Mover + shaker

You can take the boy out of the Bay of Plenty, but you can’t take the Bay out of the boy. Maria Hoyle talks to the local influencer about going back for his future.

WORDS Maria Hoyle / PHOTOS Garth Badger 

I’ll be honest – I was apprehensive about meeting Jay Reeve. I’d seen the pics, read the bio. Here’s a tall, handsome, motorbike-riding, surfing dude with multiple successful roles – among them DJ, wine brand co-owner and social media influencer. During his time at MTV (they approached him – he’s never had to apply for a job in his life), he jetted around the world meeting the likes of Kanye, Snoop Dogg and Dave Grohl. He has a beautiful wife, adorable twin boys, and a queue of fascinating personalities to interview as co-host of The Rock radio show Rock Drive with Jay & Dunc. His life is fast, busy, glam. And now he has to spend an hour with me. 

However, from the moment we sit down at a café near Jay’s new home in Auckland’s Herne Bay, he’s fully engaged, relaxed, self-deprecating, interesting and interested. Perhaps acting is another of his many skills. But it turns out the truth is far simpler – Jay Reeve is a people person.

Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t disappoint on the rock ’n’ roll quotient, turning up on his Harley, sauntering in and shaking hands with a friend (a fan?) at a nearby table. I’d anticipated the cool – what I hadn’t expected was the warm. He gives me a generous hug, meets my eyes with his velvety green ones (yep, something about Jay brings out the Mills & Boon in me), and for a full 50 minutes, I have his undivided attention. Oh, apart from when another cool-looking guy comes over, launches into some banter, and Jay responds with a jovial, “Mate, I’m in the middle of an interview – I’ll give you a bell”. When his buddy’s gone, Jay explains, “Super-clever guy, rides a Harley as well. He’s the lead singer of Blindspott.” Of course he is. Because that’s the world Jay inhabits.

But… and here’s the big but. It takes only a few minutes of chatting to understand something fundamental about this Bay of Plenty-born 36-year-old. A flash Harley might be what gets him around, but community, family and friendship are what drive him. They shape his past, his present, and will no doubt shape his future. As for people, well – Bay locals, band frontmen, baristas, red-carpet stars, middle-aged journalists… they’re all one and the same to Jay. Apart from Delta Goodrem. We’ll get to her in a minute. 

First things first. Jay has a window of time before heading off to a school visit with his five-year-old sons Oscar and Hunter (who are soon to start at the local primary) to talk me through what exactly he, his wife Anna and their boys are doing back in Auckland. In case you’re not familiar with it, the story goes like this.

Jay grew up on a dairy farm in Te Puna, moved to Mount Maunganui at 15, disliked school but nonetheless ended up, at 21, teaching home economics at Tauranga Boys’ College. (Although he appreciated his parents’ hard work, he had no desire to take over the farm.) It was while commentating and competing in the Hyundai Pro Longboard Tour that he was snapped up by MTV. He stayed there for five years as a VJ, doing the aforementioned A-list interviews, then started to ponder a career in radio.

As luck would have it (to be fair, most turning points in Jay’s life might well start with that phrase), MTV made him redundant, so he walked away with a nice juicy payout and able to pursue the radio career he wanted. There followed six years on ZM’s drive show with Paul ‘Flynny’ Flynn, before the popular duo ‘consciously uncoupled’ and Jay snagged a two-year gig at Radio Hauraki.

At that point, in late 2017, the family packed everything up and headed back to the Mount. For good. “The plan was to stay there indefinitely,” says Jay. “I was done with radio. TV not so much; I’ve still got a couple of show concepts bubbling away in my head.”

The lure of the Bay was the slower pace that would enable them to focus on what matters. “We were well set up financially, and I wanted to spend as much time with my boys as I could before they went to school,” says Jay. He also wanted them to experience a taste of the childhood he’d had. On the farm, Jay grew up milking cows, hosing down the yard and doing other chores he “loved”.

“It was the best upbringing,” he says. “We’d put sandwiches in a backpack and walk to the back of our farm about 5km away, and spend the whole day adventuring. Our farm backed onto Whakamarama, and we had friends who lived on the other side of the river, so we’d meet them and jump off the waterfall. We’d go to Maramatanga Park with my dad and play twilight cricket. We’d hang out in the Te Puna clubrooms drinking lemonade and raspberry with a punnet of chips, while the adults told dirty jokes. I loved growing up in Te Puna.”

