Jewellery Students- Keri-mei and Rani

Monday night’s jewellery auction at The New Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt was a great success. TLC student Natalie Halley organised the event, and with the help of other jewellery students at TLC, they managed to get many beautiful contemporary pieces of jewellery donated, organise and promote the event, and raise money for specialty jewellery equipment.

The students were fundraising for a rolling mill, a specialty jewellery tool for flattening metal. It has a number of other uses; offering jewellery students more technical options in their craft. These include printing metal by rolling an object and metal through the mill and a Japanese technique called Mokume Gane, which creates patterns that look like wood grain.

Over forty pieces were donated to the auction and the evening made over $5000, covering the rolling mill and leaving plenty more for other specialty tools to develop the TLC jewellery department.

Organiser Natalie Halley is feeling tired, but pleased. “It was really great to see everyone come out to support the auction. We got so many more pieces from the jewellery community than I ever expected, people were generous. I’m really excited about getting my hands on the new equipment and creating some pieces of my own with the rolling mill”.

TLC receptionist, Adam Koveskali Had this to say about the night:
“For those of you who missed the event, The TLC Jewellery Charity Auction at The New Dowse was a success that words cannot describe. The evening was enjoyed by all attendees, thanks in great to the professionalism and charm of TLC’s students and staff that organised the event, which appeared to go off without a hitch.

Behind the scenes, many hours of hard work went into it, the jewellery department and their team deserve a medal, but in this case it seems they will be getting a roller mill, which was estimated to cost $3000. I am pleased to inform you, that the auction raised a grand total of $5200, with a total of $4500 after expenses. The success of this event serves as inspiration to our students, all it takes is a little hard work, combined with free wine, and people will open their wallets to a good cause, which wasn’t hard with the exceptional standard of jewellery being auctioned.

It also helps if you can get your hands on a deliciously hilarious local celebrity such as Steve Gray (TV1 Good Morning co-host), who hypnotised the audience into hysterics and inspired the bid battles to get higher as the night went on. Another event that made me proud to be a part of TLC, congratulations team!

The students would like to extend their thanks to Steve Gray the auctioneer, musician Jeremy Hunter, photographer Jules Hunt and all the generous artists who donated their work.

Steve Gray- Auctioneer

“Land Where the Spirits Fly”, a painting by Robert Franken is still available for purchase for $9000 (reduced from $12000 to support the jewellery students) with $3000 available to go to the jewellery department.

Land where the spirits fly