Creativity and colour at wearable arts awards

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The annual iconic Waipu Museum Art n Tartan Wearable Art Awards are over for another year with an incredible array of talent viewed by full houses at all the showings.

Awards director, Helen Frances, and her team produced an exciting, colourful and thought provoking show. With 30 entries and the same number of masks from the children, there was a lot to see.

Each entry has to be at least 30 percent tartan. The Supreme Winner was Highland McTea by Chloe McLean who worked in blue pottery mosaic with a tartan midriff. Her outfit showed amazing detail – even the shoes were mosaic.

A new Janome sewing machine and the award for best use of fabric and sewing went to Meg Lyon with an amazing creation Pheno-kisto-cyclo-trope, which also gave her first place in The Engine Room category.

Meg started hand sewing her entry in February.

Winning the award for the best stage impact was the popular Hey Diddle Diddle by Tessa Paton, Olive Grant and Anna Worthington.

Sue Welford, who has entered the awards each year since its inception, won the Exquisite Craftsmanship award with her Ghost creation – an alluring gown of shells, net and seaweed.

Tartan is very much part of Waipu's heritage with a special category recognising Innovative Use of Tartan. The win-ner of this award was Jo Keith with her TuaMcTara, a ferocious lizard creation stitched together with individual scales from tartan fabric in blues and greys.

Other winners were Oustanding College Entrant The Harakeke Warrior by Zac Pereira (who also won the First Time Entrant Award); McKiwi River Maiden by Rachel Maxwell; Brave Heart Making a Bee Line by Sue Wellford; and Dress to Kilt Highland McTea which was also the Supreme Winner.

Children play a large part in the Art n Tartan competition, creating an extensive array of imaginative masks. Winner this year was The Troll King by Ruby Dickenson-Yeoman.

Main sponsors were Refining NZ, Webb Ross McNab Kilpatrick, Gil-more Brown, Christine Birss and Bayleys Real Estate, and Janome in association with Country Dawn Quilting.

The three judges put in hours of work pre-judging a couple of weeks before the event and then on the night.

Judges Annaliese Lee-wenberg, Jo Spring and Gael McKay donated their time and expertise, including many hours of pre-judging in the weeks leading up to the main event.