Jay reckons that even today, life in the Bay is simpler – that people are just that bit more content than their big-city counterparts. So the question remains: what’s he doing back in Auckland?

It came down to “the guarantee of a salary for a set number of years while we’re at the age we’re at. I’ve always looked at it that between 30 and 40 you make the majority of your funds, and then from that point, you can still be at an age to decide what you want to do. You can pivot, start again at 40.”

Jay wanted to maximise that peak earning potential, but if he was going to slam the thing into reverse and head back up to the big smoke, it was going to be on his own terms. He says any Auckland job “needed to tick every single box. I needed the person I worked with
to be someone I got on with, it needed to be the time slot I wanted, it needed to be on a station I liked, and it needed to be on a network I had respect for.”

He found all that at The Rock. Jay says that, ironically, the move ended up being hardest on Auckland-bred Anna. “She really did love the Mount – the pace of life and what it was like to bring up a family there.”

But it’s working out. So far. Anna’s already in her own groove. “She looks after all the social accounts for the businesses, takes care of all my social-influence stuff as I don’t have time, and looks after the boys. She’s ‘life admin’ for the Reeve family. It’s an unrelenting and perhaps under-appreciated job.”

As for Jay, he’s loving The Rock. It’s not just a gig to earn some decent dough – he and Dunc have worked out a format they’re both super excited about. Jay hadn’t worked with him before, so they had a “feeling-out process” – time spent getting to know one another. A bit like Married at First Sight? Jay laughs. “Ha – that’s a good way of putting it, yes.” 

As well as music and cheeky banter, the pair wanted to give people something that would challenge their existing views, and to bring on guests – like a controversial recent interviewee who talked about trying the mind-bending drug ayahuasca – who would provide a fresh perspective. Jay, an avid podcast listener, admits he can be close-minded at times, but tries to overcome it. “I’ve started listening to a podcast and I’ve gone, ‘F**k this guy, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about’, then by the end of it I’m, ‘Oh my god, I’ve come right around’. I like that education; we’re trying to do a bit of it. Nowadays we’re so quick to go, ‘I’m team this or team that’. But you can sit in the middle and go, ‘Well, tell me more’.

“I’ve always said I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” says Jay. With his four career boxes ticked off, everything else about their new Auckland life has magically fallen into place too. “We needed to quickly find somewhere to live and we’ve just, through a friend of a friend, signed a year-long lease on a house, so we’ve been able to get the boys into the school we wanted,” says Jay. “My work is very close. I’m surrounded by great friends, including close friends of ours from the Bay just around the corner.”

Although he’s grateful, it’s not the same as life at the Mount. “Where we lived, Gordon Road, we knew everyone, we knew each other’s kids, there was a real sense of community,” he says. I suggest he can recreate that in Auckland, but he laughs ruefully. “It’s too far gone! Everyone’s just busy. That’s the vibe of Auckland.” So the Bay is never far from his thoughts. But he knows that “to do our show and our talent and the investment from the radio station justice, the minimum term [for him in Auckland] would be five years”. It’s not that he’s complaining; Jay isn’t a whinger. It’s just the way it is right now.

One of Jay’s multiple roles is “silent but loud” partner in wine brand Master of Ceremonies, launched in 2016, which he co-owns with Anna and friends Mat Croad and Nick Marshall. (They’ve also teamed up with Hawke’s Bay winemaking supremo Rod McDonald – read more about it in Jay’s column in UNO Issue 43.) Did he know anything about wine before embarking on this venture?

“I was a big drinker!” he laughs. Plus, “I like to keep an eye out for things that are just around the curve. Rosé was a thing that popped up on my radar. My wife has always drunk rosé. I have bikie friends who drink rosé, not beer. Mat’s a wine importer and could see rosé was going up at a rapid rate. We’ve seen that in the past four years; there used to be three or four bottles in the supermarket aisle, now there are about 100. Nick came on as the majority shareholder, CEO and CFO. He pays himself a peppercorn wage to keep the business going; he’s such an asset to the business. It’s the people who make the business what it is. It’s cool to do business with your buddies.”

As well as a rosé, there’s now a Master of Ceremonies Central Otago pinot noir and a pinot gris 2018, plus a limited-edition sparkling rosé that’s a collaboration with fashion label Stolen Girlfriends Club. They have plans to export the coming vintage, “a push into Australia, Singapore, Asia”, and exciting plans for expansion. “Nick’s a very forward thinker,” says Jay. “ We’ve been working on something for the past two or three years; it’s very close to being released. It will be well ahead of the curve.”

