The Quarry – Famous New Zealand Arts Resource Centre

The Quarry Arts Centre based in Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand, was founded by Yvonne Rust, and is famous for its Summer Do.

Whangarei’s Arts Resource Centre since 1980

The Quarry Arts Centre in Whangarei was begun against all odds, during the economic recession of 1980, by Yvonne Rust, QSM. At the time, New Zealand was only just recovering from the 1975 recession, which had hit Northland particularly hard.

Yvonne Rust’s vision for an arts resource centre

Rust was one of New Zealand’s earliest secondary school arts teachers, part of the Beeby/Tovey education restructure in 1946 in  which Doreen Blumhardt was the first very successful trial arts teacher.

Rust was a fifth generation teacher in her family and two prior generations had been awarded the highest possible accolades for their teaching skills. Rust inherited these skills, and by dint of her childhood circumstances, was something of a revolution in the teaching profession, most particularly because the arts were new in schools and eyed very suspiciously in the day. She was a maverick and therefore positively impacted many arts students during her fifty year teaching career. Many of New Zealand’s well-known artists in a variety of disciplines came through her hands – to name a very few: ballet dancer – Sir Jon Trimmer, theatre director – Raymond Hawthorne, painters -Stephanie Sheehan, Jo Hardy, J.S. Parker, and  David Sarich, architect – Graeme  North, potters, John Madden, John Crawford, Ian Dalzell, Michael Trumic, and Jean Hastedt,  Arts Educator – Ted Bracey, jade sculptor – Ian Boustridge, and many more.

Appreciation of New Zealand’s raw materials

Frustrated by having been unable to fund a modern art school based on her own principles, Rust wanted a centre where people could learn to appreciate NZ’s raw materials and how they could be utilised to create well-crafted objects. She saw such a centre as key to enabling the recognition of craftspeople as a vital part of society, and as contributors to the economic, social, and cultural wellbeing of the country. At The Quarry experimentation could be fostered and workshops could share tools and machinery. Of prime importance was proximity to local raw materials, saving on freight while creating a unique product.

Rust was nationally well-known for her stance on the use of raw materials, speaking passionately on the subject at many conferences during the 70’s and 80’s. As far as she was concerned, New Zealanders weren’t yet poor enough because they couldn’t see the raw materials lying around them.

Fibres were inexpensive to harvest and were sustainable – flax, rushes, hairs, wool for spinning, weaving, and knitting. Bamboo and barks could be used to make paper. Possum, lamb, and calf skins could all be tanned for leather or fashion wear, as well as saddlery. Wood could be used for making toys and furniture.

Glass could be blown, stained, cut, etched, or painted. Jewellery could be produced. Pottery and glass containers could be made for chutney, sauces, pickles, fruit juice, honey, fruit leather, and ice-cream. Crucial to Rust’s concept was the belief that artists working in close proximity to one another would stimulate each other into cross-disciplinary fusion and the creation of entirely new concepts.

Each refinement of a raw material would require more people and so create more employment. The greater the number of people employed in producing an item, the longer the materials/resources would be preserved for future generations. Rust was appalled by the sale of unadulterated raw materials out of NZ, when NZ designers and artisans could refine them into desirable products which sophisticated international markets would clamour to buy.

 Building the Quarry Arts Centre

Rust frequented local cementworks, brickworks and glassworks scavenging for materials with which to build the Quarry. She collected waste cement for mud bricks, refractory bricks to build kilns, and used grinding media for the ball mill. She noticed felled gum trees in a gully near Kerikeri and salvaged them to support a roof, inserting a bottle of oil into the tops of each to drain through and preserve them.

Initially, the production of pottery clay provided an income for the Quarry. As the resource centre developed, leather tanning using natural tannins from bark, was added to the experimental facilities, then papermaking from local plant materials.

In January 1987 Yvonne, noted arts teacher and potter, initiated a new income stream for the Quarry.

 Internationally known Quarry Summer Arts School

Today known as the Summer Do, the first of these annual arts workshops/schools included tutors, Barry Brickell, Richard Parker, Paul Pritchard, Michael Smither, and Chris Booth. The modern Annual Summer Do runs for ten days every January and regular workshops with well-known artists and craftspeople from around the country continue year round. Visitors are welcome to observe artists at work, and to enjoy the beautiful grounds and art.

Inspirational arts environment

An important factor in the making of good art, from Yvonne Rust QSM’s perspective, was the necessity of working in an inspirational environment. The Quarry itself, approximately 150 metres from the gate to the back wall, has presence. A waterfall tumbles 20 metres down the rock face into a stream, before burbling away towards the town. When it rains, the waterfall becomes a deafening torrent, but on hot summer days, the clear pool surrounded by moss and ferns, is just deep enough to cool off in. Because the site has been chiselled out of a hill, it is deaf to traffic noise. Twenty-six bird varieties have been identified in the surrounding bush, and at night, Ruru’s ominous hunting call can be heard.

Yvonne Rust Gallery

In August 2011 the brand new Yvonne Rust Gallery, a replacement for a tumbledown gallery made from recycled materials which had stood for twenty years, was opened. Attached to the gallery is an art supplies and artwork shop. The Quarry now boasts sixteen day studios, most of which are permanently occupied by full-time artists, who work in a variety of disciplines from clay craftspeople, to painters, carvers, thespians, and more. Some studios are leased on a short or mid-term basis for artists to practice their craft or exhibit. A full-time pottery room is available and works well alongside three electric kilns and two wood-fired kilns available for use. Two workshop spaces, the Scallop Room and the Arts Shed are available for workshops and casual use.

The Quarry Co-Op Shop

The old Quarry Co-Op shop has moved out of the Quarry Art Centre to the vacant ASB building on Rathbone Street where all the artists continue to be represented.

Resource: Yvonne Rust: Maverick Spirit by Theresa Sjoquist (David Ling 2011)

© Theresa Sjoquist – 2024 – Published Folkus Magazine Summer 2025 edition