It creeps into the line of sight, centre frame, directly over the crown of the steering wheel as you drive west along the Tauranga Eastern Link.

Tentacles of steel grasping at the sky and falling earthward again.

Regan Gentry – the sculptor and the pa. Photos: Bruce Barnard.

It's very illusory, very ground zero, just beyond Domain Road's ‘jumble junction', alongside the TEL toll road.

It's the Pa – a 130 metre long symbolic palisade, a stake wall, an artwork – New Zealand's largest public artwork.

And it is, according to the New Zealand Transport Agency, assisting to ‘create a sense of place'. That ‘place' is Papamoa.

It's impressive – an eye-grabber – but as with most good artworks there's love and hate and not too much in between. It is polarising people.

And putting art and aesthetics aside, some 'peeps from Paps” are questioning whether it's necessary, and whether the $200,000 could have been better spent and prioritised elsewhere.

Like inserting a stent in the clogged traffic artery at Bayfair corner – now instead of later.

'They should have gone with a surfboard,” says Bella Harris on the Papamoa Facebook page.

Does she mean like Paeroa's big brown fizzy bottle, like Te Puke's slice of kiwifruit, Ohakune's carrot and Gore's big fish?

Something iconic, something representative of the area's economy rather than the people who live there?

'Papamoa's Kiwiana alternative could have been a surfboard or a wave. But how feeble that expression would have been for stating who we are,” says Rosalie Crawford, who edits the Papamoa Facebook page.

'The Bay of Plenty had 18 waka land here and people from all over the world have settled in Papamoa.

'A pa says as much about our place as it does about a home where people are nurtured, nourished and build their lives. So the pa is totally appropriate.”

But not everyone's ready to buy in. Saje Jarvis reckons the money could have gone on something useful. 'Is this useful?”

'What does it do?” asks James Nottingham.

Eddie Bartle looked, didn't like and posted his opinion. 'What a waste of time, money and effort.”

'Retarded,” says Nick Ellliot.

Lori Hope says: 'Sh*te!!! How does that represent Papamoa?”.

Laura Mattison says: 'OMG, serious?” Dead serious Laura, and there'll be more.

When sculptor Regan Gentry has finished ‘the pa' he will build his ‘tumbleweed' – an eight-metre high ‘Spinifex', one of those can't kill dune grasses which flourish in, and roll around, Papamoa.

'The hardest part is that people are uninformed, they make snap judgements,” says Creative Tauranga chief executive Tracey Ruddick-Gudsell.

‘Hard' because the sculptor did considerable research before launching.

'If the critics examined the history of the area they would see the pa is very much part of the story of the Papamoa Hills. It is very apt.”

But ‘apt' to Bella would not have been 'something so hideous. I wouldn't call that a Pa or a landmark”.

Glen Marcus Fraser asks if we are going to get a huge ‘Welcome to Tauranga' sign. 'I certainly hope so!” And Dominic Koch would have liked a say. 'We really need to vote on this kind of thing.”

But Creative Tauranga points out the research, discussions and decisions were done, had and made collaboratively.

And it suggests what we really need to do is see it, consider it and give it time. We may love it, we may hate it; we may feel nothing.

'Art is meant to challenge us,” says Tracey. 'The pa is a little abstract, but you get the feel, it creates the chit-chat, the exchange of thoughts and feelings. One thing is for sure – it will be a point of difference for the region.”

Tracey makes the point that some art projects have been hated and then become loved and treasured – like ‘The Wind Wand', Len Lye's 45 metre kinetic sculpture in New Plymouth.

Tracey wants us to tune out of the noisy minority, the terminal complainers and listen to the positive. Like Scott Darrall.

'This sculpture looks awesome! Not wasting money at all.” And Megan Jayne, who saw ‘The Pa' for the first time yesterday. 'It looked amazing.”

And, of course, Tracey herself. 'The Pa and the Spinifex are going to be absolutely outstanding – Yay Tauranga.”

Final word to Regan – the sculptor himself.

'My artistic practice typically depicts the relationship of people to their environment and how this is acted out.”

It's a credo assisted by the fact the pa is made from roadside safety guard rails and timber recycled from Tauranga's Coronation Pier. The pa is of us, about us and for us.