Mia Straka recounts the heady journey of a resilient Auckland jewellery collective.

More than 500 copper rings span the dark brick and concrete courtyard. Suspended in a relaxed curve from eye to waist height they invite intimate inspection. The changeable coastal climate of Tāmaki Makaurau transforms salmon pink copper to rich earth brown, grey and black. Green oxides the colour of new fern fronds appear, fingerprints from the many ring makers and visitors to the gallery develop like photographs over the course of the year-long installation.

An induction to jewellery making often commences with the crafting of a simple copper ring  - a fundamental exercise in metalwork and studio practice. Supported elegantly on a simple display by Michael McCabe and exhibited down the road from the studio at leading design, craft and architecture gallery - Objectspace,  Common Element was commissioned as the successful proposal to their 2024 plinth project callout.

Created during special ring-making workshops held at our local Grey Lynn studio, Common Element embodies hundreds of hours of collaborative making and the sharing of skills at Workshop6. The humble copper ring gains power and presence through multiplicity.

History

The project is a fitting way to mark three decades of Workshop6, Aotearoa’s most enduring jewellery collective. Throughout this time, the studio has been a vital hub for metalworking and jewellery craft. Many of Aotearoa’s leading contemporary jewellers have ties to Workshop6; training, teaching and fostering an extensive community through making. The current partnership includes Anna Wallis, Cheryl Sills, Mia Straka and Lucinda Barrett.

Established 1993 by jewellers Anna Wallis, Lisa Walker, Helen O’Connor, and Areta Wilkinson in an old laundry building amongst the colourful villas of Grey Lynn, Workshop6 was a place to share tools, costs and create a communal jewellery studio. Within a year Workshop6 moved a suburb over to Kingsland, to a basement warehouse studio. A small grant enabled the purchase of hand tools for teaching our craft to the public.

This kicked off the still thriving business model for Workshop6 of teaching jewellery classes to pay the rent, facilitating a collective studio where makers could work on their own practice in a shared space. Workshop6 became a sort of club house for contemporary jewellers, the walls and crevices accrued posters and exhibition flyers, random snippets,  jokes and interesting objects.

Classes gained an organic following as a community of makers was born. Some students went on to tertiary study and careers in contemporary jewellery, others continued to return as they gained skills, friendships and a place to make in a supported environment.

Events and milestones

Initially the collective had regular exhibitions in national venues. This gave way to the jewellers focussing more on individual career paths. From 1995 to 2005 Jane Dodd, Octavia Cook and Jasmine Watson became partners as Lisa Walker, Helen O’Connor and Areta Wilkinson moved away from Auckland. Notable milestones were celebrated with exhibitions and celebrations.

Pretty was a multimedia one night only event in Auckland nightclub Herzog in the mid-nineties. An animated video of the work was projected onto a wall of the nightclub, while people wearing the jewellery mingled amongst the party guests. The event was documented with a wire bound booklet including critical essays. jeweller’s responses to an informal questionnaire, a self portrait in their favourite place and work images. Jane Dodd was memorably photographed adorned in bubbles in her bath at home.

Tin Years marked the 10 year anniversary exhibition at Fingers gallery with a tin ‘party’ made in miniature, featuring resident jewellers and guests, a cake laden table set formally with plates and cutlery, streamers, even a champagne puddle; available to purchase singularly or as a set ‘for the Guggenheim’.

Workshop6 came of age celebrating our 21st year with a move to an old movie theatre in Kingsland - the Pacific Royal. The high ceilinged spacious warehouse lent itself to a big party, complemented with an exhibition at Fingers of past and present Workshop6 jewellers. Work was displayed along a colour coded timeline across the back wall of Fingers gallery to denote when each jeweller was in residence at Workshop6.

Adaptation

Workshop6 has always been a fluid organisation, adaptable to the changing lives of those involved.  Decisions are made collectively through conversations around the table. Partnership in Workshop6 has always been made by mutual agreement and with careful consideration that we work well together and have common goals for the workshop environment. Over the past five years we have begun to be more business oriented, increasing our teaching schedule in response to demand and to provide a part time job for each of us, complementary to our self employed artistic practices as jewellers and makers.

To reach a wider audience we are about to launch a new website, focussed on a user friendly experience more representative of our current location and offerings. We’re also realising a regular exhibition schedule in the busy street front window of our studio to exhibit and retail our own work, alongside curated student works and guest artists.

Attraction

Each of us has been attracted to Workshop6 as a place to work with like minded practitioners. We are able to create the environment we need to thrive creatively within the collective, as well as to share our skills with others through teaching. This builds community as well as creating a part time income to supplement our self employed income.

Aspirations

We want Workshop6 to be a hub for contemporary jewellers and our community, increasing our offerings to include regular masterclasses, exhibitions and artist residencies.

We hope people continue to increasingly find value and joy in the craft and art of handmade goods, with respect for workmanship and sustainability.

We work hard to ensure our students love coming to Workshop6, growing in skills and developing creatively alongside building community. We hope creativity will be nurtured within educational frameworks as a way to develop new ways of thinking and being.

We aspire to be a small part in the development of new and adaptable systems to exist, supportive of both individual freedom of mind, body and spirit and communal well being.

—

About Mia Straka

I am a Pākeha New Zealander of Bohemian, Dutch and Irish descent living in Tāmaki Makaurau, close to the flat-topped volcanic peak of Puketāpapa – Mount Roskill, Auckland.  Since my early 20’s I have been a self-employed contemporary jeweller, supplementing my income by teaching jewellery classes at Collective Workshop6, a jewellery studio I joined in 2008. I’m drawn to making linear 3D forms, building handworked sculptural adornment that has occasionally grown to installation scale. Through my work, I question our prevailing value systems, often incorporating discarded or overlooked materials. Notable projects include The Handshake Project- Handshake6, Handshake7;  The Valere Talisman Project (est. 2017) and The Talisman Project (est. 2014). Straka has undertaken art residencies in Berlin, Germany 2018 and Oaxaca, Mexico 2014. Currently, I’m focused on making adornment as an activator, reworking the form of the knuckleduster as a statement of personal power. In September 2024 I exhibited at Radiant Pavilion in Melbourne with the Handshake6 group at Brunswick Street Gallery. Visit mia-straka.squarespace.com and follow @miastraka

—

This text is an abridged version of an article originally commissioned for and published by Garland Magazine.