Hastings glass-maker/artist Keryn Whitney has been announced as one of the World of Wearable Arts (WOW), 2024 finalists.
A long-time wearable art designer, this will be the 11th time one of Whitney’s designs has been selected for WOW.
When asked what it felt like to be named a finalist, Whitney told the Hastings Leader, “It’s always great to have your work validated. WOW is an amazing show, and to be part of it is great.”
She added, “Over 50,000 people are going to pay good money to see a curated exhibition that includes my work, so what’s not to love.”
Whitney first fell in love with glasswork in 1999 while on her OE with her then-future husband. She has been practising glass-making and art since then, fitting it into her life where and when possible.
The 11-time WOW finalist wasn’t always the biggest fan of art. After a bad experience with a high school art teacher who believed art consisted mostly of “drawing and only drawing”.
The teacher gave her very little “teaching” and she subsequently failed the subject by three marks. From then on, Whitney decided she would never do “art” again.
Until she came across the glass-blowing course when she was much older.
“For me, it was a light bulb moment, and I have been producing art in different forms since then,” she said.
Glass artwork from Hastings glassmaker Keryn Whitney.
The local artist studied glass and produced both blown glass and cast glass pieces. However, due to the difficulty in accessing glass-blowing facilities, she has expanded her practice to mostly cast glass.
Whitney also creates multimedia works incorporating timber, metal and fibre, often with glass, to produce works of art.
“I have previously incorporated glass into my entries for WOW but have worked with several different mediums in the past as well,” she said.
The Hastings artist started making wearable art when her daughter was born, and she was at home with her.
After seeing photos of the WOW show and loving the garments produced, Whitney said, “I had an idea, so I thought I would have a go and was successful in selection with my first entry, so I was truly bitten by the WOW bug,” Whitney said.
While glassmaking isn’t her full-time job, Whitney said she would call it a compulsion to make art, rather than a hobby.
She added, “as it is not so much for ‘fun’ but because the necessity to tell a story through art is simply that, a necessity.”
The Hasting artist said she would love to make glassmaking a full-time job, “but unfortunately, very few glass makers in New Zealand can support themselves through their art in a full-time position.”
While a hard question to answer, Whitney believes that in total, she would have spent somewhere between 250 to 300 hours working on this year’s WOW piece. One year her garment took more than 500 hours to create.
“I generally spend a significant amount of time in the concept stage, working through design ideas and this garment had a particularly challenging construction, and the final garment is nothing like the original concept pieces I made.”
Heading to WOW this year, Whitney said she is most excited to see the other garments on stage.
“It is amazing, each year, the designers all start with the same simple section themes and then produce such amazing and vastly different garments from the exact same starting point,” she said.
For Whitney, each garment is a unique journey and quite different from previous pieces as she tends to use different materials, techniques, and processes each time.
“It is always a huge learning curve for me, and I love being able to take things I have learned on one journey and then apply them to another piece.”
The Hastings artist explained the unique aspect of WOW is that designers are making things that have never been made before or making them in a way that’s never been done before.
“It’s not like you can walk into a shop, buy a pattern and simply follow the instructions to the final piece.”
She added, “As designers, we do a lot of problem-solving, and I get great satisfaction from overcoming the hurdles along the way.”
Maddisyn Jeffares became the editor of the Hawke’s Bay community papers Hastings Leader and Napier Courier in 2023 after writing at the Hastings Leader for almost a year. She has been a reporter with NZME for almost three years and has a strong focus on what’s going on in communities, good and bad, big and small. Email news tips to her at: maddisyn.jeffares@nzme.co.nz
