Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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came and went when we felt like it. I’m sure Vince was there at two o’clock in the
morning working sometimes. We’d go in on Sundays and we’d go in there on
Saturdays or after hours”. 294 The art school at this time was spread out into three
different locations. There was the main art school in the centre of campus, an annex in
Creyke Road and another house in Kirkwood Avenue where much of the film
equipment was kept. Later, after Ward had left Ilam, the art school moved into a new
building and security became very much tighter.
However, while the art school environment was relatively relaxed and collegial, many
of the students suffered financial hardship as a result of having to pay for all their own
materials – including the film stock and the props - as well as for the processing of their
films. Beth recounts: “All of us were poor and all of us needed money, because we had
to shoot film [rather than video] in those days, so you could go through thousands of
dollars, whatever you did, and we’d all be scraping around on fragments and stretching
relationships we had and needing family support”. Ward, with “his urgency and his
zeal” as Beth describes it, put all his resources into his projects, and often could not
afford to eat. 295 Ward refers to this time at art school in The Edge of the Earth:
“Dressing like a ragged leftover from the sixties, I had embraced the earnest belief that
artists should focus on their work with religious intensity – to the extent that rather than
waste time cooking, I lived on saveloys for a year. When I could no longer stand the
sight of them, my obsession finally wavered”. 296 Beth also recalls that, because he was
also unable to afford a flat, Ward would bring his sleeping-bag into the old house on
campus, where the film students worked, and sleep on the floor. 297
In Askew’s view, the class Ward was in was a very good year and as well as Ward, it
produced some talented filmmakers, such as Tim White, later an international producer,
and editors David Coulson and Maria French. At the time, Askew did not see Ward as
being exceptional, but acknowledges that, “to display a smashed-up motorcycle takes a
bit of guts […]. Not now, but then”. Askew describes Ward as being “a good student”
but hardly a model one. He recalls one incident where Ward broke into his home when
he and his wife were out in order to use a piece of animation equipment that was kept
294 Lynette Read, interview with Murray Freeth, 25 January 1999.
295 Lynette Read, interview with Stephanie Beth, 26 January 1999.
296 Ward, Edge of the Earth: Stories and Images from the Antipodes 4-5.
297 Lynette Read, interview with Stephanie Beth, 26 January 1999.