15 Year Celebration Programme

To Find Out More

Arts Council Nelson are very proud to have presented Changing Threads Contemporary Fibre Textile Art Award along with its founder, our fabulous Creative Director Ronnie Martin, for the last 15 years. We wish to thank the selectors, judges and sponsors past and present along with the talented textile and Fibre artists throughout Aotearoa that continue to raise the calibre of the event year upon year. The event has now become one of  the most prestigious of its type in NZ, with increasing visitor numbers each year. As we approach this milestone it is a good time to reflect on our journey so far.  Thus we have put together a programme that celebrates the traditions from which our talented and innovative artists draw upon when submitting their work, which is often conceptual, experimental or surprising. That pushes the limits of the materiality of the medium. 

Finalists 2024.

Arts Council Nelson would like to congratulate this years finalists. The final showcase will feature forty nine works from forty two artists and we are very much looking forward to presenting such a strong show. 

Sarah Arnold 
Janet Bathgate
Helen Beaven
Esther Bunning
Kara Burrowes
Stephanie Campbell
David Carson
Makyla Curtis
Samara Davis
Patricia Fung
Min-Young Her
Sue Heydon
Rowan Giselle Holt
Maggy J
Kim Lawrence
Judith Lofley
Lisa Matthys
Michelle Mayn
Abby McCall
Pam McKinlay
Adele McNutt

Marina McPherson
Frankie Meaden
Alysn Clare Midgelow-Marsden
Birgit Moffatt
Giles Panting
Catherine Parkinson
Susie  Pascoe
George Peter
Rachel Ratten
Sarah Read
Sarah Ritchie
Christopher Sandoval
Kate Sellar
Deb Shepherd
Yvette Slabbert
Tracey Sullivan
Torrington Sian
Briar van Dort
Robyn Walton
Lettecia Williams
Fleur Woods

And the Winner is... 

Supreme Award $4000 cash prize sponsored by Arts Council Nelson

Makyla  Curtis
Auckland | Tāmaki Makaurau             
a whole story in the eye of the sea

silk, cotton, bookboard,         
390 x 220 mm (closed)           
nature printing, letterpress printing, bookbinding     
 The cotton-silk pages of a whole story in the eye of the sea create a misty layering that allows a reader to see through past pages and into future pages. Printed with sliced collected driftwood from the shore of Hamilton’s Gap on the Awhitu peninsula, the book and its central poetic text speaks to a simultaneous presence of my family’s home here in Aotearoa with our ancestral home in Scotland.

Makyla Curtis is a printmaker and poet who enjoys printing with the versatility and flexibility of fabric. Her nature printing practice works towards a connection with the landscape and an understanding of the history of Aotearoa, including her own family’s complicity in some of that history. She holds a Master of Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology, and a Master of Arts in English from the University of Auckland.

Bernina Prize for most creative use of a sewing machine - a cash prize of $2000 sponsored by Bernina NZ

Janet Bathgate
Whakatū | Nelson
01, 04, 05 under the microscope    
 
Cotton thread on paper          
 approx. 2200 x 1350 mm       
 Sewing machine on paper                                                                                                     
 
The title numbers are the three stitch patterns on my sewing machine used to draw directly onto paper, with no pre-planning to allow the stitch to drive shape and form and the work to evolve freely within the tension between handcraft and technology.
 
The work was prompted by an article about viruses - those ancient, microbial fragments of genetic code essential to evolution and life. Without them, the planet as we know it would cease to exist. One of the many fine threads of balance in the continuum of life on Earth.
 

Award of Excellence - a cash prize of $1000 sponsored by Harcourts Nelson Richmond

Birgit Moffatt  
Ōtaki          
Reaching Out (triptych)      

muka, rocks        
200 x 200 x 150 mm    
natural dyes, whatu and coiling                                          
The essence of Reaching Out is my passion for materiality and my ongoing fascination with the process of transformation of harakeke. Muka (the fibre of the harakeke plant) is my material of choice for this series of small sculptures because of its tactile beauty and formability.
 I am immersed in a labour intensive and repetitive creative process. Each strand is unique and has been individually extracted in a traditional way, washed, twisted (miro), naturally dyed and then shaped into its final form by using basketry techniques. They act as an architectural component which, when combined shape the sculptures.

Award of Excellence - a cash prize of $1000 sponsored by Dame Suzie Moncrieff and NZ Textile experiences

Tracey  Sullivan  
Waiheke Island        
Cloud Stories    

Salvaged atlas pages, acrylic paint, embroidery thread    
270 x 390 mm unframed, 440 x 624 mm framed    
hand-stitched and overpainted salvaged vintage atlas page                                    “

Tracey Sullivan is an artist, poet and creative educator living and working on Waiheke Island. 

The text is from a longer poem, “that, if I then waked after a long sleep” which explores themes of longing and belonging, homecoming and identity. 

The image plays with the various meanings and connotations around ‘cloud’ (meteorological, Aotearoa, digital/virtual), ‘thread’ (lines on maps - flight paths, latitude and longtitude, navigation, connections), and the importance of place. 

