Featured Artist: Sarah Spence

What started as a life-long love of drawing and art flourished into a preoccupation with natural forms while living in the bush near Bethels Beach for Gisborne artist Sarah Spence.

Nikau palms and flaxes growing behind her home inspired her to create new forms inspired and dictated by nature, which eventually developed into award-winning vases and lamps embellished by woven flax and natural elements from the bush and beaches nearby.

Sarah had already learned the rudiments of flax weaving by watching a local resident while spending long summers camping with the family at Waipiro Bay on the East Coast and adapted these techniques to weaving large baskets fom supplejack vines harvested from the bush.

Returning to Gisborne she refined her techniques while studying for a National Certificate in weaving at Te Poho o Rawiri Marae  in Kaiti.

Combining these skills with her Nikau sculptural work she began exhibiting pieces in exhibitions around Gisborne, leading to awards such as the Emerald Hotel Xtreme Artwear competition, the Opotiki fibre and Fleece Exhibition and ultimately the award for sculpture in the WAX National Womens Art Exhibition.

Sarah’s work continues to evolve, inspired by her garden and the native bush of the East Coast and Urewera district.

She has just been commissioned to produce her first wedding dress, woven entirely from fine, hand-dyed flax, and continues making Nikau lamps,  vases and wall hangings aimed at using the effects of light and shade for sculptural effects with a strong Kiwiana flavour.