Celebrating creative practice
There’s a former dairy factory in Piopio, foot-stomping cold on late winter mornings. A repurposed barn set high on a hill overlooking the sprawling Hauraki plains and beyond. There’s a studio space, modestly tucked inside the commercial hustle and bustle of a Te Awamutu strip mall.
These examples are just a few of the physical spaces being utilised for creative practice each and every day around the Waikato region, stretching from the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula on the East Coast, down and across to the township of Mokau on the West Coast.
And with so many wonderful artists and creatives working throughout our region, engaging with their local communities, supporting both individuals and groups to be creatively expressive, it’s important to find avenues for celebrating some of these contributions.
The Creativity Lives in Waikato initiative is one such showcase, with the Creative Waikato team visiting 41 artists in their respective working environments. The aim is to highlight ongoing artistic practice, and to understand what makes them tick as creative practitioners.
Each of the creatives generously welcomed us into their unique space, giving us a glimpse into where they create, how they create, and some of the motivation behind why they create. Their experiences, like their art, are rich and varied, with influence and inspiration drawn from people, place, and culture. And as the conversations continued, two common ideas surfaced over and over again.
The first is that the process of being creative is a crucial part of their wellbeing maintenance, offering a positive focal point and life balance. Interestingly, here the concept of creativity is broadly applied and does not need to be confined to the individual’s specific art form but is relatable to all kinds of activities such as cooking or gardening.
The second is around the activation of play, and the importance of embracing playfulness and curiosity on a regular basis. Making time, even in small doses, to engage in play without expectation or parameters can be a glorious, freeing experience.
These conversations reinforce the value of enacting creativity, and play, on a consistent basis to fuel experimentation and exploration of new ideas. And it is a timely reminder, while celebrating the participating artists across a broad collection of locations, living in towns dotted throughout Waikato, that we would all be well-served to build some form of creative practice into our own lives.
You can learn more about the featured artists in Creativity Lives in Waikato by following this link:
Written by: Scott Granville, Creative Waikato team member