Whangarei Museum Exhibit

While on holiday, we went to Whangarei Museum's World Wide Web textile exhibit, introduced in Creative Fibre (Dec 07); also in Scene (Dec 07), the Whangarei tourist paper.

It was chock full of exotic garments, and probably good support information, but I was so in awe of the textile I didn't pay too much attention to the writing. The exhibition as a whole was big enough to show a variety of world textiles, yet intimate enough to feel as if you've been invited to curator/collection owner Linda Wigley's attic. I came away with the distinct feeling this is just a small portion of what Linda has or has access to, and I could not help feeling her love and enthusiasm for textiles and individual pieces in her collection.

We are allowed to photograph if it is for your own use, but I'm not sure about flashes; mine were taken without, as usual.

The hour-long DVD was engaging, pertinent and informative, though I didn't like the editing: it bundled together stages of weaving across regions in the world, so sometimes you had to travel from Asia to South America and Africa and return to Asia to see how the next step is done.

Still, a giant chocolate fish to Linda and Whangarei Museum. It's on SH 14 (a little beyond the hospital if you're starting from Whangarei ), Maunu; open daily 10AM - 4PM, until 27 January. $10 admission is well worth it, especially if you stay to watch the entire DVD, and it allows you to enter the Kiwi House, an even darker room, to see a tiny bird that didn't move one bit while we were there.