From down and out, to up and art

After suffering two strokes, three heart attacks, cancer and the loss of the love of your life, most people would probably be on the brink of giving up, but not Robert Currie.

Currie spent his younger years working in a high paying corporate job that saw him forfeiting most of his time, and almost his life. 

Flash forward to the present day and you can find this eccentric, charismatic, ex-businessman surrounded by his own artwork sitting outside his art studio, the Pink Palace, on a sunny Waikato day. A surfboard with the word “ART” painted in big blue, green and red letters is stuck in the grass below, happily beckoning any passerby to come and see his latest work. 

And it’s all Raglan-based, because there is nowhere else the world he would rather be.

Down and almost out 

When Currie was 46 he was the national real estate and property services manager for LandCorp. This was a demanding job and it meant he spent a lot of time away from home. His wife, Anne, and two teenage children lived in Hamilton, but his job was in Wellington. For five days of the week Currie lived in the capital doing 12 to 14-hour days.

One Monday morning Currie had gotten ready for work and Anne went to hand him a cup of tea, he couldn’t hold it and it dropped on the kitchen floor, he followed soon after. Currie had had a stroke. It was minor, but unfortunately it was only a week before his second one hit. 

This left him with a paralysed left arm, loss of speech and inability to walk.

The fight back to a normal life

It was a long journey for Currie from there as he took on months of intensive physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. 

Eventually Currie regained the ability to walk and talk, a momentous achievement that made him want to encourage others to do the same. He decided was going to help people who were like him and those who he thought could prevent themselves becoming like him.

“It was after my wife gave me a good telling off, she said I could stay and work on getting better or she was going to put me in a home for people with disabilities,” Currie said.

From that moment Currie put in motion called ‘Forward 32’, for former and current patients of ward 32 of Waikato Hospital where Currie had spent time when he suffered his second stroke. He also put in a lot of effort to raise money by getting his old business colleges to donate with the funds going straight to ward 32 for rehabilitation equipment.

He then went on to be a guest speaker at several conferences held by insurance companies and agents around the world. He wanted to get the message of prevention across, as well what happens when one has a stroke – not just the disability side to it, but also the loss of income.

The two strokes weren’t the only setbacks Currie’s faced. Anne was diagnosed with cancer not long after he was starting to find his way again and she died six months after being diagnosed. He then suffered a series of heart attacks and battled prostate cancer.

Up and art ‘em

After Anne died, Currie decided it was time for a change and 17 years ago decided to make the move to Raglan. 

“I love it here, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

He was going through a burst of depression living in the family home all by himself and decided he needed to do something. He went for a drive and found himself in the artsy beach town, it pulled him in and three months later he was living there.

A couple of local artists took a liking to his paintings.

“I’ve always liked to draw, but as a hobby… they thought I could have an exhibition, I thought ‘why not?’.”

In his first exhibition 12 out of 15 of his pieces sold.

“Art and Raglan brought me back to life. People come here for all sorts of reasons, it’s a relaxing and friendly place. Everyone does their own thing, but you know if something goes wrong someone will be there to help.”