Whanganui’s Artists Open Studios coming back bigger than ever

Karen Taylor is one of the artists who's taking part in Artists Open Studios. Photo / Bevan Conley.

Whanganui Artists Open Studios returns this weekend with what could be a record number of artists involved.

This year’s event runs from March 25 to April 2 and will have artists across the region opening their doors to share their unique craft.

Event coordinator Charlie Meyerhoff said 91 studios and around 160 artists have registered.

She believed Whanganui was becoming the arts capital of the country due to it being cheaper to live here and artists moving here from major cities and being more able to pursue their craft.

“Which is why we have an amazing and eclectic mix of art in Artists Open Studios and the age range is just phenomenal,” Meyerhoff said.

She said the age of people exhibiting as part of the event ranged from 16 to around 90.

“It’s a really neat community as well, having the UCOL here, having Rick Rudd’s quartz museum, the glassworks... I don’t know if a lot of people realise how fortunate we are in the arts sector here,” she said.

One of the artists taking part this year was Karen Taylor.

This isn’t Taylor’s first year taking part in the event, as she worked upstairs at the Space art gallery last year.

“Through that I sort of thought, well, it’d be really great to be able to have an open studio all the time,” she said.

This year she’ll be taking part in Artists Open Studios from her own studio at 70 Guyton St.

Taylor said she’d been creating art for most of her life, with her drawing a lot as a child and getting into clay sculpting in the early 90s.

At the time she worked at a night school and in ceramics before taking an art course at a polytechnic in the mid-90s.

“Since that point, it’s been a part of my life as much as it could be,” she said.

She mainly works both in clay and paint today and described her work as abstract landscapes.

“My style of working is sort of intuitive so that means quite often I’ll have a vague idea in my mind when I start putting paint on and then I’ll kind of follow the paint in a way,” she said.

“Last year at Space quite a few people came through... and I did pretty well but Space has a reputation, now that I’m here I just don’t know how it will go,” she said.

She hoped to help put Guyton St on the local art map, and to get people interested in art to come up into town further than Drews Ave and Taupo Quay.

Meyerhoff said this year’s Open Studios would also see more benefits for locals and tourists who get involved in supporting the event.

“What we wanted to do this year that hasn’t been done before is really get local businesses behind the event,” she said.

To help with this, organisers collaborated with Mainstreet Whanganui to provide attendees discounts to local businesses over the two weeks.

Meyerhoff said anyone who buys a trail guide from the Starting Point exhibition at 19 Taupo Quay would also be given a lanyard which will allow them to get discounts at businesses.

She also said this year’s event has also had a long video marketing campaign, with artists taking part and taking over the event’s official Instagram page to promote their work and studios.