Are we talking wine here? “Aah… yes and no.” He grins. “I’d love to tell you more, but…” 

Jay has a lot of things on the go, and living life as he does, at full throttle, requires mastering the art of maintenance. How does he keep himself in such good shape? “I fast – it’s a new thing for me,” he says. “I eat between 1pm and 7pm. I also try not to have any sugars or
carbs; it’s predominantly a meat-and-vegetable diet. 

“I met a guy called Nigel Beach, who’s an offsider for Wim Hof [the Dutch extreme athlete known as the Iceman, who pioneered the Wim Hof Method] and does this thing called ‘controlled discomfort’, where you have an ice bath. I get up and hop into a cold shower, or into a cold river, or into the sea. It’s amazing. It’s like going ‘control, alt, delete’. Apart from that, I drink far too much, sleep minimal hours and
really burn the candle at both ends and the middle.”

What about his mental health? Jay has talked in the past about how his relentless positivity has seen him accused of being arrogant. How does he cope when people take a shot at him or when he gets flak for something he’s said or written? Does it bother him?

He strains a little, like he really wants it to bother him. “Hmm… ah…” He laughs. “I don’t put that much thought into it!” What no doubt helps is that he’s always willing to listen. “I can say something, but then if someone more informed comes along and says, ‘You’re wrong and these are the reasons why I think you’re wrong’, then I’m 100 percent open to shifting my position – and I do so frequently. If you’re not learning, you’re just not moving.”

I try him on adversity. Any adversity, Jay, even a smidgen? Er, no. “I choose to be positive,” he says. And he’s aware how lucky he is. “There’s no problem I could ever have, ever, that could compare on a global scale with what happens every day to other people all over the world,” he says.

Okay, let’s try this, then. What about being a parent? Now that definitely comes with its curveballs, especially raising boys in this era of #MeToo. How do you teach them to speak their truth and be respectful of women?

“My wife and I talk about this a lot,” says Jay. “People just want to be treated with respect.” He believes we’ve become so fearful of offending people, that we’ve simply ceased to communicate. “Then there’s a systemic breakdown, then there’s alienation, misinformation. People put it in the too-hard basket. Now more than ever, we need to be talking.”

As for respecting women, or indeed any individual, the key is talk. “Don’t assume,” says Jay. “To be in an intimate situation with a person of the other sex or same sex and assuming they want to take it to the same place as you will get you into trouble. So communicate. But for kids to learn things, they have to see it.”

And then we’re back to the Bay. “I don’t want to say Auckland does a bad job of raising kids, but [provincial New Zealand]does it better,” says Jay. “We just got back from Gore and I didn’t see one kid on a phone while I was there. We did a show out of a bar/restaurant and kids were there with two or three generations of their family, talking across the table with everyone, sitting between adults, being part of the situation.”

For someone who’s met his fair share of celebs, Jay’s touchingly appreciative of these ordinary scenarios and of people showing each other good old-fashioned courtesies. So how does that pan out when he’s meeting the big stars – is he able to apply his philosophy of treating everyone decently, or does he get so starstruck that he acts differently?

Jay shakes his head. There was one person who made him a little gaga. “Strangely enough, Delta Goodrem. She was coming down the red carpet and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Delta – whatever’.” But as she got closer, the ‘Delta effect’ rendered him speechless. “She was ethereal, like she had a halo of light around her. I was just holding out the mic in front of me. I was with my producer at the time, Bronwynn Wilson, who was going, ‘What are you f**king doing? Just talk!’ It was getting awkward, so Delta looked at Bronwynn and said, ‘So are you guys having a good time?’ and Bronwynn went from being like ‘Grrrr’ to ‘Uh… ah…’ – the same thing. After Delta had walked past I said, ‘Oh my god, I don’t know what happened!’ and Bronwynn said, ‘I don’t know what happened either!’”

It’s hard to imagine Jay being lost for words; for him, striking up conversation is the easiest thing in the world. Be it with A-listers or mere mortals, his favourite opener is, “‘So when you’re not doing this, what are you doing?’ And then they can say, ‘I run I with my dog, I like hanging out with my kids’ or whatever.”

