Issue #11 - October 2014
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SUBSCRIBE HERE Contents - Issue #11 3 From the Editor 4 Festuri Comes Alive 6 Easy Riders –Lycra Optional, Coffee Guaranteed 10 Finding the Heart of the Image 17 Haiku Meets Art 19 Book Talk 22 Caloundra Gallery
Cover Photo — Kilagi Neilsen shared her skills in weaving natural fibres at this year’s Festuri celebration. See more Festuri photos on the next few pages.
Articles and photos are by Mary Barber, unless otherwise attributed. Chris Postle’s art photos are contributed. All haiku are contributed and remain the property of the authors. Please seek the editor’s permission to use any material.
Every effort is made to accurately represent the people and their opinions in these stories. However, no responsibility is accepted for wrong or misleading information in any part of this magazine. Views expressed by the contributors are not necessarily those of Tamarind Magazine. The publisher will not be liable for any opinion or advice expressed in Tamarind Magazine. Information given is believed to be accurate and from reliable sources. However, factual errors may occur and can be corrected in the next issue. Please address any concerns to the Editor. Thank you, Mary Barber Editor TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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Celebrating art, culture and community in Caloundra From the Editor Hello readers, Welcome to Issue #11. I’ve been out in the spring sunshine meeting people and collecting stories. My wanderings took me to a strawberry farm
Welcome to our new subscribers from Australia and around the globe,
where, I kid you not, the air was full of the sweet
including
scent of strawberries. Breathing was delicious. That’s where I met Easy Riders. You can read about them on page 6.
Ann Booth, Little Mountain, Australia
Rich Oxley shared his passion for photography
Bill, Dicky Beach, Australia
and digital editing with me. He has spent the last
Billy Antonio, Laoac, Philippines
five years finding new ways to transform photos
Celena Ross, Maroochydore, Australia
into unique artworks that reflect our modern
Denise Houghton, Caloundra, Australia
lives. They are very appealing. See for yourself
Grace, Somerset, United Kingdom
on page 10.
Grant Marks, Wurtulla, Australia
I must say a big thank you to all the poets out
Lavana, Iasi, Romania
there who send in a haiku. I don’t know about
Leigh Sheridan, Caloundra, Australia
you, but I think it’s fun to read all the places our
poets come from - India, Switzerland and New Zealand to name a few.
Libby Richardson, Peregian, Australia
Maureen Sudlow, Dargaville, New Zealand Patrick Davey, Moffat Beach, Australia
Until next time, enjoy.
Ursula Sterf, Kings Beach, Australia
Mary Barber Editor
Vivienne Dearman, Port Lincoln, Australia
PS Please send your comments to the editor.
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Festuri Comes Alive On Saturday 26th September Caloundra celebrated our multicultural community with Festuri. The festival held at Kings Beach featured art workshops, music from around the globe and of course lashings of delicious food.
Clockwise from top left: Lewton String Band from Vanuatu; Hayley, Elena and Samaneh from Maroochydore; Bianca and Amity from Ipswich; local artist Jandamarra; Kilagi Nielsen from New Guinea via Pomona. TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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Clockwise from left: the masked quartet; the Bollywood Sisters from Byron Bay; Yayu, Martha and Iin take a break; basket weaving by Rene Bahloo of Weavery; Brianna and Lucy from Caloundra.
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Easy Riders – Lycra Optional, Coffee Guaranteed
Marilen Gibson and Carol Adcock from Easy Riders
It’s 6.30am on Monday morning. Some lucky locals are not donning their suits or packing work lunches. They have better things to do.
