The Sarjeant Gallery, currently under redevelopment, has played a major role in shaping Whanganui's arts community over the past 100 years. Photo / Mike Tweed
Whanganui has a reputation as a hub for artists, regardless of which avenue their creativity is channelled in. What's the appeal? What makes them stay? And what encourages creatives from major centres to set up shop here? Mike Tweed finds out.
Ceramic artist and teacher Andrea du Chatenier first came to Whanganui from Auckland 16 years ago, after she was selected for the Tylee Cottage residency.
She and her husband (and fellow artist) Anthony Davies have been here ever since, and they even had a studio trucked on to their 1000sq m section in Aramoho.
"After that residency I started doing some teaching at the art school, and that's what trapped me," du Chatenier said.
"The school was small, but it had a huge amount of soul in terms of what it was trying to accomplish. It was a big idea in a small place.
"That really was a major thing in me staying, and it actually brought a lot of people here, many of whom stayed on as well.
"There's an understanding that art is an integral part of our cultural fabric here, and that's pretty damn fantastic."
Du Chatenier said that as well as being an "economically viable" place to live, Whanganui also offered support for artists that other centres didn't.
"Other cities don't have the same support for art and design. They might have big galleries, but it's not infiltrated within the whole city like it is in Whanganui."
The Sarjeant Gallery is a major factor behind local artist and winner of this year's Patillo Whanganui Arts Review, Andrea Gardner, spending the best part of three decades here, after arriving "sight unseen".
"That has made a huge difference in our experience here, in particular the Tylee Cottage residency," Gardner said.
"It has brought interesting artists in over the years that have given talks on their work and had exhibitions, like Andrea [du Chatenier] of course.
"If that wasn't there, we wouldn't have had that opportunity to meet some really interesting people.
"There's a constant influx of new ideas."
Local musician, teacher, and freelance audio and video engineer Sacha Keating said a strength of the arts in Whanganui was "our bicultural approach".
"I'm going to say it: If you don't some sort of Māori influence, your work could be from anywhere in the world," Keating said.
"By having that strength and that relationship with our environment, and being inspired and motivated by it, makes our work distinctly 'Whanganui'.
Keating said Whanganui expats returning home to apply their skills to local projects was also important.
"There are a lot of practitioners out there who are contributing to the Māori film and music industry.
"For me personally, I'm with TVNZ, and my colleagues around me are working in mainstream broadcasting as well, and even those corporate monopoly companies have realised that we have a regional capability."
Local Government should be employing more Whanganui contractors, Keating said, as opposed to bringing in designers and engineers from other centres.
"It's kind of like getting your neighbour to come over and paint your house, even though you have to live in it."
Glass artist Katie Brown, who opened Brown and Co on the corner of Ridgway St and Drews Ave last March, said having the only glass school in New Zealand was a "major" for Whanganui.
She has been heavily involved in glass work in the city since setting up her studio in 2004.
"I went through the Polytechnic days, and a lot of those people have stayed on," Brown said.
"That brings colour and culture into a city, and I don't think you can put a value on that."
This year's Artist Open Studios, the 21st edition, was an example of a local art event growing with the help of "word of mouth", Brown said.
"You know they'll go away and tell 10-20 people, that's how it goes."
Michael Franklin-Brown will be behind the drum kit for Pluto at this weekend's Whanganui Walls music festival.
Like Du Chatenier, he said the support for local artists is something that sets Whanganui apart from other centres.
"Growing up, there was a really strong brass band at Boys' College, and there is still strong brass in Whanganui," Franklin-Browne said.
"You realise that these things don't happen by accident. There are people that do it for the community, and they organise things.
"For whatever instrument you've chosen - mine just happened to be drums - there are playing opportunities."
Franklin-Browne moved back to Whanganui from Auckland in 2013, and said he was "so overjoyed" with the way the Whanganui Musicians Club had been set up, and how it encouraged young artists to "get up and perform".
"Older musicians seem to be encouraging of younger musicians here, and that's not always the case in other places."
Bill Milbank, former director of the Sarjeant Gallery and now curator of Milbank Gallery on Bell St, said Whanganui's artistic community began to take shape in the early 1900s.
"There was quite a lot of wealth here, and the decision was made to build the Sarjeant Gallery, which as an absolutely unique building in New Zealand terms," Milbank said.
"When I started at the Sarjeant in 1975, you could have counted the professional artists on one hand, people who had a profile beyond this community.
"The programmes that we ran, and the establishment of the polytechnic, drove a very strong and individualistic growth of people coming."
Glen Hayward moved to Whanganui from Hokianga six years ago, and he said one of the great things about the artists here was their willingness to be part of a community.
"There's a massive collection of ideas, which I guess is what I was looking for when I moved here," Hayward said.
Another fairly recent arrival to the city is Brydee Rood, who, like Franklin-Browne, made the move from Auckland to Whanganui in the past few years.
She is currently working on her first permanent public art installation, entitled A Future Canopy, which will be unveiled in Whanganui this year.
"I had a family history and connection here that I wanted to explore, and I came down in 2016 to do work with the Sarjeant on the Whanganui River," Rood said.
"I was looking for a place to settle and find my first home, so that was one of the factors as well. I looked at a number of other smaller towns that had a similar price bracket, but they didn't have the river, those old [family] roots, and the creative community.
"Whanganui seemed to be more vibrant.
"This place does feel like my home now, and i do feel like I'm settling in."
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