The Bethlehem Pottery Club’s exhibition at Baycourt X Space and the Tauranga Society of Artists Original Cash & Carry Art Sale were on during November 2014.
I bounce into the Baycourt X Space minutes before The Bethlehem Pottery Club’s 2014 annual exhibition is going to close. It’s a comprehensive showing of the diversity of the work created in the Club Rooms at Bethlehem. There’s all kinds of work displayed some functional and a lot decorative. Some of it is hilarious, witty and naughty! There is a significant display of the work of the featured potters Greg Barron and Jin Ling. The latter’s larger scale figure work is reminiscent of clay buddhas and terracotta warriors. The simply produced catalogue is excellent. I manage to walk round all the exhibits at least three times before a voice announces they are letting the potters in to start packing down the exhibition.
A young woman starts to pack down a corner display stand. She’s from the Arohanui Art & Education Trust in Greerton. There’s a photograph album of the Trust programme’s participants at work and examples of the variety of crafts they can do. The Bethlehem Pottery Club supports the work of the Trust by firing their pieces for them. Take a look on-line at www.arohanuitrust.co.nz The Trust is on the Corner of Chadwick & Hynds Roads, Greerton and is open Monday-Friday 9am-3pm Telephone 07 579 4603
In the closing days of October and early November 2014 members of the Tauranga Society of Artists carried their work “over the road” to the Community Centre, Elizabeth Street West, Tauranga for an Original Art Cash & Carry Sale.
The Community Centre provided two gallery spaces and they were crammed with original art works. The “for sale” show was of course manned by a variety of Arts Society members and I had the opportunity to talk with some of them about the show and the work of the Society. It was generally felt the sale had been a great success not only for the number of art works sold but also because of the large number of visitors. Of course the work was of widely different styles and abilities but it was a very useful contribution to the visual arts palette of Tauranga.
I asked Margaret Hunt to show me a work she had done while on holiday in Italy “Mr Miccolis Deli” its dull earth pink expressing the age and heat of the summer Sienna. It captures perfectly the style, colour and pace of an older Italy.
There were so many beautiful works. I told Miriam Ruberl of Rotorua how I had wanted to buy all of her recent exhibition at the Creative Tauranga Community Gallery. The vibrant orange is Rotorua earth – ochre. I loved Debbie Emslie “Beach Stall in Samoa”; Adele Crawford-Frank “The Bluffs of Punakaiki”; Terry Christie’s finely crafted kauri “Little Yellow Boat”; Kim Artus “Simply Cambodia” with its waterborne fruit vendor and detailed background of stilt house and people; Graham Baker’s St Leonard’s Church and Matakana Pub; a Shona Jones abstract; and a work by Dulcie Artus the title of which I now cannot read!; “Gabriel & Freddie at Kawakawa” by John Stubbenhagen; Jennifer Whalley’s “Evening Light”.
There were 290 paintings by 63 artists on display. Berys Surridge told me the exhibition was “well attended and well sold and exceeded the number of sales of any other exhibition”
Berys made it clear that this wasn’t an exhibition it was a sale of art and that purchasers being able to take their purchase away immediately was a selling point plus. The Society had made sure that they really advertised and marketed the sale which was held in the Community Hall for the first time.
Berys also told me that as well as the Art in the Park outdoor display and sales at Coronation Park in Mount Maunganui, the Society has been invited by The Cargo Shed, Dive Crescent on the Tauranga Waterfront to use the two open display areas over the summer. Great stuff. This is in addition to the two Society artists featured each month in the Cargo Shed gallery.
The Tauranga Society of Artists is a longstanding Tauranga based art group operating from their own building (on leased land) at 171A Elizabeth Street Tauranga. From the sale front desk I took away their new membership information and application form and also their November newsletter. As they say “this is a busy club” (Note members have to be nominated by an existing member)
Art in the Park is generally twice a month in summer and once a month in the winter at Coronation Park, Mount Maunganui, Hours 8.am to 5pm
Art outside the Cargo Shed 2014, December 14, 21, 28 2015 January 4, 10, 18 February 1, 8, 22 and March 1.
For information about the Tauranga Society of Artists www.taurangasocietyofartists.org.nz
email: taurangaartsociety@xtra.co.nz
Rosemary Balu
