The port town, wrapped around the insides of a volcanic crater and separated from Christchurch by a tunnel, is as local poet Ciaran Fox says, infested with artistic types.

"Throw a stone in the air in Lyttelton and it's going to come down on a creative person," Fox says.

And he's right - one only has to look at the list of accomplished and emerging artists to come out of the place.

Lyttelton is (and has been) home to musicians like Marlon Williams, Delaney Davidson, Adam McGrath, Aldous Harding, Ben Woods, Phoebe Woods, Carmel Courtney and Al Park - to name a few. It has housed writers like Ben Brown, Joe Bennett and Gary McCormick, and visual artists of the likes of Bill Hammond, Laurence Aberhart and Jason Grieg. This is in no way an exhaustive list - the town is home to painters, sculptors, musicians, poets, ceramic artists, carvers and creatives of all imaginable disciplines. In this story, Frank Film explores what it is that draws them in and keeps them close.

First off, as potter Grace Uivel points out, Lyttelton is an interesting geological place.

"We're inside the crater of a volcano," she tells Frank Film from her shared studio, Ata Ceramics, on the main street. The steep flanks of this volcano, stacked with houses, all lead down to the singular main street and below it, the clanging, working port.

There are cafes and gig venues everywhere you look. And then, of course, there's that feel in the air. Ceramicist and longtime local Cheryl Lucas, who has a major exhibition coming up at the Christchurch Art Gallery, says you do slightly feel like you're on holiday when you come through the tunnel.

"It always feels good here," Lucas says.

So what is it? Writer Ben Brown reckons it's the port that gives the town its character. He called Lyttelton home for 20 years.

"It's an egalitarian place and I think that's a union ethos."

"It's a border, it's an international gateway, so you're forced to rub shoulders with diversity."

Saxophonist Carmel Courtney says that while visual artists have always talked about the hue of Lyttelton, for her as a musician, it's the 'feel'.

"You don't ever want to not feel as an artist," she says.

It was this feel (and the cheap house prices) that brought musician Al Park here in 1978.

"I remember walking down Voelas Road with Bill Hammond... and Bill said to me, 'I've found my place.' And I went, 'I've found my place, as well'".

Park remembers buying his house for $3,000. Those were the days. He says Lyttelton was at that time considered by anyone who lived on the other side of the tunnel to be dark and poor and rough.

Artist Asher Newbury grew up in Lyttelton, and remembers it being pretty rough when he was a kid, but full of artists. His entire brood of siblings are also artists, actors, poets and playwrights, and he puts this down to their environment. "Growing up in the 90s, there were working artists all around us, and on top of that, it's like we live in a painting," Newbury says.

There seems to be one unanimous answer from most local artists: it's the community which gives Lyttelton its magic. As potter Grace Uilart puts it, she came to Lyttelton and felt immediately at home.

Newbury points out that with much of the town being in the shade for the winter, people are forced to congregate. "Everyone has to come to the main street to get their vitamin D. That creates community," he says.

This sense of community, according to Al Park, only grew stronger after the 2011 earthquakes.

Along with many of the other musicians in Lyttelton, he helped to form The Harbour Union, a musical collective initially set up to fundraise for the aftermath of the earthquakes.

Whilst there is, as musician Ben Woods describes, a romanticism today associated with the Lyttelton name, the genuine sense of community is obvious - even to townies.

Unfortunately, just like Hydra, San Francisco and Berlin, Lyttelton is starting to feel the effects of gentrification. Both house prices and rent are going up, forcing Asher Newbury and his young family to move up to Palmerston North.

But, as he says, they'll be back. It seems once you fall in love with Lyttelton, it's hard to stay away.

This film is an ode to a beloved town of artists - watch it in full here.