Daniel Summers

I grew up in Linwood (Christchurch) with my late father, sculptor, Llew Summers. I grew up with the love of arts and the outdoors, foraging and gathering.

Leaving home at the age of 15 years to work on the high country sheep farm, Mt. Torlesse, it was a hard, but memorable introduction to life.

After working there for one year, I had many jobs; on a fishing boat, in foundries, brick laying, in a saw mill, boat building, drain laying, and so on. I was very unsettled until I became self-employed. Being self-employed allowed me to do much of what I had learned and choose to work for very nice people, and that allowed my creativity to flourish from the age of 25 years.

I continued helping my father with his big sculptures and the building on his house. I started making art out of copper at this stage.

Most of my clientele have been on Banks Peninsula, as I have always loved the unique environment there. I have been working at Louden Farm in Teddington for the past 22 years part time, and I lived there for 12 years (and still do part-time).

The rest of the time I live in Oxford on our small farm and carve stone from what has inspired me in my life. I have been carving eels for the past two years.

I was feeding the eels in Whiake Stream for over 10 years and had 27 regular ones that I knew. Then one day, I was feeding them and none turned up. I waited and waited, but nothing. As time went on, I learned that some people had gone eeling and taken them all. Very saddening; if only they had just taken one or two. Some of them were around two metres long, and I could feed them from my hand and pat them.

Subsequently, I have got two pet eels now, one of my old friends and one new one.