The work as a whole seeks to create something worthwhile from devalued items (the salvaged atlas pages) and actions (hand-stitching/mending, and more broadly ‘home-making’/’women’s work.’ Culturally, we like to think we have moved on from these attitudes, however, this is not the experience of many), invisibility (overpainted pages) and a context of difficult personal circumstances. 

You can still have your say. The People's Choice Award
​sponsored by Benjamin Black and MMP will be drawn 17th June. 

​Changing Threads wouldn't of course happen without the help of our generous sponsors...

We welcome two new partners this year Harcourts Nelson Tasman and NZ Textile Experiences

Harcourts Nelson Tasman  sponsoring an Award of Excellence $1000.
NZ Textile Experiences who along with Dame Suzie Moncrieff who has been with us since the Awards inception are together sponsoring an Award of Excellence $1000.

Bernina NZ who's ongoing support has helped us to this milestone celebration rewardeding artists that blaze the trail with exceptional and innovative practice with their prize for works produced with a sewing machine.  $2000

We gratefully acknowledge Nelson City Council and Nelson Tasman for their continued investment over the years. 
Arts Council Nelson are proud to award the Supreme Award Winner a cash prize of $4000.

Benjamin Black Goldsmiths returns this year sponsoring the People's Choice Award with a fabulous creation for the winning artist

Thank you to all of the artists that submitted work this year. It was a particularly strong year with 180 entries received. Our selectors had a tough time and deliberations were robust and lengthy. We hope that even if you were unsuccessful this year that we will continue to see such quality work in the future and that you can come along to the show.

The awards will be presented at the opening event. All entrants are welcome to attend and we especially encourage all finalists to be present.
​
Changing Threads Contemporary Fibre Textile Award Exhibition will be on display at Refinery ArtSpace Nelson for four weeks.
​17th May - 15 June 2024

Introducing our Judges for 2024

Barbara Speedy 

​Based in Marlborough, Barbara Speedy is a gallerist, writer and former journalist/editor, running The Diversion Gallery for more than 24 years. Born in Napier, she previously worked in newspapers and for national business and lifestyle magazines, including a series on artists in their own homes and studios. This included a feature on early fibre artist Peg Moorhouse who with Barbara’s aunt was a founder of the Professional Weavers Network.
 
In 1999 Barbara established The Diversion Gallery, exhibiting prominent contemporary New Zealand artists. The gallery on the Picton waterfront has built a national reputation for its exhibitions of paintings, sculpture and printmaking by prominent artists, alongside emerging artists with a distinctive voice. 
 
Barbara has been closely involved with books on New Zealand artists, as Editor of the major 300-page art monograph Graham Bennett, Around Every Circle, (Ron Sang) in 2020; also working on JS Parker – Plain Song by Damian Skinner, and as a key contributor to Don Binney – Flight Path by Gregory O’Brien (Auckland University Press, October 2023),

---

Bailee is a queer, disabled artist born in Whanganui, Aotearoa, 1989 . She graduated from the University of New South Wales – Art and Design in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Honours. She is a founding member of the performance collective Show Us Your Teeth and served on the committee of the Sydney based ARI AIRspace Projects. In 2018 she co-curated In Motion; a festival and three-week exhibition that incorporated video, kinetic sculpture, performance, and sound based work. Her work Restful Heart was selected as the Supreme Award Winner in Changing Threads Contemporary Textile and Fibre Art Awards, 2021. Bailee works with video, electronics, textiles and light to create immersive installation and performance work.
​
Bailee currently lives and works in Te Whanganui-A-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand), where she practices from her home studio.

Bailee Lobb

---

Our Selectors...

Jo Kinross

Jo Kinross is a contemporary fibre artist from Melbourne who is currently living and working in Nelson  NZ.
Contemporary natural dyeing is a focal point of her work.  In 2014 she started to work almost exclusively with organic indigo on natural fibres.  Working with natural dyes, botanical inks and graphite on paper has since become the main vehicle for Jo’s creative expression.  She is also committed to arts education and community development. Jo has been involved with Changing Threads since 2010, first as an exhibitor and from 2013 to the present as a Selector.

Lianne Edwards

Lianne Edwards’ art practice focusses on exploring our relationship with the natural world. 
Environmental concerns have been foremost in her work, with a recent focus on the key issues facing the marine environment.  
 Drawing on her background in ecology and conservation she melds art and science to create intricate works from an eclectic collection of materials including postage stamps, fibre and textiles, waste products and science data.
Her work is held in the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wallace Arts Trust and other private and public collections.

Ronnie Martin

Ronnie Martin is an award-winning textile and mixed media artist that has exhibited widely in national and international exhibitions. She has received a number of awards for mixed media, creative textiles and painting.
 A guest judge for many Quilting, Embroidery and Creative Fibre exhibitions Ronnie has been the Creative Director for Changing Thread Awards show for Contemporary Fibres and textiles since its inception

T's & C's