The Easy Riders are heading out for The Strawberry Fields in Glenview on a spring morning. They meet at Buderim and ride south. They meander along the dappled bike paths and down the lanes between green paddocks. Shut the gate and mind the cows. Arriving at their destination the air is rich and sweet with ripening strawberries. It’s time for coffee. Easy Riders was started 18 months ago by Marilen Gibson. Working most of the week, she was keen to make the most of her Mondays off by having a bike ride with some friends. The group averages 10 to 15 riders on each trip. They ride on Mondays and Thursdays. And yes, there’s always a long coffee break. Lycra is optional. Marilen notes that 99.9% of the group are retired. She’s the exception. Riders come from as far away as Caboolture in the south to Cooroy in the north to be part of this friendly gang. “This is a lovely way to keep fit and it’s social as well. Also you’re going to places that you’ve never been to before,” she says enthusiastically.
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The Easy Riders take a break at Glenview’s Strawberry Fields.
“You’d never do this on your own. You wouldn’t know where to go. A lot of research goes into our rides.” The group varies their starting point so that people can ride without the hassle of putting their bike in their car. Rides start from Minyama, Buderim or Kawana. Carol Adcock helps to plan the routes. “A few of us get a map out and make a route like we did today and everyone follows. So you don’t need to concentrate on where you’re going. We don’t get lost much. Sometimes we do. It’s very casual.” As much as possible they avoid the roads. “We just meander through the bike paths. We enjoy the scenery and have a chat,” says Carol. “It’s great. We’ve found all of these beautiful bike paths and places we’d never know about if we hadn’t done this. You don’t see it when you go by car.” Carol emphasises that the group suits men and women with different fitness levels. Fitter riders often take off on a long straight stretch for a sprint, and then they just wait at the other end. Marilen agrees, “It caters to all and you don’t get left behind. If you get into trouble with your bike, you’re not on your own. The guys help out. We’re always looking out for each other.”
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The Easy Riders stop to watch the strawberry pickers at work.
Two popular rides are Kawana Forest and Lake Currimundi. At the lake, they stop for the two for one breakfast deal at Coco’s. An offshoot of the group is Leisure Riders, a Kawana Island group that meets on Thursday mornings, but not quite so early. Carol says, “It’s nice and flat. There’s lots of bike paths and nice coffee shops. It’s all about the coffee and the social side more than anything else. They start at Kensington Park. They do 5 kilometres, have coffee and ride back again.”
For now, the group are heading back to Buderim and Carol and the others have Thursday’s ride to plan. Lively50Plus Brings New Friends Together Peter Deacon, pictured left, is the webmaster who keeps the Easy Riders group informed and in touch. Easy Riders is part of Lively50Plus, a web-based community network that helps people find others who live on the coast and share their interests. Peter explains, “The Sunshine Coast has a large population of over-fifties. A lot of people come here without a large circle of family or friends so they are looking for new contacts and new opportunities to meet people.” Lively 50Plus has over 700 members on the Sunshine Coast. It’s free to join. Groups range from bridge and coffee groups to rock bands. Click here to visit the Lively50Plus website. TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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Local photographer and digital artist Rich Oxley takes in the view at Moffat Beach. Below, View of Moffat Headland shows the transformations that Rich achieves with his artistic editing.
Finding the Heart of the Image Rich Oxley transforms digital photographs into unique artworks. The avid photographer edits images for up to 20 or 30 hours to create stylistic pieces that reflect our coastal and urban lives back to us in new ways. Rich has always seen the world with a photographer’s eye. He was a business analyst looking ahead to retirement. Then the GFC hit and Rich turned to his photography to boost the family’s savings fund. And it paid off. His iconic beach images struck a chord with local galler-
ies. View of Moffat Headland is typical of his work. The editing process has turned the pandanas trees into big grassy waves and the buildings seem to be melting like vanilla ice-cream on a summer’s day. Sharp edges blur and the viewer has to work at reading the image. As Rich works with a photograph, he removes unnecessary details. The result is a cleaner image. He has to judge what matters to the overall story of the piece. It’s a fine line. “You need to stop before you lose too much detail,” he says.
