New Projects Underway

Jill Morris, Alwyn Friedersdorff and Margaret McMahon are planning a new project called “ArtsCape Talks” to enhance the arts culture in this area and encourage more community participation.  There will be four elements, an Open House during the Tulip Festival in October, an “Arty Crafty Tulips Exhibition” also during October, establishment of a group of artists who will create works for donation to community causes, and the fourth will be a series of Arts Talks with presentations from artists during 2012.   This is an exciting new venture and our thanks to Jill, Alwyn and Margaret for the work and time they are putting into this project.

Passages Exhibition

Passages  will run until 22nd July.  We are joining with WOW(Wonders of Wyyard) exhibition centre who are open 7 days a week from 9 am – 5 pm so do visit and see the amazingly different ways of interpreting the topic Passages in textiles.  Once again, thanks to Bev and Alex for arranging the display in such a creative way.
There will be another TRA Exhibition at ArtsCape in August, with an opening evening event planned for 6 pm on 19th August to coincide with Film night.   The opening hours from 18th – 27th August will be from 10 am – 3 pm on Thursdays, Friday’s and Saturday’s.  Contact Jeremy if you can help. 

Our Relaunch

In May 2011 we Re-launched our local community art centre "Artscape". The centre is now six years old and needed a re-vamp and a little bit of a make over.  With so many new and invigorating peole joining us on the committee we felt that there was a need to show off our re-energized  group. The centre it self had also been re-invigorated with a coat of paint and many hours of maintenance on the building from generous and hard working people.

On the day of the launch we had a harpist playing beautiful music, talks from Alwyn our president and the local Light House tours manager and fellow artist David Roberts-Thompson.

We had a great turn out and enjoyed tea with cake or wine with cheese. At 2pm on a Sunday afternoon the drinks choice could go either way.

We had works on our newly painted walls from the groups that have started to use the space in the centre: Word Players, Stitch n Bitch/Made with Love, Smart Arts: Quilters, and lead lighting workshops.  

The turn out was great and the hum from the building grew louder. 

Presidents Prattle

 

On a bitterly cold winter’s day, a few brave souls gathered at the Wonders of Wynyard to launch our most recent TRA exhibition, “Passages”. Eleanor Austin, local textile artist and President of the Burnie Regional Arts group explained very clearly how artists focus on things differently according to the medium they are working with .What an inspiring collection of small textile art pieces! If you get the chance, do drop into see them as they certainly prove that what may once have been considered as craft, has now definitely entered the realm of Art. They simply depict what the word ‘passage’ might mean and the interpretations are many and varied. Well worth a look!

 

Some time back all the Presidents of the Region met by teleconference and everyone enjoyed the opportunity to share notes and ideas in this way. Circular Head were running their own CHarchibald Prize event. It had to be a photo or piece of work using a CH identity – sounded like fun!
We were reminded of the State Gathering to be held at Nubeena on 16-18 September.
We were asked, “What are you doing to reach out to young people in your group?” I managed to answer, “Only a little!”

Our next meeting is scheduled for July 26.
Alwyn

In the Beginning....

In the beginning there was Wynyard, a small rural seaside town. There came a dream to invigorate the town with a cultural hum. At the centre of this home was a small house that was to become the home for arts in the Wynyard community.

 Lets begin with a small story from the lady behind the idea, Michelle Walker:

"One of my passions is the arts. I wanted to find people to bounce off, explore ideas, talk to and gain inspiration from.

I live in a small coastal town in Tasmania Australia. The cultural life here was small and lacking.

I went to University and fell in love with the feeling you get being surrounded by others that were intently interested in creative endeavors. As the time got closer to finishing my studies i was aware that i would be outcast back to our community where i had no one to share these experiences with.

I set out to remedy this cultural desert by creating and founding a local community art centre where people could meet, talk, hold functions, exhibitions, create workshops.....whatever and however they choose.

Today the centre has been going for five years. We are run by a small committee that keeps the centres administration on track, creates its programs through out the year and tries to engage with the larger community regardless of their talents or abilities. We keep the programs at a level we can manage and remain open to programs that outside community members may want to operate.

We host exhibitions and openings in our gallery once a month with the assistance of exhibitions from Tasmanian Regional Arts and our in-house exhibition program.

My masters at Uni was based on our operation of this centre and i am happy to forward this info on to anyone that may be thinking of starting their own.

As for the future of this centre i have taken a step back from the management to try to let it stand on its own feet without my driving it all by myself....so far its looking good. Many new people have stepped into the committee and are really making the roles their own. Together as a group we really seem to be making a splash on the local community and we are expanding our membership base constantly.

 I do love seeing the centre growing and standing on its own two feet. We have many groups joining us and creating their programs under our umbrella and the hum of arts activity is steadily getting louder perhaps one day it will be a full scale racket." 

Stay tuned for more past stories and up-to-date detail on the working of the community arts centre.