26 September 2017
KAWERAU’S iconic wood festival begins today with one of its most exciting events.
The annual Kawerau Woodfest and National Woodskills Competition starts with the Woodbugs Carving Symposium, held at the Circus Paddock, outside the Ron Hardie Recreation Centre.
Woodbugs hosts timber sculpting artists, who have one week to work on their pieces with no restrictions on what tools can be used.
Artists take a tree or log in its raw form and visualise it as a three-dimensional figure as they transform it into its final form.
Woodbugs is one of the festival’s biggest attractions as thousands of people pass through and watch as carvers work on their pieces.
The event will continue until Sunday, October 1.
Part of the festival is PechaKucha Night at the Kawerau Library on Tuesday, September 26.
PechaKucha nights are informal and fun gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, works, thoughts or holiday snaps in the PechaKucha 20×20 format – 20 images, each for 20 seconds as presenters talk along to the slides.
Also, part of the festival is the Kawerau Young Achiever Awards, a celebration recognising the district’s youth.
The awards ceremony will be held at the Kawerau Life Konnect hall on Wednesday, September 27 at 10am.
This year, 51 young people will receive awards.
The remaining Kawerau Woodfest events will kick off from Saturday, September 30.
Source: Whakatane Beacon