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Surfing Images Redefined
In Tight Turn at the Coast, Rich Oxley has reworked the image creating swirls of seaspray. He explains, “What the software does, generally speaking, is it examines an area of the image and it will be an area that will have many pixels in it. It just returns the average, so the average colour, the average shade. The fingers seem to be very, very extended. Well, because it was probably averaging.” In Surfers at the Coast, Rich has caught two surfers stepping along the beach. Rich reflects that it takes many shots to catch the right action, where the walkers are overlapping and their feet are caught mid-step. The editing process has elongated their feet and blurred them with the background as mathematically speaking, the sand is the dominant colour. I commented that when you take away the detail of the faces, the gestures and the body shape become more obvious. Rich responds, “Yes, yes, and that’s happened. There was actually a woman that was going surfing. She had the surfboard under her arm. I took her photo and I worked that image until she was unrecognizable. Within four days of it being up here [at the gallery], her husband and daughter came in and instantly recognized her.
Above Tight Turn at the Coast and at right, Surfers at the Coast by Rich Oxley. Photos contributed. TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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“Well, how did that happen? Did they recognize the board? Did they recognize the way she
was standing, her posture, her hair? All of the fine details were gone, but they still instantly recognized her.” And they bought the work. Rich recalls, “That was quite special really. The person who most deserved to sort of own that piece of work, actually owns it. So I was quite happy with that.” Rich has sold his work locally and to overseas buyers. Examining why his work is popular, he says, “I just think it’s different. People look at it and they can see that it isn’t traditional art and I think that gets them curious.”
He says that people can relate to photography too. “They understand it. They just don’t understand how you get from a photograph to this sort of work.” His iconic Australian beach images speak of relaxation and good times.
That Summer at the Beach by Rich Oxley. Photo contributed.
The Café Scenes Sunny’s @Moffat is the location for The Waitress at the Café. Rich describes it as his earlier impressionistic style that helped him become known. With Seaview Gallery positioned in the Moffat Beach café strip, the café scenes are popular mementos for tourists on holiday. TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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In The Waitress at the Café, the customer appears to be placing an order or asking a ques-
tion. Rich has deliberately stopped processing this image while the customers still have some detail and the link between the customer and the waitress is clear. It’s a social scene familiar to the coast. By contrast, Mobile Breakfast at the Café was taken at a café in Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Rich admits he was trying to capture the social isolation in this shot.
The Waitress at the Café by Rich Oxley captures a familiar coastal pastime. At right, Mobile Breakfast at the Café by Rich Oxley. Photos contributed.
What’s Next for Rich Oxley? Rich is inspired by the work of Australian artist Jeffrey Smart. He admires the simplicity
and stillness of Smart’s paintings and wants to achieve this in his own work. He admits it’s a challenge. Whereas an artist can manipulate a scene totally, the photographer has to work from what presents itself. However, for this creative photographer and digital artist, anything’s possible. Watch this space. You can meet Rich Oxley at the Seaview Gallery in Moffat Beach. Check their website for Rich’s schedule. You will also find a selection of Rich’s work on the Seaview Gallery website.
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Clothing Alterations & Dressmaking For Quality Work at a Fair Price
Call Amrita on 0435 268 935 Email: a.rauber@hotmail.com TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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Riversweep
Clean Up the Snags and Eat Some Too On Sunday 12th October, the Currimundi Catchment Care Group are hosting Riversweep. You’re invited to get out on the water in our beautiful spring weather and do some good for your local environment at the same time. There’s plenty of jobs for people who don’t have access to a kayak or canoe. We always finish with a sausage sizzle in the park. So come along for a fun morning.
TIME: From 9 am – 11 am WHERE: Meet at the pontoon at western end of Noel Burns Park, Mulloka Esplanade, Wurtulla BRING: Your kayak or canoe CONTACT: For more details, call Tony Moorhead on 5438 8267
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Haiku Meets Art Chris Postle painted The Feeding Grounds when he was living in Hervey Bay . He took his inspiration from the nearby west coast of Fraser Island. Mangroves provide a breeding nursery and a feeding ground for fish, crabs and birdlife. Chris Postle’s work brings this underwater world into view. To find out more about the mangrove ecosystem, see our article, Feel the Serenity in Issue # 4. Many thanks to everyone who sent in a haiku. A selection appears on the next page. Subscribers -look out for your email, around the middle of the month, letting you know that the next artwork is online.
