$200,000 needed to save gallery

A Northland art gallery is in danger of closing if another $200,000 can't be found for a new building.
The Quarry Arts Centre, in Selwyn Ave, Whangarei, needs  $300,000 to restore the Yvonne Rust Gallery, to meet the Building Act's safety requirements.
Art lovers have already stepped up to the plate. More than $3000 has been raised for the Quarry Arts Centre's cause by artists who sculpted, painted and transformed blank plates to be sold on the internet auction site TradeMe.
Quarry Arts Centre manager Claire Nicholls said the arts centre trust would need to pull the old building down to see what was behind the walls, to ensure it was up to the Act's standards.
"So we might as well have a new building, one which will be warmer and drier," she said.
"It will be the start of great things for the quarry."
The trust has already raised $100,000 through initiatives such as the GreatPlate auction and exhibition.
"We found out two years ago that eventually this would happen, so we just started slowly fundraising," she said.
"We've also been given grants for other things, like administration costs, which has enabled us to squirrel money away."
The arts centre opened 27 years ago, and the gallery not long after, but its days could soon be numbered if the money could not be found for a new gallery building.
It was named after renowned artist Yvonne Rust, who bought the abandoned Waldron's Quarry in the Western Hills of Whangarei - with help from the Department of Internal Affairs and the local council - in 1982.
She turned it into the Northland Craft Trust, to help emerging Northland artists, as well as promote the use of local and raw materials.
Ms Nicholls said one of the centre's goals was to help artists in Northland who seemed to "keep to themselves".
"I don't think people realise how much talent there is in Northland," she said.
"We want to get them out of the woodwork."
Lining the gallery's stone walls, plates pop out with mixed designs, including a Marilyn Monroe mosaic and a golden-yolked fried egg, as well as a sculpted Strawberries and Cream work by Ms Nicholls.
"We take people who may not be ready to approach dealer galleries, or maybe their work is not at a high enough quality," she said.
"It's just to give them experience really, a space to exhibit their work."
If the centre does not raise the required funds, the building will be used as a storeroom.
"There will [then] be no more exhibitions. We just won't be able to use it," she said.
"The public won't be allowed in - it will be wasted space."
But she has high hopes for the future, and is confident the rebuild will be completed next year.