Auckland Felters Inaugural Exhibtion
I was surprised to discover this was the first group exhibition for Auckland Felters, this is such and active group full of very talented people it never occurred to me that I would be the first one crazy enough to suggest it.
For anyone thinking about getting a group of likeminded friends together and hiring a gallery space… Do it! This has been such a fun ride with the most wonderful group of people 🙂 It is quite a significant amount of work but with an enthusiastic group to spread the load it is perfectly achievable, even while working (more than) full time.
The first stage was to find out who might be interested and then get them together to decide on a title / theme for the exhibition. This we did over Zoom in July 2023. Armed with that information and some example photos of our work I set about applying to a gallery I know quite well from teaching in their workshop space. I am sure it also helped that the manager is a felt-maker too so was immediately supportive.
The title we settled on was – Resilience, the fibre that connects us. There was lots of brainstorming and different suggestions (I love working with creative people!) but in the end we agreed the title should be very flexible and open to interpretation in lots of different ways.
The next few months were pretty chilled as everyone worked on their pieces, just touching base at our Auckland Felters meetings on topics like different methods to hang or frame felt.
As the installation date approached, everyone became so quiet I started to worry only a couple of us would have something to hang and I would end up scratching around under the bed to find old pieces of work I could make fit the theme.
One month out from the installation and people started delivering their pieces and we began working on the advertising. Sarah Ritchie was incredible, preparing eye-catching posts for social media, a printed catalogue and posters for the gallery:
Advertising sorted, we turned our attention to making the opening event as enticing as we could, I’m sure we have all been to exhibition openings where there are drinks and nibbles, everyone wanders around chatting about the exhibits. All nice enough but I thought we could do better…
The gallery is conveniently located in a community centre, with the gallery, workshop area and a cafe on one side of a large atrium and the library on the other side. This is a great space for holding small indoor markets and attracts quite a lot of foot traffic, even before we turned up….
We had a selection of stalls selling felted goods, fibre and felting tools and equipment:
We offered four, have-a-go felting classes in the gallery’s workshop area, this is Lynn preparing for her felt beads class with me interrupting:
We had an amazing felting demo table, with members from Auckland Felters providing entertainment throughout our 4 hour event:
Daniel, Angela’s son, and honorary Auckland Felter, blessed us with live music, accompanied by his friend and teacher, Trish.
And of course there was the exhibition. We created an online catalogue with a description of each piece and the inspirations behind them, you can read it here.
If you are quick, you can still see all the wonderful pieces in person until 4pm on Monday 8th July. For everyone from further afield I videoed a short tour of the exhibition so you would not miss out. Enjoy!
One last thing…
My online classes are now open and accepting students until July 16th (if you are thinking about joining the concertina hat class I recommend registering ASAP if you need to buy / make a hat block so you are ready for the first felting tutorial on the 18th). Please click on each class for more information:
12 thoughts on “Auckland Felters Inaugural Exhibtion”
Well done everyone – such lovely work. So pleased you have melded into life ‘down under’ Teri, though we miss you here!
Thank you (not sure who this is from) but I am loving living in NZ! 🙂
Just goes to show what can be achieved through determination and group effort – well done 🙂
Wonder how many people were inspired to become felters after those lovely demos and trials?
And having such a supportive and active group makes it so much more pleasurable too. Funny you should ask how many new felters we inspired… someone (we haven’t been able to figure out who) put out a sheet asking if anyone would like to join a local felting group, more than 10 people completed that form but now we have a problem – our current Auckland Felters venue is already over-capacity and I am too busy setting up Felters Convergence next year to take on setting up a new group in the Pukekohe area so we are trying to find another option, like piggy-backing onto another fibre / spinning group. I am open to suggestions!
What stunning work (makes me want to fly back down Teri). It’s just fantastic that you had the ‘made’ notion to suggest an exhibition. I hope it is the first of many. Thank you for the tour and also for the ‘how to’ guide to organising this wonderful event.
Thank you Helene, I am keen to organise another one but not before 2026 – need to get the Southern Hemisphere Felters Convergence out of the way before I can think about taking on any other big projects! 🙂
Great to see the efforts of your group’s first exhibition. As above – many it be the start of more to come.
It looked to be a great venue and wonderful to have so many talents and skills available to enhance the public experience.
Thank you Antje, having so many talented felt-makers present for open day meant we could really lay on a fibre-feast!
Looks like a great event! It does take a lot of work but it seems it was well worth it for your group.
I spoke with the gallery manager while we were taking the exhibition down this morning and she said they received a lot of positive feedback and people were fascinated by what could be done with wool.
Looks like a great exhibit and a fantastic opening day. I know what a big job organizing an event can be. It sounds like you have a great group of felters to hang out with. I am sure you will find a way to incorporate the others.
Thanks Ann, yes the open event was definitely a group effort and not something I would have been able to achieve on my own. We are a great bunch and growing!!