Glass and silk garment a winner with WOW crowds
Two Nelson sisters have taken out the People’s Choice Award and a prize of $2500 for this year’s World of WearableArt competition.
Lauren and Frances Kidd’s creation, Te Ao Mārama, was voted the winner by thousands of people who attended this year’s competition. The garment had also placed third in the Aotearoa section.
Frances and Lauren, (Ngāti Toa Rangatira) two of four Kidd sisters, grew up in Christchurch with a Portuguese dad and a Māori mum.
Before becoming an art teacher, Lauren was an art contractor for film and television where she made sets and props for movies such as Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
After retraining as a secondary school teacher she was offered a job at Motueka High School in the art department 13 years ago.
Her sister Frances was also a teacher, at Māpua Primary School
Lauren said it took them six months – “from conception to completion” – to realise the piece, saying the creative process had been cathartic.
“There were hundreds of hours of trialling and testing all the components and there were numerous failures,” she said.
Frances was the ideas woman with thousands of buzzing concepts arising every day, while she was the practical-maker-person of the two, Lauren said.
They were inspired by their dad, Maurice Kidd, who used to work in theatre as a scenic painter.
“When we were tiny, he was starting out as an artist and made stained glass. And so as kids we remember every weekend we would be at the Arts Centre in Christchurch.”
Their father would sell his stained glass at a regular craft market held at the centre.
He trained Frances in creating stained glass just six months before he died in 2021 and some of his glass was incorporated in the prize-winning garment.
The panels in the colourful skirt have pūkeko, kākā and kererū designs and are made of painted silk to look like stained glass.
“All the rest of it is made of lighting wire, so every other part of it actually from lampshade cords.”
The g garment’s name came from Māori legend.
“Te Ao Mārama means bring forth light and life to the world from darkness,” Lauren said.
Lauren said when she received an email from Mollie Gardiner, who had modelled their piece at WOW, congratulating and thanking her, she almost cried.
“A beautiful Māori wahine, I just have to say that if it wasn’t for her, with her mana and her wairua and her spirit coming out of that garment, I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful.”
Despite juggling work and children the sisters are keen to enter the competition again and already have separate ideas for next year’s show.
“Within two days, we both had separate ideas designed for next year’s show,” she said.
By Frederico Magrin, Nelson Mail
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