Creative People's Centre

Creative Apprentice Profile: Rob Tucker

Rob Tucker is a prolific and popular young artist who describes his colourful works on board, featuring everyday items and icons, as pop-grunge. Since 2006 he has had a number of successful shows in Auckland and Wellington, including sell-out exhibitions at Satellite Gallery in Newton and Smyth Galleries in Herne Bay. Rob is NZ’s first Creative Apprentice in the Visual Arts.

The Depot Artspace has been involved in establishing and running employment initiatives for creative people for 12 years and identified the need for Creative Apprenticeships through the gaps in existing education and training programmes. For example, creative people referred to the Depot’s PACE (Pathways to Arts and Cultural Employment) were not equipped for employment, without the necessary workplace training or career-specific skills, and therefore ineligible for the programme. Creative Apprenticeships were envisaged as meeting these needs.

The Depot presented a paper in 2006 to the Labour Government and met with PM Helen Clark (Minister of Arts and Culture) and Minister for Tertiary Education Maryan Street to discuss the proposal further. As the wheels of consideration turned slowly in the government cloisters the Depot decided to run its own prototype apprenticeship. Rob was a keen starter, having eschewed tertiary training for a framework that provided him with the freedom to explore his work, the structure that encouraged self-discipline, and the opportunity to diversify, for the sake of sustainability, into other arts enterprises such as curation, exhibition coordination and graphic and website design.

The apprenticeship took place over more than 6 months during which Rob received a private studio along with mentoring with established artists and other creative industry professionals such as web and graphic designers, undertook a small business course and other training opportunities tailored to his personal professional development needs. Rob also undertook some diverse hands-on arts related work for the Depot which gave him the chance to work alongside others and to learn to respond to the needs of a job and of the people requesting a job done. The work included assisting with Satellite Gallery’s internal refurbishment, designing and painting an honours board of bands that used the Depot’s rehearsal room, designing the cover of a CD for the winners of the Intermediate School Battle of the Bands and coordinating and curating an exhibition of young artists which Rob titled Combo Jumbo.

The culmination of Rob’s apprenticeship was an exhibition at Satellite Gallery in Newton, Auckland City. The show, “My Trip Through Belmont”, was a sell-out success. Rob also produced a book of the same name, which he raised funds for and produced, all with the guidance of his accessible Depot mentors, Abby Storey, Paul Walsh, Louise Evans and Linda Blincko.

Rob’s creative apprenticeship was successful because it was developed in and supported by an infrastructure with a long history both of training and mentoring artists and developing creative approaches to assisting artists to sustainability. As well as providing a structured programme tailored to Rob’s needs and interests, the Depot Artspace offered the ongoing support and encouragement of a caring community. There is always someone to talk to and tease out an idea or problem with.

Rob has since had a sell-out exhibition at Smyth Galleries in Auckland and another very popular show in Wellington. A successful 2008 has given him the opportunity to spend the current year exploring further ideas in his practice.