Artful expo a very visual treat

It’s brought art to the city for 10 years and this year, the Manawatu Art Expo is bigger than ever, Carly Thomas discovers.

It may have started off as a solitary act – a single brush on canvas, pencil on paper or the spark of an idea – but it has blossomed into a room full of art that will have many eyes on it this weekend.

The Manawatu Art Expo is in its 10th year, a three-day event featuring 94 artists, 29 of those local. It’s a hustle and bustle of affordable art from every genre, bringing together a wide range of artists under one roof.

Started by Melissa Haywood, the event is the Feilding and District Art Society’s biggest fundraiser. It got it into a new art centre and has become a showcase for new and emerging artists to show off their hard work.

It took a heap of work to get it going. The society needed a lot of money to get out of their old digs and so some big thinking had to happen. Modelled on Wellington’s Affordable Art Show, the first hurdle was to figure out how on earth they were going to display all of the art. A hundred screens were made in that first year and Allen Gamble says many, many more have been made over the years – ‘‘enough to fill a big truck’’.

His wife Gael Gamble says: ‘‘Melissa was amazing in those first years. She was an absolute ball of fire. She wore us all out’’.

The Gambles will both be selling their work at the expo this year – Gael, her pastels, and Allen, his watercolours. They have a home studio and gallery, high up on a hill behind Feilding, and art is a passion they both say they wouldn’t be without.

‘‘We love it,’’ says Gael. ‘‘I was the sort of kid that always drew. All my exercise books at school had sketches down the margins and Allen was always good at art.’’

For them, being part of the expo is also about being part of an arts community they have worked hard to maintain over the years. Many of the people integral to getting the first expo off the ground are also still very much involved – Vonnie Sterritt, Judy Johnstone and Lois Price will all be showing their works.

‘‘It is a great time for us to all get together,’’ says Gael.

Great too, although a little daunting, for emerging artists like Hem Woollaston. She, too, paints from home, in her huge light-filled living room. She often takes over the family’s dining room table with works that are in ‘‘progress’’.

‘‘My paintings join the family for a while to sit until I figure which way to go.’’

Woollaston came to painting later in life. She had always loved art and made the decision to pursue it, taking classes from people like well-known Palmerston North artist and art

teacher Vonnie Sterritt.

‘‘I went to every art lesson that I could find and I have reached this point now that I think, for the first time in my life, I can put myself out there.’’

Woollaston is afraid, but brave too. She is a testimony to the fact that practise and perseverance can take you a long way.

Painting is driven by ‘‘passion’’, for her. ‘‘It’s something that I so enjoy. Picking up the brush is just the best thing’’.

Another artist who is happier painting in his living room is Palmerston North’s Paul Lyons. An established artist, he will be stepping in as guest artist for the first time, which, for him, means moving into a much more public domain than he is used to.

He will be giving demonstrations on how he paints his landscapes – an insight into the process he has developed through trial and error. Lyons pours paints using droppers, so he has more control of the colour, allowing him to avoid them getting ‘‘muddied and flat’’.