Day: 5 February 2009

Waitangi weekend Venn diagram

Crafty Waitangi

Can­’t wait till Craft2.0 in april to get your shop­ping groove on?

Well no wor­ries, becuase for those of you in Wel­ling­ton this is a week­end of crafty awe­som­ness…

First up on Wait­angi Day itself, why not head out to Pataka and cel­eb­rate Wait­angi Day and the Fest­iv­al of the Ele­ments with a spot of crafty shop­ping.

The Fest­iv­al of the Ele­ments is  being held at Te Rauparaha Park & Te Rauparaha Arena. The day starts with an  open­ing cere­mony at 11am, with a wide range of arts and enter­tain­ment pro­grammes con­tinu­ing through until 7pm.

The fest­iv­al uses the arts to cel­eb­rate the cul­tur­al diversity of Pori­rua, made pos­sible by the Treaty of Wait­angi.  The ele­ments of Earth and Air, Fire and Water embrace con­cepts of sig­ni­fic­ance to all cul­tures, con­cepts around which we can all unite.  Tangata When­ua and Tangata Tir­iti rejoice togeth­er on Wait­angi Day by way of the arts.

Pataka is once again host­ing a wide and won­der­ful range of qual­ity crafts includ­ing jew­ellery, baby­wear, clothes, beads, lamps, cush­ions and much much more! You’ll be guar­an­teed to find some­thing funky, cool, styl­ish that is made with ‘crafty’ lov­ing care. Everything at Craft­ing is craf­ted in NZ and it’s a great chance to meet the per­son who cre­ated whatever you buy.

On Sat­urday head over the hill to Mar­tin­bor­ough where the annu­al fair is being held. While some of Mar­tin­bor­ough Fair is very much focused on impor­ted stuff that might be cheap and break in a month, you’ll also find some really lovely and ori­gin­al hand­made cre­ations, many from lovely Craft2.0 crafters.

So have a fun week­end of crafts.

“Newtown – it’s a big ship”

New­town DIY darlings, zin­esters and the tini­est music ven­ue in town, Spaceth­ing, have launched their web­site. The site has pho­tos, an events cal­en­dar, DIY and zine‑y links and details of their retail, pub­lish­ing and music dis­tro busi­ness arms and of course the lend­ing lib­rary. And pan­das. And a free tet­ris game!

In a nice loc­al segue, the pic­ture to your right is taken at a Knife Fight single release held in Spaceth­ing’s teeny back room – with dan­cers in the alley­way – and the oth­er item I have to bring to your atten­tion is the Stabs play­ing at the Adelaide tonight. The Adelaide is, of course, across the road from Spaceth­ing; and tonight’s loc­al sup­port is none oth­er than Knife Fight, play­ing their second-to-last show before they leave town. The Stabs recently played Aus­trali­a’s inaug­ur­al All Tomor­row’s Parties (ATP) fest­ivals, at the invit­a­tion of cur­at­ors Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The Mel­bournite Stabs have brought their cityside pals The Twerps with them to play tonight’s gig too – and some of you might recog­nise a Twerp as one of our own ex-pats, formerly a Bat­rider. Small world. 

Spaceth­ing: 171 Adelaide Rd, New­town : spacething.co.nz

The Stabs, The Twerps and Knife Fight: 9pm Thursday 5th at the Adelaide, 114 Adelaide Rd, New­town