Senior high school art students attended the recent Big Art Day Out conference held at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery.
The recent Big Art Day Out conference at Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery opened a range of creative pathways for 44 senior art students and their teachers from four Whanganui secondary schools.
The conference is an annual event, free to participants.
Students from Cullinane College, Whanganui High School, Whanganui Collegiate School and Whanganui Girls’ College attended morning presentations by four well-known New Zealand artists: Jade Townsend (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi), whose exhibition of paintings From the Lion’s Mouth shows at Te Whare o Rehua until June 14, 2026; kōwhaiwhai practitioner Maihi Potaka-Butler (Ngāti Hauiti, Ngāti Manawa, Te Ātihaunui-ā-Pāpārangi); local photographer Tia Ranginui (Ngāti Hine Oneone); and local photographer, sculptor and writer Andrea Gardner.
After the presentations, the artists led workshops during which students, teachers, and artists created work, from the symbolic symmetries of kōwhaiwhai patterns, dress-ups and props for photographic staging, and translucent, vividly coloured painted washes and brush-worked designs.
The student response throughout the day indicated their enjoyment and appreciation of this opportunity to learn about career pathways for artists and to create work alongside their mentors.
Vanessa Edwards-Buerger, Sarjeant Gallery educator and former secondary school art teacher, organised the conference, based loosely on the Palmerston North conference “Untitled”.
She said the gallery’s state-of-the-art extension, Te Pātaka o Tā Te Atawhai Archie John Taiaroa, allows the education team of herself and co-educator Sietske Jansma to meet their goals around strengthening relationships with the gallery’s secondary schools, exhibiting student work and holding developmental workshops such as the Big Art Day Out conference.
“We’ve got great relationships with our primary school audience. When I came on board a few years ago, because of my connections with secondary schools, it was my goal to build and strengthen those relationships,” she said.
“I also wanted to shine a light on the importance of creativity and the creative industries.
“It’s good for [the students] to hear the different stories and the different ways that artists apply their skills – creating a successful and manageable life with families, babies, businesses, relationships, teaching, making art, curating, writing. They all come from different places, and they all express their creativity in different ways.”
Art teachers are an important link between the gallery and the students.
Whanganui High School art teacher Glen Hutchins said the conference was an excellent way for students, teachers and gallery staff to make connections.
“I think it’s great what the gallery is doing. What we find these days is that students have really busy lives,” he said.
“They’ve got so much going on, it’s really important to give them the opportunity to come into the physical space of this beautiful building, to take some time to see the gallery, to make those connections, to see what other artists do and the different materials they use.
“It’s also beneficial for us teachers to get outside of school and see what’s going on.”
Three students from Cullinane College, on their lunch break, were looking forward to Andrea Gardner’s staged photography workshop.
They all enjoyed the chance to be at the gallery, learning from the artists whose work they admire.
“Being at the Sarjeant is so cool, seeing a space that’s so well set out for us to access, also seeing a wide range of different artworks and being able to explore that at our own pace,” Kereama Allen said.
Payton Time was inspired by the ways different artists express themselves.
“It enables me in class to broaden my perspective on what to do with my workbook and what to bring into my [artwork]. I’d say how in-depth they are and that they’re letting us go hands-on to experience it ourselves.”
Jessica McGuinn, who enjoys nature photography, was keen to try something different in Gardner’s workshop.
“It’s been a pretty chill [day]. It’s good to see all the different artworks and the different styles of art that each artist has. [Andrea’s] artworks seem cool. They’re definitely creative.”
Artist Jade Townsend was born and raised in Whanganui. She remembered how inspired she was as a child by school visits to the Sarjeant Gallery.
“It’s really cool just to come back and see if you can spark any interest in teenagers. It’s not a generation that I have much connection to normally, but they’re definitely an audience that I care about. I really want them to connect with my practice.
“There’s no shortcuts in a career in the arts, but there are definitely motivating things that you can say, little tips and things that you learn along the way that you wish someone had told you when you were younger.
“So it’s an amazing opportunity. And just to hang out with other artists and add another aspect to your practice. You don’t get to do this every day.”
Townsend owns and runs Season, an art gallery in Auckland where she lives.
She also writes and does curatorial projects as well as her painting, which, as mum to two children, she does once they’re in bed.
Maihi Potaka-Butler remembers what it was like being a student, “trying to find my way, trying to find my passion”.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do after high school, [but] I did like drawing in class. So I showed the head of school of Massey University my portfolio that I had done over the summer, and he said, ‘Yep, you’re in.’”
His career “snowballed” after gaining a master’s in Māori Visual Arts at Massey University.
He has worked in the field of packaging, innovating designs to export fruit, and is now a fulltime artist doing commissions for organisations such as the hospital and police station, and at present, working on the Napier Civic Precinct in the new council chambers.
“It’s also good being with fellow artists [at the conference], hearing their thoughts and experiences and how different their upbringing was or similar to mine. Being in the same space with like-minded creative people is always a good thing”.