Solo Exhibition Announcement: Artful Narratives

I am excited to be presenting this large collection of my sculptural artist's books and 3D objects, created over the past 5 years. Many have never been exhibited and the few that have, have not been exhibited widely.

Having the opportunity to exhibit these works collectively allows me to share an insight into my creative process and inspirations.

 

Opening event: Saturday 2nd October, 2 - 3.30pm.
All welcome!

 

Open daily
Angela Morton Room, Te Pātaka Toi Art Library,
Level 1 Takapuna Library.

 

 

Public programme

I will be presenting a series of artist's talks onsite throughout the exhibition allowing also the opportunity to see the books and structures being manipulated and to get a good look at the features hidden within.

I'll share specific dates and times of the events soon,
on my blog, social media and in coming newsletters,
so you can mark them in your calendar.

I hope you'll join me.

 

 

Auckland Heritage Festival

I'm delighted that Artful Narratives is included as one of the events of this annual festival. My artist's talks, during the festival, will focus on my inspiration and motivation to create the series of works based on the demise of the once mighty kahikatea forests of the region. 

 

 

Workshop

I will be teaching a workshop as part of the
Printopia - Festival of Original Prints in November.

The aim of the workshop is to introduce participants to ideas of creating folded structures and 3D work as an extension to their printmaking - taking print to new dimensions!

Details and how to book will be announced online very soon.

 

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"Unfolding Ideas" Workshop

"Unfolding Ideas" workshop - Toni Hartill. Photo: Jo Malherbe.

As part of my Waiprint guest artist gig back in July/August 2019 I was invited to teach a workshop. As my exhibition included one of my artist books I chose to focus my lesson plan on generating and inspiring ideas to create folded structures and artist books.

Artist books "Field Notes - Manawa" by Toni Hartill

The workshop was held on Saturday 7th September in Hamilton in the WSA basement studio of the Artspost building. We had a full house of 12 wonderful creative folk from a variety of backgrounds including printmakers, textile artists, ceramicists, an oil painter, a fairy box creator(!) and bookmakers (making me particularly  nervous as I am NOT a bookmaker - technically speaking.)

Artist Books by Toni Hartill Photo: Jo Malherbe

I began by showing a large selection of my own "books", sharing my inspirations and ways of working to connect an initial idea with the chosen structure in order to better communicate ideas.

Next, beginning with simple one-page structures and moving onto more complicated folded shapes and structures, everyone created a set of samplers to test ideas and to refer back to.You know you are among your "tribe" when you reveal, for example, how to fold an origami box or how to make an "explosion book" and everyone squeals and gets out their cameras!! Such a fun response!

Finally it was time for free-play and everyone worked on structures that resonated with personal ideas and themes and made use of materials they had brought along to upcycle/ reuse/ breathe new life into.

Many people also brought along examples of books and structures they had made in the past to share with others, contributing to the wonderful supportive atmosphere of the workshop.

It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to share my love of creative play and so inspiring seeing their ideas develop and sharing in their happy accidents, which is when the real magic happens!

Thanks to all who participated.

It was such fun meeting you all and inspiring to see your ideas developing!

Thanks especially to Janice Meadows for the invitation, 

and for all her work in making it happen.

Many thanks to Joanne Malherbe 

who has written up a review of the workshop for the 

October WSA Art Connections Newsletter, 2019.

She is very generous in her praise 

and I am completely humbled... 

and blushing.

Scroll to the end of the post to read Joanne's article.

To find out more about the 

Waikato Society of Arts, WSA, 

visit: 

http://www.wsa.org.nz/index.aspx 

Following the workshop I received many positive messages 

from participants who had so enjoyed the workshop 

and were excited about where their new ideas and skills 

were going to take them. 

What better reward can there be?!

See below for Joanne Malherbe's account of attending the workshop.

Thanks for visiting!