Creative Tauranga Art Fair (2011)

The reason for the Art Fair is to focus the wider community's attention on our arts' community by having a showcase event celebrating the tremendous talent and wonderfully diverse work of artists in Tauranga and the Western Bay of Plenty.

This fabulous day out for friends and family in downtown Tauranga will add colour and vibrancy to our city centre and provide an opportunity for our local artists to display and offer their work for sale.

The Art Fair is open to artists of all genres, all age groups, professional and amateur, all ethnicities, art societies and groups, primary and secondary schools, polytech students, arts and crafts people and groups, potters, weavers, quilters, sculptors, poets, musicians, street art performers and others engaged in the many creative arts.

For further information read the October edition of Creative Tauranga's 'Creative Beat' magazine.

Registration forms and related details can be obtained from Creative Tauranga on the corner of Wharf and Willow Streets downtown.

Spaces are limited so be sure to register early for this exciting day to be staged early in 2011.

For more information email: reception@creativetauranga.org.nz

by Pete Morris (2010).

Registrations for the inaugural Creative Tauranga Art Fair 2011 are still being taken and the available spaces are filling fast. The Art Fair idea has been welcomed by the art community and with the number of registrations received already the day is shaping up to be a great success.

Tauranga Art Fair 2011 poster.

This new event on the Tauranga arts calendar is scheduled for Saturday 19th March 2011.

The reason for the Art Fair is to focus attention on our art and artists by having a showcase event celebrating the tremendous talent and wonderfully diverse work of artists in Tauranga and the Western Bo P.

This fabulous community day out for friends and family in downtown Tauranga will add colour and vibrancy to our city centre and provide an opportunity for our local artists to display and offer their work for sale.

Art Fair 2011 is open to artists of all genres, all age groups, professional and amateur, all ethnicities , art societies and groups , Primary and Secondary schools , Polytech students , arts and crafts people and groups , potters , weavers , quilters, sculptors, poets, musicians, street art performers and others engaged in the many creative arts.

14 February 2011

There are no exhibit spaces left for Art Fair 2011 with organiser Pete Morris saying all that’s left to do is to fill Tauranga’s central business district with artistic enthusiasm. Art Fair 2011 is on March 19 and will see Wharf Street, Willow Street and parts of Red Square transformed into a huge outdoor art market.

Pete Morris.

As well as artwork on display, there will be street performances and music performed by some of the Bay’s best street musicians.

“The point is to highlight the visual arts in Tauranga, raise the profile and breathe life into the CBD,” says Pete.

“I was down having coffee in Red Square and noticed there just isn’t enough activity.

“We have the artists, now we want to get Tauranga down there.”

Over 85 exhibit spaces are filled by Bay of Plenty artists, including painters and sculptors.

Pete says registrations were open for about three months and while it took a while to fill the spots, a few last minute sign ups saw the event hit maximum capacity.

The specific placement of artists at each 3m wide and 3m long stall is being determined by ballot as Pete says this is the only fair way to decide who gets to go where.

He is hoping for “some interactive stands and workshops, especially for the children”.

He says the whole process has been long after “taking this idea to Creative Tauranga this time last year, so it has been a long time of backwards and forward with meetings and plans”.

“Creative Tauranga are taking care of the funding and consents as required and have the network to make things happen.”

Pete has a meeting scheduled with Creative Tauranga this Friday to establish procedures of road closures and street management.

18 March 2011

Downtown Tauranga is close to its artist’s makeover for a day as Art Fair 2011 fast approaches – on Saturday March 19. About 85 artists are scheduled to exhibit their work in a huge one-day outdoor market that covers lower Wharf Street, the southern end of Willow Street and parts of Red Square.

Steel sculptor Nic Clegg and Doreen Mc Neill with her easel in Maison Monique, both of whom are exhibiting at Art Fair 2011.

Art Fair organiser Pete Morris says the event is the collective work of Creative Tauranga, Tauranga City Council and Mainstreet Tauranga.

“There is no way I could run this thing alone without all the support I have received,” says Pete.

In build up to the event, some artists have displayed their work in shop windows in the area, including that by metal sculptor Nic Clegg.

Nic was born in Manchester and moved with his wife and two children to Welcome Bay at the end of 2008.

He has enjoyed the shift as it has enabled him to work full-time on his sculpting, which is viewable presently at downtown store, Blur Optician.

“I really enjoy working with steel – it is an unforgiving material, yet a forgiving metal,” says Nic.

“A hard inorganic material, yet it has a flow, and shape that can be manipulated.”

Nic moulds it into caricatured and figurative art pieces.

To help people interested in art see such works and those by the other 84 displaying on Saturday, the Tauranga City Council is allowing free parking in Elizabeth and Durham Street car parks on the day. Parking on The Strand reclamation is also free of charge.

Pete says the aim of the event is to show off the vast artistic talent found in the Bay of Plenty.

“The reason for Art Fair is to focus the wider community’s attention on our arts’ community by having a showcase event celebrating the tremendous talent and wonderfully diverse work of artists in Tauranga and the Western Bay,” says Pete. 

“Expect to see artists of all genres, all age groups, professional and amateur, all ethnicities, art societies and groups, schools, polytech students, arts and crafts people and groups, potters, weavers, quilters, sculptors, poets, musicians, street art performers and others engaged in the many creative arts.”

Pete also hopes the event will breathe some life back into the CBD, particularly with the participation of businesses in the Art in Windows element, where artists such as Nic are exhibiting in store windows in both the week before and after Art Fair on Saturday.

19 March 2011

The inaugural Art Fair 2011 can only be described as “chocka-block” full of artists, street performers and visitors today.

Michelle O’Donnell paints for the crowd at the Art Fair 2011.

Parts of the CBD is closed to cars and has transformed into a large art market, becoming almost unrecognisable. Bay of Plenty artists are showcasing their work from jewellery and sculpture to photos and paintings, lining the streets and pavements.One painter is even making art happen before your eyes, working away on a painting at her stall.

Visitors to the stall check out these paua creations.

The Art Fair 2011 is a success today, with nearly 100 stalls in the CBD.

Artists have work for sale as well as showcasing their unique talents.

Co-ordinator Pete Morris is making the rounds but is struggling to get through the crowd to see it all, saying you have to move slowly to get through each stall. He says he is very happy with the way the day has turned out and with the number of visitors to the art fair.

 
Street musicians entertain the wanderers.

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