Local jeweller Frances Stachl and former Tylee Cottage artist-in-residence Annie Mackenzie named 2024 recipients of Dame Doreen’s Gift

Contemporary jeweller Frances Stachl says receiving the award was "intensely surprising".

Two artists with strong Whanganui connections will each receive a $10,000 “gift” from the Blumhardt Foundation.

The foundation was established by notable potter and arts advocate, the late Dame Doreen Blumhardt, to advance the craft/object sector. The foundation’s trustees present annual “gifts” to encourage an establishing artist and a mid-career artist “whose craft/object art practices are outstanding and have garnered the admiration and respect of peers, sector leaders and institutions”.

The 2024 recipients of Dame Doreen’s Gift are Whanganui contemporary jeweller Frances Stachl (Ngāpuhi) and contemporary weaver Annie Mackenzie, a former Tylee Cottage artist-in-residence who lives in Torea Granity in the South Island.

Foundation chairman Brian Wood said the trustees were thrilled to present the gifts to two dedicated practitioners.

“Annie Mackenzie was awarded the gift on the strength of her exhibition Genuine Article at the Sarjeant Gallery, which featured intricate new woven works inspired by the paintings of Edith Collier and Joanna Margaret Paul, and the Whanganui Woollen Mills. Annie is an active maker that shows commitment to the history of craft in Aotearoa.

“Frances Stachl was awarded the gift for dedication to her practice as a self-supporting working jeweller, which balances making with selling; her development as a maker, respect for material, acknowledging her heritage and being a great support to others in the sector.”

Stachl thanked the foundation for “this incredible, astonishing vote of confidence”.

“As a fairly reclusive mid-career jeweller who works in the provinces rather than the city, an award like this is intensely surprising,” she said.

“My work is what it is because of so many other ringatoi/ringarehe Māori who have gone before me, beside me and everyone who will come after. I would not be who I am as a maker or as a person without this whakapapa and whanaungatanga. I’d also like to acknowledge the hype gangs, online and off, Māori and Tangata Tiriti. And to my littlest irāmutu, aē, this gift will buy us a lot of aihikirīmi [icecream].”

Annie Mackenzie was awarded the gift on the strength of her exhibition Genuine Article at the Sarjeant Gallery.

Mackenzie said she was “quite blown away” by the gift.

“It is really tremendous for me, on all sorts of levels, to receive this outside affirmation of my work. It has woken me up and put the wind back in my sails.”

The artists have works in numerous public and private collections.