What does that look like for Jay – what’s he doing when he’s at his happiest? “Happiness for me…” he pauses. “It almost makes me emotional thinking about it. This summer, we had this big group of us – all my family, my kids, my wife, one of my sisters, my parents, a big bunch of my friends – and we all rarked it up on the beach. The kids were running around, the surf was pumping, it was a beautiful still day. We were watching over each other’s kids, hanging out, having beers. That for me is heaven. Just heaven. I desperately miss it.”

In the background, Auckland attempts to plead its case: the thrum of traffic, a passing truck, coffee machines going full pelt to fuel the got-to-be-somewhere set. Jay is oblivious.

“You know, sometimes it’s nice to know what you want, so you can miss it and try to get back there,” he says. “It’s solidified for us what we want to do, where we want to be, how we want to raise our family, and what we want to be like as people. For the first time in 36 years, I know what I want.”

And, quite honestly, who wouldn’t raise a glass of rosé to that?  

@THEJAYREEVE

Selfie-made mavens: Tash Meys and Kristina Webb

WORDS Jenny Rudd PHOTOS Supplied + Shawn Rolton

We caught up with Instagram influencers TASH and KRISTINA in a whirlwind three weeks before they moved to LA.

The two girls have just finished collaborating on a project which came about directly from Kristina’s Instagram popularity: Color Me Inspired, a colouring book to bring the world to life: maps made up of flowers, sweet treats and beachy scenes. It is total 14-year-old-girl heaven, and the follow up to the hugely popular Color Me Creative.

By the time this magazine is published, the two girls will have moved from the Bay of Plenty to Santa Monica, California, to keep building their already impressive careers. Tash and Kristina prove what an exciting future our world has, as their Millennial Generation steps into the world of business.

THE CONNECTION

Last year Tash hosted a brunch with Viv Conway (21), another Instagram entrepreneur, who sells sportswear she designs, manufactures and distributes on her own Instagram page, @vividsportswearofficial. They invited some friends, thinking it would be fun to hang out together, have a picnic, and use it as a photoshoot opportunity to get content for Instagram. Tash invited Kristina along; they had been going to Paula Knight’s art classes together since they were young, but this was the first time they’d stepped into friendship. Tash knew that Kristina worked in social media too, as Kristina’s @colour_me_ creative brand was going well in America.

“Kristina told me she’d been commissioned to do a second book, but that she was considering turning it down, because the deadline was so tight. We chatted about ideas for the pages, and really hit it off together. A few days later Kristina offered me a contract to collaborate with her on Colour Me Inspired.”

SHARERS

It’s this easy blurring of lines between work and play, as well as looking for ways to blend their business interests to help each other wherever possible, which characterises the working ethos of the Millennials. They tend to enjoy working on social and environmental projects, and because of that, are less inclined to see personal wealth as a measure of their success. Their Generation X parents were taught to play their business cards close to their chest. Information is power. Always keep a trump card up your sleeve to keep on top of office politics. The hard-nosed, shoulder-padded eighties-boardroom Gordon Gekko world is anathema to the Millennial. They have a different way of looking at the world of paid work. “Collaborate, don’t compete,” says Tash.

WHAT IS A MILLENNIAL?

A generation is a group of around 25 years. We have been naming these groups for a while, but not always with any consistency. They aren’t numbered. They get nicknames. And they are open to interpretation. Here’s UNO.’s take: Baby Boomers: born late 40s to early 60s as a result of post-WWII cuddling. They love shiny stuff, cash and gadgets, and stability at work. Generation X: born mid 60s to mid 70s. A bit disaffected, probably as a result of all the daycare they were thrown into whilst their parents were busy getting divorced. They spent their twenties scoffing drugs and dancing all night. Millennials, also known as Generation Y: born early 80s to early 90s. Tash, Kristina and their mates. The children of the Baby Boomers.

Here’s the best description of that age bracket by Harry Wallop, of The Telegraph: Unlike the generation before them, they are smarter, safer, more mature and want to change the world. Their pin-up is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani education campaigner, who survived being shot by the Taliban, and who became the world's youngest ever Nobel Prize recipient. They are the first generation of technology natives. They don’t like being sold to, and they aren’t massive fans of accumulating stuff. They don’t do drugs, they don’t drink, they smash back green smoothies, and only want to do business with ethically minded companies.

