Glass awards to thrill winners

ARTISTIC BEAUTY: Jimi Walsh with the exquisite new award for South Taranaki Youth to Work.

Exquisite new sculptured glass awards by award winning Waverley artists, Lisa and Jimi Walsh will thrill winners of the South Taranaki Youth to Work Awards this year.

The beautiful awards are Mayor Ross Dunlop's force For Jobs projects and are a celebration of young people and the employers and educators supporting them to achieve success.

South Taranaki District Council awards coordinator, Marcia Haigh, says the Awards, which are in their fourth year, needed an additional category with the Young Achievers section being split into two more comparable age groups.

"This meant an additional award had to be made and Lisa and Jimi Walsh from the Waverley Glass Studio offered to create new awards for all four categories at a much discounted rate. As the Youth to Work Awards are now established it made sense to have something that would last into the foreseeable future," she said.

Last year the talented couple expanded their Waverley Glass Studio in a transformed derelict building to a twin outlet called The Candle Studio, right next door.

Though she has been an artist for many years, Lisa came to glass late.

She and Jimi were sculptors originally until they decided to move to Wanganui five years ago to do their arts degrees.

The creative couple are now an integral part of the diversity in the annual Whanganui Artists Open Studios.

Lisa's move to the world of glass has been an extraordinarily successful one. She has already won two major art awards. Her piece Across the Lines won the Australasian Ranamok award. Constructed with hundreds of coloured glass pegs, the work was a retelling of a story about life during WWI.

Moving to Waverley was inspired, she said.

The closing date for the Youth to Work nominations is Sunday 4 September and a celebration event will be held at the TSB Hub on Wednesday 2 November.

For more information about the categories and to nominate online visit www.southtaranaki.com/Work/Youth-to-Work-Awards or collect an application form from any South Taranaki LibraryPlus or the Council Administration Building in Hawera.