St Kevin's Arcade Celebrates First Thursdays 1960's Edition

Click here for a snapshot of all the fun and festivity delivered at First Thursday's 1960's Edition recently.

There’s a Revolution Going on In Inner City K’ Road

Bouffant beehives, billowing bellbottoms and echoes of the strains of Woodstock – it’s all coming to K’ Road on 1 May as the street celebrates its late night art event First Thursdays – the 1960’s Edition.  Reflections of all the colour and revolutionary attitude of this swinging decade will be reverberating throughout the more than 30 events planned to take place across 20-plus locations the length of Auckland’s famous strip.

“I’m looking forward to the public getting more involved this time, dressing up in ‘60’s vintage, having their hair back-combed, having a go-go lesson and dancing in Ironbank courtyard afterwards,” says organiser Laura Forest.

Now into its fifth year, First Thursdays attracts a crowd of around 8,000 people – a crowd Laura hopes will join with retailers, café owners, performers and musicians in recreating the spirit of an era close to K’ Road’s own revolutionary heart.

Participants willing to embrace the theme will be ably assisted in this endeavour by a team of vintage specialists in St Kevin’s Arcade offering free beehive hairdos and flower power face painting, while a best-dressed competition will see one 1960’s pretender walk away with a $100 voucher to spend at arcade old-timer Vixen Vintage.

The NZ Film Archive will be reminiscing with showings of footage of outdoor festivals from the period while an East St marketing company will make an outside 1960’s lounge available for cinema viewings.  

A Flashback Walkway will feature at La Gonda Arcade where life-size cardboard cut-outs will depict key characters and events of the day and, at the top of Queen St, Maori Stylez will host a Maori/1960’s fashion parade in-house.

Cross St Arcade at 214 K’ Road will undergo its usual transformation into a bustling art and craft market and the opportunity to have New Zealand-made 1960’s couture photographed for posterity at 179 K’ Road will be on offer from the New Zealand Fashion Museum and Kingsize Studios. 

Keep an eye out for roving go-go dancer Miss La Vida, have your dress-up get-up painted by street portrait artists for $10 and dance the night away to the sounds of soul and R & B emanating from 50-year-old vinyl at Verona.

It’s an “appropriately broad” theme, says Laura.  “Even within the ‘60’s you can approach it from so many different angles, which means we’re not confining people to any one thing.”  But, dress choices aside, the thing which gives her the most pleasure as this celebration of all things art unfolds, “is simply walking around on the night watching people having so much fun.”

What:             First Thursdays

Where:           Karangahape Rd

When:           Thursday 1 May 2014

Time:             6-9pm

Website:       www.firstthursdays.co.nz

K’ Road Art Trail Expands

Image: Laura Forest

The vibrancy and colour of K’ Road’s outdoor art offering is about to increase as the precinct gears up for its second All Fresco festival.  The twelve large-scale artworks which were realised at last year’s three-day street art event, sponsored by K’ Road Business Association, are about to be augmented with nine new works over the weekend beginning Friday 2 May.  “It was always the plan to do another one and make it an ongoing event,” says curator Ross Liew.

Nine artists from areas across Auckland, Tauranga and Wellington will be gathering on K’ Road to execute their visual interpretations of this much-loved street.  And while each will bring their individual style to their work, they will all be encouraged to consider the history and stories behind their allocated walls in their creative efforts.  “We want them to respond to the area and address some of the things which are specific to this community,” says Ross.

The proven skill and experience of artists has been a big factor in selecting participants, he says, “because it’s not particularly easy working large scale and outside.  If you look at the first All Fresco, it rained for the full three days and, if you haven’t dealt with that before, it’s probably not the best place to be dealing with it for the first time.”

Onlookers can expect to see work from artists such as Mt Maunganui’s Owen Dippie, a traditional portraiture-style outdoor artist, Auckland’s Tania Jade, (formerly Misery) known for her doe-eyed manga-inspired figures and Wellington’s BMD duo, who display a penchant for depicting large format animals, not always in one piece.   And the three-day timeframe they will be working to offers spectators a rare glimpse into the underlying process each employs.  

“There’s a bit of mystery in how large art is created and if you’re interested in the ‘how’ of an artist’s work method, All Fresco is like having an open studio,” says Ross.   He’s excited about seeing new walls added to what has now become K’ Road’s Street Art Tour circuit and, in particular, by the potential inclusion of the wall on the side of the reservoir on the corner of Ponsonby and K’ Roads because of its importance as a gateway from one neighbourhood to another.

But even as the K’ Road Street Art Tour expands with each new All Fresco, its curator is aware that street art is a temporary art form.  “We don’t consider any of these artworks to be permanent.  The lifespan of some might be a short as one year.  I think a really quite important part of the nature of this is that it’s temporary and it’s updated and it’s ongoing.  It’s really just about enhancing the environment and providing food for thought.”

All Fresco will kick off with an exhibition of participating artist’s studio-based work on Thursday night in conjunction with K’ Road’s late night art event First Thursdays.  Artists will then be ensconced at their designated sites in and around K’ Road from Friday 2^nd through to Sunday 4^th May.  For more information on wall locations and updates on events as they unfold visit www.allfresco.co.nz

First Thursdays 1960's Edition

K’ Road is gearing up for an invasion of 1960’s culture as it prepares for the first First Thursdays of the year.  The theme for the precinct’s signature art event, which will be held on 1 May 2014, is the 1960’s, which promises an infusion of all the colour and revolutionary attitude which epitomised this swinging decade, but with a 2014 twist.  Backcombed beehives, billowing bell-bottoms, psychedelic artwork and the strains of Woodstock, it’s all on the agenda K’Road-style as the street launches FirstThursdays 1960’s Edition.

Art and Craft with a Queer Twist

                                                  Sam Orchard with a sample of his 'transguy' art

‘Homo Sweet Homo’ emblazoned on cushions, rainbow-printed tea towels and etchings depicting Superman and Batman in love.  It’s not your average art and craft market fare, but Everything and Everyone, a mini art and craft market come zine festival, is not your average event.  Scheduled as part of the Auckland Pride Festival 2014 programme, Everything and Everyone aims to celebrate gender and sexuality, with stallholders and their wares representing the spectrum of Auckland’s ‘rainbow community’

Attendees can expect to see a mix of goods which would usually grace the tables of a Kraftbomb or Zinefest event including jewellery, leather products, household linen, cards, soaps, comics and zines (small self-published magazines) but with items reflecting the diverse sexuality and gender identity of their creators, says organiser Sam Orchard.

The personal comic strip he will be exhibiting for sale, for example, follows his four-year journey transitioning from a female to a male identity.  Adopting the medium of a comic strip to tell his story has enabled him to explore the lighter side of the experience of being gender different.  This is in contrast to how he believes mainstream media would have approached his story, with the emphasis there, he speculates, more likely to have been on the potentially devastating emotional effects of switching gender.

Rooster Tails, as his comic is titled, ‘is a place where I can explore what is actually the cool stuff about being queer and transgender.’  For instance, ‘the funniness of going out with someone where the world thought we were both girls together.  And we’re, like, no, actually we’re still gay but we’re boys together.’

His vision for Everything and Everyone is for it to be a focal point for expression of all the identities our community embodies and an opportunity to celebrate and embrace them without bias.  The event will run from 4-7pm in St Kevin’s Arcade on Saturday 15 February and will be followed by Mixtape Sessions – a live music event run by Romp Project also aimed at Auckland’s rainbow community.