We’ve written about Vincents Art Workshop before as they’re an organisation Thought Partners have supported for many years. In all the doom and gloom, we felt a success story was in order. Early in 2011 Vincents was facing a cash crisis. Artists and staff held a fundraising exhibition where all works were donated and proceeds went to Vincents. It was a huge success and helped spread the word about our financial situation. This encouraged further private financial donations and helped see us through until our next round of funding from MSD, Wellington City Council and others. Many other initiatives and funding sources have helped our financial situation over the past year, and we secured the services of our first Patron – Suzanne Snively.
Fast forward to July 2012, and Vincents won the ‘Big A’ award for Creative Spaces, presented by Arts Access Aotearoa at Parliament. Read about it here http://artsaccess.org.nz/big-a-awards/big-a-awards-2012. Publicity following the event helped raise our profile further and resulted in us receiving an anonymous donation of $10,000 – unheard of in the 27 year history of Vincents. As a result, and for the first time in many years, we have been able to increase staff wage rates.
Staff and artists were keen for the fundraising exhibition to become an annual event and this year on opening night, on 12th September, we already had pre-sales of $825. Thanks to staff and artists for their donations, and to the people of Wellington for purchasing the art works.
To find out more about Vincents and to view the artwork that’s for sale http://www.vincents.co.nz
Lorraine George, Treasurer