“The internet has offered a level playing field for young people wanting to work online. No one asks you how many years of work experience you’ve had or what your grades were like at school. You just start doing it yourself. In fact, it is one of the few careers were being very young is beneficial.”

WHAT IS AN INFLUENCER?

An influencer is generally someone who has over 10,000 Instagram followers. Brands pay them to advertise their products, leveraging off the relationship the influencer has built with their followers. It’s important for brands to choose the influencer carefully. For instance, Kristina might post a pic of her using Faber-Castell Pencils saying ‘I’m totally in love with these new pencils! They are perfect for colouring in details.’

The internet has offered a level playing field for young people wanting to work online. No one asks you how many years of work experience you’ve had or what your grades were like at school. You just start doing it yourself. In fact, it is one of the few careers were being very young is beneficial. The brand would get their product in front of two and a half million people who love colouring in. They know it’s the perfect target market. Think about John Key and his 18,000 people on Instagram. Tash and Kristina could get in front of the equivalent population of nearly the whole North Island just by posting one photo. Wouldn't a politician love that targeted reach?

TASH MEYS @tastefullytash

She posts pictures of impossibly delicious food (all made and styled herself), her art, and all things to do with wellness. She also runs a number of other accounts on behalf of businesses, who have seen hers, and pay her to make the same success of their own.

“Ever since I got my first camera at 11 years old, my friends and I have played ‘photoshoots,’ taking it in turns to be the photographer and model, going on adventures and finding cool locations to shoot. We’d then hugely over-edit them in photoshop and post our work on Bebo. It was a surprise to be asked to do the photos for a fellow student's birthday party but it went well and I did a couple more after that including a twenty-first. I’ve taken photos for a website and recorded a wedding video. Even though it was a bit scary taking on these things at the beginning, I learnt so much from each one and since then have made a point of taking on every opportunity that comes my way.”

DRIVER

Tash is an absolute bundle of energy and drive, her brain zipping off in all directions. She has the ability to create her own opportunities, and the character to be grateful for them. A sharp marketing brain is matched by her creative ability as an artist and photographer. Looking through the global window of Instagram has afforded some huge opportunities, which Tash is grasping with both hands.

“I switched my degree from psychology to consumer food science after getting sick from eating processed foods in my first year, doing some research into nutrition, and becoming fascinated. “Taking photographs of food for my Instagram page has enabled me to exercise my artistic skills; decorating smoothie bowls and creating a food photograph is similar in my eyes to painting a canvas. It's all about the layers, the different textures and the colours. Since I have now built my Instagram to a level of followers where I am considered an influencer in my industry of health and wellness, I can start to branch out and include art, lifestyle and typography. It's interesting how when I left school I decided not to go down the art route, but everything I do seems to come back to it.”

TEACHING OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS

It’s down to Tash's collaborative nature, as well as her ambition and well-placed confidence, that along with one of her clients, whose Instagram page she and Viv Conway run, she organised an Instagram workshop. They invited media agencies to come and learn about Instagram and what it could do for their clients. It was impressive to watch a twenty-two year old hold court with all the creative industry experts, most of whom were about twenty years her senior, explaining how the algorithms in this social media platform work.

In fact when we approached Tash about featuring her, she immediately did some research on us, and asked why we didn’t have an Instagram page, then pitched to us to let her and Viv launch and run it for us. The range of work Tash is being offered is quite astonishing: brands pay to feature their products on @tastefullytash; she has been approached to manage social media for an Australian celebrity; she gets professional photography commissions; she was invited to collaborate on Kristina’s book; and she manages Instagram accounts for several clients in New Zealand, Australia and now America, where she has moved to. Santa Monica is the health and wellness capital of the world. Tash has placed herself right in the centre of it.

As far as Millennials go, Tash Meys leads the field.

Kristina Webb @KRISTINAWEBB

Kristina has been sketching, drawing and painting since her early teens and posting her art online to a huge community of followers: 1.9 million, who clearly adore her. Her art is encouraging of others; there are plenty of positive affirmations dotted about, such as anti-bullying messages. She started on Tumblr, and has moved to Instagram. Kristina has hundreds of fan pages copying her art and reposting originals.

“On my seventeenth birthday, I was in Michigan on a student exchange programme. My host family bought me an iPhone, which I had wanted for so long! Purely to start using Instagram. As I looked around, learning how to use the app, I was surprised to find one of my drawings - the back of a girl holding her ponytail to the side - on an account with a large following. I commented with ‘thank you for posting my drawing.’ The picture was reposted with a credit to me. Within a few days, I had 16,000 followers.”

