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.