Ian Herbert: Master of Funny Paintings and Left Field Film
A secondary education at Mount Maunganui College was never going to be easy. Ian’s Mother was a relieving teacher and his Dad was on the school board. Despite this disadvantage, rumour has it that he managed to get through school without bringing shame on the family, except for when he overdosed on Magic Mushrooms. Instead of eating eight or nine magic mushrooms, Ian thought he heard ’eighty or ninety’  and just to be sure, had a hundred. After 2 weeks on planet 52, Ian sort of regained his grasp

on life and returned to school with a somewhat more creative sense of reality.

It obviously didn’t leave him without brain cells because his next stop was Massey University, Palmerston North.  Rather than study art and film professionally, Ian studied Economics and Environmental Planning, as well as learning how to drink beer out of a gumboot (this is actually true).  After completing his BA in 1993, he went on to complete a Masters of Business Administration (with distinctions) and a post graduate diploma of Business Studies. 

After University, Ian continued the dual lifestyle of work and painting. He was employed as a Corporate Analyst working in the big smoke (Taumarunui, a town of 5000 people). Ian spent two years developing the Ruapehu District Council’s Strategic Plan.

Behind the scenes was a completely different story. During the weekends he tutored a voluntary art programme for local children and produced the ‘Seventh Seagull’ and ‘Meet the Pubes’. It was at this time that Ian bought his first video camera. He made ‘Dead and Berried’, a short film very loosely

based on a true story about a group of youths hooked on smoking blackberries.

Next stop was the world and there is no better place to base yourself than London. Adventures include a three month truck safari through Africa, chilling on the jungle beaches of Jamaica, and hitching a ride through the Australian outback with a surf board.
All of this travel must be paid for. Five years working in the Railway Industry was the answer. Employed as a Project Manager on the London Underground proved that art and film weren’t the only things he can do.

On the beer gut mitigation front, Ian has managed to complete the London Triathlon and back in New Zealand, the ‘Around Mount Maunganui 4km swim’ – you have to do something to work off all those pints of beer consumed down at the Walk About!

Travelling is the degree in life, the more you see, the more you realize you haven’t seen much at all. The more you get chased by elephants, get attacked by lions, get lost among ancient Mayan tunnels, pursued by dodgy police in Morocco, swim in Alligator infested waters in the everglades, try and speak English in France, and order soggy fish