GROWING POPULARITY

Posting new drawings daily, Kristina’s following swelled. She produced a wide range of art: a series of Starbucks coffee cups, drawn on and decorated with tiny cups, drawn on and decorated with tiny plastic jewels, sketches of celebrities, and she would randomly surprise her fans by doing a portrait of them after they hashtagged #drawmekristina. Celebrities like Tyra Banks, Ed Sheeran and Ariana Grande noticed her art, and commissions started to roll in from big names.

AGENT FOR INFLUENCERS

Kristina’s mum, Janette, knew that Kristina needed an agent. “It was becoming increasingly difficult to know how to negotiate with some of the bigger companies like YouTube and Disney, both of whom had offered Kristina commissions. I was in America with Rochelle, my older daughter, who now manages most of Kristina’s business affairs. We orchestrated a meeting with one of the top agents in the industry, who signed Kristina up on her first interview.”

One of her commissions came from YouTube, who asked her to create a piece of art to recap on the 100 most popular trends of the year. “After watching every single video, I mapped them all out, and finally managed to get about 75 of them into the drawing. YouTube then sent out the artwork as a thank you to everyone who participated.”

Interviewing Kristina in her apartment in the Mount, with her mum making toast in the background, it’s hard to fathom the sheer scale of her success. It seems there are a combination of factors at play: adopting the platform early (four years ago Instagram was in relative infancy); posting daily; responding to her followers in a heartfelt way; and being passionate about adhering to her own creative vision.

The other element is the attainability of Kristina’s success. Her art is very much of a current style. Her fans are able to copy her drawings, and feel they have something to aim for. What sets Kristina apart from the field isn’t anything particularly new - it’s old fashioned practice, determination, and hard work.

PUBLISHED AUTHOR

In 2014 her agent in Los Angeles suggested a book. He had a contact at Harper Collins. Kristina had to produce a 50 page proposal. Janette explains “She went above and beyond, decorating every page of the proposal and giving much more detail than requested. That’s totally indicative of Kristina’s working style and commitment.”

Her first book, Color Me Creative, was a huge hit with tweenies and young teens. The first half is an autobiography (written in the same friendly, personal tone she uses when chatting with her followers on Instagram); the second half is full of creative challenges for her fans to complete inside the book. This was accompanied by a long book tour and the recording of 15 videos in Miami (there are icons in the book to scan with your phone, which unlock short videos of Kristina).

On the book tour, mothers of these young teens thanked her personally for not swearing on her page, or posting photos of herself drinking alcohol. For all her global success, Los Angeles agents, published books, and commissions from the world’s biggest names, all Kristina really wants to do is be left to her own devices with a bundle of coloured pencils, her Bose speaker, some paper and her iPhone.

Getting inspired

Digital content creation. It sounds complicated, but it really means taking pictures of beautiful things, which you make or curate, ready to put on social media channels like Instagram. In the old days, photographers were like demi-gods. Swanning onto shoots, dressed in black polo necks with a team skittering along behind them who responded to demands “I need 12 swans sprayed gold, NOW!” They charged a fortune for their creative genius.

With digital cameras, that’s all changed. If you want to have a go, set up an Instagram account, and start posting pics!

IMPROVE YOUR ART SKILLS WITH PAPAMOA-BASED ARTIST PAULA KNIGHT

"Tash first started coming to me when she was just seven, and Kristina as a young teenager. "They both had a strong desire to listen and learn. To me, they are the best kind of students and I loved showing them how to improve their work. We would go over and add details to portraits and hair, developing shade and colour and finely tuning their abilities until they both developed into confident artists.

“I remember when Kristina was working on a school art project and a trail of purple glitter followed her everywhere. Kristina came and went as she went to the USA, but at one point she was attending both my kids’ and adults’ classes, her desire to learn was so great.”

HAVE A LOOK AT SOME OF THE GREAT LOCAL INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS, AND START ENGAGING @vividsportswearofficial @mtmaunganui @bayofplentynz @tastefullytash @bop.eats

UNO. INSTAGRAM PAGE Viv and Tash have been running it. Fancy yourself as a photographer? Post pics with #unomagnz and we’ll feature the best! Do the art challenges in Colour Me Creative, and hashtag them #cmcbook and #unomagnz.