No one’s going to be surprised to find lookalikes and copycats on OTN, but when we saw this Len Lye Wind Wand-like product just south of Otorohanga, it reminded us that if it was in fact an attempt to replicate the Lye original in New Plymouth, it was in good company.
When Wind Wand was erected on the last day of the twentieth century it prompted a rash of copycats up and down the coast and round the mountain. On the road to New Plymouth there used to be more balls on sticks poking out of front-yards, tied to fences and sticking out of roofs than you could shake a stick with a ball on it at. Many of them are now long gone but a reminder of this public response to the power of Lye’s image is still online in the form of the Wind Wanderer’s Map. Here you can find 142 ‘Wind Wands’ listed that were made and displayed by the people of Taranaki.
