We recently connected with Claudia Aalderink and have shared our conversation below.

Claudia , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started my current art practice when I was still studying Photography. I had a half year gap between two Degrees when my husband, a beekeeper, came home with a ute load full of old beehives. “Firewood” he said. I instantly saw the potential in the beautiful discarded boxes and decided to start creating wall art with them.

I have always had an interest in re-using and recycling material for artworks. I started exploring this new medium by disassembling them and revealing the beautiful character of the boxes in a new lease of life – Art

“Each piece has their own story and I love the honesty of the material. I don’t hide any of the ‘scars’ created over time. They merely add to the final outcome of a piece”.

Within a reduced visual vocabulary of circles, squares, rectangles, and lines, I explore the subtlety of colour, scale, and composition.

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As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am originally from Holland and moved to New Zealand with my family in 2005.

When I started my Beehive artworks I initially sold them at local markets and people loved them. It grew from there. I had to return to my studies after the break but picked it back up after I finished my Honours Degree in Photography. With the intention to start my Masters the year after I was side tracked by an empty building in the area. I thought it would make a lovely art gallery and I started to enquire. I could sell my own artwork here and have a few others as well to promote New Zealand made Art. In 2014 The Mandarin Tree was born!
This is 8 years ago and I now represent approx. 70 New Zealand artist including myself. I never started my Masters…

I work in the gallery with our daughter Isa. She runs the gallery 3 days while I am in my workshop creating new beehive artworks for our own gallery and galleries around the country.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Having a social media presence is key I think. Even though I don’t use all the high tech gadgets I am still very active through posting regularly and I get great feedback from my customers. Sometimes you wonder if any of it reaches someone but it always does. I have more reactions to Instagram than Facebook but I cater for both as well as having a website.

I have always liked the personal aspect of having my own business, working with people and connecting them with a piece of art they fall in love with, hearing their stories etc. Social media is a more distant relationship but I try to keep it as ‘personal’ as possible by keeping them informed, updated about what’s available in store. When customers buy something online you miss that personal connection but keeping the communication going and follow up when needed you show you go that extra step to create an experience as close to coming in to the gallery. I think that’s very important.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We started back in 2014 with some of our own money to ‘do up’ the building. Paint, floors, lighting, hanging systems, display cabinets etc

The concept of the gallery is to have the artworks on consignment. This means you don’t invest in any artwork but you pay the artist when their work sells. They send it to the gallery and we display it to the best of our ability. Post in all all the platforms, and make sure it’s all safe and insured.

In case anything would happened unexpectedly we are not in trouble and that takes a lot of pressure of your shoulders as a business owner.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.claudia-aalderink-artist.com and https://themandarintree.nz/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudia.aalderink_artist/ and https://www.instagram.com/themandarintree/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Claudia-Aalderink-Artist and https://www.facebook.com/themandarintreenzart/

Image Credits
all photos Claudia Aalderink and Isa Aalderink