.svg){kind=small}
Just a Random Guy
Ex-soldier, ex-salesman Keith Lewis is a fulltime artist with a mohawk. With wife Lisa, he runs a Te Puna gallery of oversized coins and an ever-growing army of random guys.
Ex-soldier, ex-salesman Keith Lewis is a fulltime artist with a mohawk. With wife Lisa, he runs a Te Puna gallery of oversized coins and an ever-growing army of random guys.
For Keith Lewis, the 1980s was, no is, the best decade.
At the rambling Te Puna property he shares with wife Lisa, this is very much evident. Step into the house, his studio space or the recently added gallery, and the retro fandom is blatant.
“I’m a little bit old fashioned that way,” Keith says, sipping on a V energy drink, and yarning nostalgically about 20 cent lolly mixtures and how he met his girl at a roller-skating rink.
His artworks, playful, oversized New Zealand coins and hearts in pastel sherbet shades adorn the walls in small groups. It feels like a handful of sweets have been thrown at the space.
For all of the energy and ideas fizzing out of the couple, you would think they grew up in creative households, arty from the start. But certainly, they did not start out with the creative freedom they now savour.
They met at a roller-skating rink when Lisa was at secondary school in Whanganui, and Keith had just joined the Army.
“How’s that for throwback?” Keith laughs.
Lisa moved to Wellington to study design while Keith was based in the Waiouru Military Camp.
“Yeah, I was pretty keen [on her]. I spent all my pay on petrol driving down,” he says.
“I would get there around midnight Friday, spend the weekend, then drive back to get in late on Sunday. I was generally very late, and then I had to iron my shirts, or I would have been in trouble.
“Worth it, though,” he smiles.
It is hard to imagine now, looking at the unstructured street art on the walls and listening to the self-proclaimed ‘Random Guy’, but Keith says the Army taught him valuable lessons about systems and structure.
“We were there to work,” he says, recalling six months he spent serving in Bosnia. “When we weren’t working, there really was no opportunity for creativity. It was then I decided I really had to make something, to create something when I got back.”
And it was to street-style art and stencilling he found his way.
“I would create pieces, then we would sneak out at night, and put them up, install them on buildings. They were like little gifts to the city. But then they kept disappearing. They kept getting pinched. So, I worked out, well people must like them.”
“It wasn’t ever going to be landscapes. I’m not wishy-washy. That’s not my gig,” he says, gesturing around at his anything-but-traditional, colourful surroundings.
“I would create pieces, then we would sneak out at night, and put them up, install them on buildings. They were like little gifts to the city. But then they kept disappearing. They kept getting pinched. So, I worked out, well people must like them.”
As with many small, home-based businesses, during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 it was sink or swim.
“People couldn’t go to markets, where a lot of us sold our work. There was an NZ Made Products Facebook group and we thought ‘sure, let’s do it’. We took the five cents, and the ten cents, and loaded them up to the site. Then we went to watch a movie.”
Lisa recalls what happened next.
“Honestly, my phone started beeping. And then it was going off with so many orders. Ping, ping, ping! People were looking for a bit of nostalgia,” she says.
It was also a massive learning curve. They had hardly any stock and hundreds of orders.
“We had to make products like crazy plus learn all the logistics along the way. Some people were so bored in lockdown, they were rearranging their pantry or learning a language. We were absolutely frantic,” Keith says.
With the help of friends and by ‘borrowing’ a courier here and there and working massive hours, they made it work.
Up until then, Keith had kept his sales job. He liked the people, but not the work. So, the pair decided to ‘go for it’ and Keith became a fulltime artist, with Lisa on graphic design and marketing.
“We were all in.”
Over the years, Keith has continued exploring different mediums and techniques, always looking to learn. He enjoys prototyping, mould making, and working with casting materials—skills that now form the foundation of their new gallery and gift shop ‘One Lane Bridge’.
The name was inspired by the windy roads to his Nana’s Piha bach.
“With a one lane bridge, well it’s a very New Zealand thing for a start. And it’s give and take, give way or get on with it. Everyone has to work together for a one lane bridge to work.”
Now, the pair love showing people around their working spaces, and explaining how the works are made. They open the studio/gallery selected hours during the week, or by arrangement for groups.
“Coming here, it’s like that feeling of going to the shop for a twenty-cent mixture. We’re about the experience not the exhibition.”
Lisa says that with the rise of Temu, people are craving hand made.
“You’re competing so much with Temu and China and thousands of the same thing,” she says.
“We’ve found people appreciate seeing how things are made. It’s great to see the genuine interest.”
“I send the random guys out into the world, and I love it when people send back photos of how and where they’ve ended up.”
Keith loves to involve others in his artwork—to support other artists, to collaborate with other creatives, and to have fun with those who might collect his artworks.
His ‘Random Guy’ persona appears in many works or comes as an added extra with another artwork. “I send the random guys out into the world, and I love it when people send back photos of how and where they’ve ended up.”
In Winter they make art, preparing for a busy Spring. Later this year, their eclectic home will be a stop on the Garden and Arts Fest for the first time.
“Fortunately, we work really well as a team. It’s not every husband and wife who could work and live together this way. I’m the ideas guy and Lisa is the fine tune,” he explains.
“I make it. She makes it look good.”
Keith says the key to his creative life is percolating on new ideas, and the opportunity and confidence to try new things.
“Art comes from me, it’s in me. It changes and comes into my brain all the time. Like Random Guy, I am random. I’ll be talking about one thing then I’ll be like ‘ooh, look a squirrel!’.”
And they both laugh, nodding at the accurate reflection.
Keith has a distinctive profile with a mohawk part of his daily look.
“After years of a corporate job and the Army, it’s all part of it. It’s me. It’s outside the lines.”
Totally living, and colouring, outside the lines.
onelanebridge.co.nz
@onelanebridgenz
Gallery & Gift Store open 10am – 3pm Weds to Sat