The Feeding Grounds by Chris Postle. Photo contributed. TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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ABOUT THE ARTIST Queensland artist Chris Postle has been painting for over 25 years. He has won numerous awards throughout Australia for his seascapes, landscapes and nature studies. Chris exhibits his work privately and in exhibitions across the east coast of Australia. More detail is available on his website chrispostle.com. Sunshine Coast artist, Chris Postle.
soft shadows of curved mangrove roots the wheel turns
mangroves ‌ where the pulse of the tides is the pulse of time
Maureen Sudlow Dargaville, New Zealand
Petrus Heyligers Curramore, Australia
mangrove forest big fish chase little fish through the stilts Valeria Barouch Geneva Switzerland
mangrove walk on the trail of a gull my footprints Archana Kapoor Nagpal, Bangalore, India
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Book Talk Graeme Bowden from The BookShop at Caloundra reviews Nest, the latest novel from Sunshine Coast author Inga Simpson. I love the way Inga writes and Nest is another beautifully written, evocative story from this award winning local author. Jen Vogel is an artist who loves to paint birds,
particularly the robins that inhabit the wild gardens
Graeme Bowden from The BookShop at Caloundra has been providing locals and visitors with good reads for over 25 years.
that surround her "nest". Jen has returned to the hinterland town where she grew up following the breakup of her long term relationship and the death of her mother. She gives weekly art lessons to a promising young artist, Henry who tells her that one of the students in his class at school, his closest friend, has disappeared. This is a similar situation to what had happened to Jen many years earlier, which has never been resolved properly in her mind, and causes her to question some of the decisions she has made at various pivotal times of her life ever since. A wonderful story from a very gifted writer.
You can read more about Inga Simpson and her writing in Issue #7 of Tamarind Magazine.
The BookShop at Caloundra, 22A Bulcock St, Caloundra
Phone : 5491 4836
shop@thebookshopatcaloundra.com.au TAMARIND MAGAZINE
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What Are You Reading? One Shot by Lee Child Stephen Engstrom, Franchise Owner and Mortgage Broker at Aussie Caloundra shares his latest read. It’s a bit of escapism, I guess.. You can easily relate to the main character. I think that’s important in any books that I’ve read. He’s a strong person with strong morals. It’s a detective-type of crime novel with adventure, escapism and a bit of romance. It ticks a lot of boxes. I tend to get onto an author and try and read everything that they have put out. The main character is an ex-military police special investigator called Jack Reacher. He just sort of cruises around the States without any baggage. He’s discharged from the army and he falls into situations where he investigates crime and solves murders. The book starts out with an ex-army sniper being accused of shooting into a rush hour city
crowd, killing five people. He claims he didn’t do it but the evidence is stacked against him. Reacher sees the news bulletins and turns up to help put the guy away but ends up trying to clear him. That’s when the trouble really starts. There are about 15 titles with Reacher as the main character. This particular book was made into a movie this year just called Reacher. The books have plenty of suspense and the guy always gets the girl, in the end.
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Tamarind Book Club News for October 2014 Tamarind Book Club meets in Caloundra on the first Thursday of the month at 10am. WHERE: The Caloundra Powerboat Club. In October, we are reading Perfume: the Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. This compelling story was first published in 1985. It’s a book of sensual contrasts that draws you in despite its darkness. To join us, go to Tamarind Book Club.
Here’s what we will be reading for the remainder of 2014. Perhaps you can join us.
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Caloundra Gallery Our Water Playground
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I hope you enjoyed this issue of Tamarind Magazine. To be sure you receive future issues, subscribe now. Already a subscriber? Then how about sharing Tamarind with a friend. As always, you are welcome to send suggestions or story ideas to the editor. Best wishes,
Mary Barber Editor
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