The link between local musi­cians and the “fine arts” is stronger than you may sus­pect and goes back sev­er­al decades in this town.  Often, through neces­si­ty, DIY musi­cians need to head into new ter­ri­to­ries to pro­duce their own art­work, as they lack the funds to out­source design work. The result­ing art­work, e.g. CD art­work and posters, is a genre in its own right.

Until its recent clo­sure, Christo­pher Moore gallery seemed to have rep­re­sen­ta­tion for every­one from Alis­tair Gal­braith to Stu­art Porter; the adja­cent Bowen Gal­leries still occa­sion­al­ly shows work by Kim Pieters and Susan Bal­lard from down south.  Oth­er col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts had the famous Welling­ton Media Col­lec­tive design­ing and pro­duc­ing posters for the Braille Records crew.

Now DAF106 gallery on Aro Street is run­ning a show of musi­cian self-por­traits.  EGO, The Musi­cian as Artist delib­er­ate­ly explores the way cre­ative peo­ple express them­selves through dif­fer­ent art forms.  EGO will draw togeth­er a host of local and nation­al musi­cians, who are also visu­al artists, as they lay their souls bare and present a self-por­trait in their cho­sen medi­um.

Self-por­traits cause the artists to think lat­er­al­ly about their work and the dif­fer­ence between per­for­mance and visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the self.  Sub­mis­sions may include paint­ing, graph­ic art, mul­ti-media, pho­tog­ra­phy and sculp­ture. Size restric­tions will apply so as to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of var­i­ous egos bat­tling for space.

The new Phoenix Foun­da­tion video, direct­ed and star­ring Acad­e­my Award®-nominated direc­tor Tai­ka Wait­i­ti is a wee gem, fol­low­ing our ener­getic pro­tag­o­nist in a one-shot piece of film­ing that takes him around the west­ern coast­line of Lyall Bay.

So you can’t sleep right?  If the Fringe fes­ti­val has left you all over stim­u­lat­ed and you are in need of night time nov­el­ty may I sug­gest that you head to the Wat­sui tonight for the start of a fre­net­ic 24 hour art gum­ball ral­ly around Welling­ton.  Welsh artist Bed­wyr Williams is going to give us his spin on the ONE DAY SCULPTURE series by tak­ing a used sta­tion wag­on around 24 loca­tions in 24 hours, aim­ing to stack up 24 works on the roof rack by  mid­night tomor­row.

Planned itin­er­ary after the jump

Down­stage opens its doors for the first time this sum­mer with three new shows open­ing in less than a week!

This time last year Tim Spite’s SEEyD Com­pa­ny thrilled audi­ences with the paua poach­ing action adven­ture Paua (net­ting Spite the Chap­man Tripp Direc­tor of the Year Award in the process). Now they’re back with a re-work­ing of ear­li­er suc­cess Tur­bine, which blew peo­ple away at BATS in 2006: An envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious fam­i­ly have their prin­ci­ples test­ed when a pow­er com­pa­ny wants to build a wind farm in their ‘back yard’.

Tur­bine opens offi­cial­ly on Fri­day but ear­ly birds (or the price sen­si­tive) can see pre­views on Wednes­day or Thurs­day night for only $20.

Per­cus­sion-mon­sters Strike are back for one night only on Sun­day, play­ing favourites and show­cas­ing tracks from their forth­com­ing CD. Guests Lisa Tom­lins (The Eggs) and Mana (Rhom­bus) col­lab­o­rate and DJ Samu adds breaks. Strike Soundsys­tem is on Sun­day at 8.00pm.

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.