ITI Articles

The 2005 Affordable Art show was a huge success. Over 1000 artists sent in over 4500 works of art from all over New Zealand – from Bluff, to the Chatham Islands to Northland. Over 800 people attended the gala night and the art just flew off the walls – with the likes of Tana Umaga and Adrian Brody buying artworks. All in all, over three days, 1001 works of art were sold to the tune of about $475,000. As the New Zealand Affordable Art Trust is about supporting the New Zealand art community, 85% of this went back to the artists who sold work. A year’s dedicated work by the New Zealand Affordable Art’s Executive Director Carla Russell and the huge energy and dedication by a team of workers in the weeks and days before the show resulted in a spectacular event.

The Learning Connexion (TLC) was involved at every level – from the organisation of the show, to the curating and hanging, staffing, and final pack up of the show, not to mention the fact that over 130 of the artists were tutors, staff, students and ex-students. And in 2005 (as in 2004), TLC took over the whole foyer of the Events Centre for the duration of the show – from screens running the TLC preview video and slideshows of every aspect of creative life as a TLC student, to staff and students creating a range of work while the public looked on. John Lafferty supplied some of his impressive stone sculpture work and Catherine Hayes once again conducted a public class on portraiture that drew big crowds of interested spectators.

TLC also took part in a special New Zealand Affordable Art Show scholarship – Resene offered a $2500 scholarship towards fees at TLC, which was matched by TLC. Juliet Clout was announced as the winner on the radio on Monday morning following the show.