Meet the Artists 2017

MEET THE ARTISTS how do you do?

- 2017 edition -

CREATED BY THE SOUTHERN HIGHLAND’S ART FESTIVAL 2017

MEET THE ARTISTS 2017

Art is not simply the act of creating but rather, becoming the creation.

- ANON.

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contents

contents PREFACE pg. 8

THE ARTISTS: pg. 12 PAINTERS pg. 16 Henrietta Harris ----------------- pg. 19 John Olsen ------------------------ pg. 20 Zoe Young ------------------------ pg. 22 Joel Penkman -------------------- pg. 24 Heather Day ---------------------- pg. 26 Imogen Rockley ------------------ pg. 28 Laura Callaghan ----------------- pg. 30 Carlos Barrios -------------------- pg. 32 Ben Quilty ------------------------- pg. 34 Lisa Jo ------------------------------ pg. 36 JEWELLERS pg. 40 Noy Alan -------------------------Sophie Buhai --------------------Beth Macri -----------------------Corinne Snare --------------------

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pg. 43 pg. 44 pg. 46 pg. 48

CERAMISTS & SCULPTORS pg. 54 Janine King & Steve Harrison - pg. 57 Tracey Mitchell ----------------- pg. 58 Rami Kim ------------------------ pg. 60 Stella Bagot --------------------- pg. 62 Suzanne Sullivan -------------- pg. 64

PHOTOGRAPHERS pg. 68 Phoebe Rudomino ------------- pg. 71 Mehran Djojan ------------------ pg. 72 Luke Gram ---------------------- pg. 74 Alexander Howen ------------- pg. 76

GALLERIES: pg.80 STURT ---------------------------- pg. 84 MILK FACTORY ----------------- pg. 86 BOWRAL ART SOCIETY ------ pg. 88

WHAT’S NEXT? pg. 92 SOUTHERN HIGHLAND 2018 FESTIVAL ------------------------------------------- pg. 96 COMPETITIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------- pg. 98 OTHER EVENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pg. 100

SPONSERS pg. 102

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PREFACE As a product of The Southern Highland’s Art Festival, 2017 this publication has been released to capture an essence of the festival and harness a sample of the extraordinary talent that was on display in the festival. The Southern Highland’s Art Festival is a weekend of inspiration and imagination. Inviting all who have an interest in creativity to immerse themselves in a weekend of creative collaboration. The festival encourages especially young and emerging artists to experience what life might be like in the creative field, with first-hand interactions and workshops with artists and their lifestyles.

The artists featured in the festival have great diversity in media, styles and geographical origin, coming from all over the world to create in the inspirational Southern Highland’s countryside. In this publication, a sample of the talented artists featured in the festival have been interviewed, reviewed or researched to create not only a resource entailing all competitions, events and galleries in the Southern Highland’s, as well as profiles of each amazing artist, but also to capture the essence of the festival in a physical memory.

This book acts as a tangible product of the 2017 festival’s success and we can only hope to improve in the upcoming publications from the exciting future of the Southern Highland’s Art Festival. This would not be possible without the incredible, and enthusiastic participation from the artists, as well as the encouraging response from the public.

We look forward to seeing you at the 2018 Southern Highland’s Art Festival!

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A SPECIAL THANKS TO: Editor: Andrew Michelle

Creative Director: Mary McKinley

Production Manager: Sophie Princely

Senior Designer: Geoff Hartnell

Cover Artist: Henrietta Harris

Journalists: Jaime Barker Harrison Peterson George Richards John Cretier Benjamin Robinson

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Painting by Laura Callaghan

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the artists

Q U O T E S F R O M T H E M A S T E R S

“Art is anything you can get away with.” - Andy Warhol “Amateurs look for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work” - Chuck Close “Action is the foundational key to all success” - Pablo Picasso “If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it.” - Cindy Sherman “Creativity takes courage” - Henri Matisse “If we go for the easy way, we never change” - Marina Abramovic “Have no dear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” - Salvador Dali “Art should be something that liberates your soul” - Keith Haring “The most interesting thing about artists is how they live.”

- Marcel Duchamp “You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” - Georgia O’Keffee “I don’t think about art when I’m working I try to think about life” - Jean-Michel Basquiat “It doesn’t matter how the paint is put on, as long as something is said” - Jackson Pollock

Painting by Jen Mann

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Photograph by Luke Gram

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PAINTERS 16

FE AT U RING HENRIETTA HARRIS | JOHN OLSEN ZOE YOUNG | JOEL PENKMAN HEATHER DAY | IMOGEN ROCKLEY LAURA CALLAGHAN | CARLOS BARRIOS BEN QUILTY | LISA JO

Henrietta harris A B O U T : Henrietta Harris unique style has taken her painting career to an international scale. Since graduating in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland University of Technology, Harris has steadily built up a name for herself in the art world, especially in the world of portraiture. In addition, her other works of skilfully hand-drawn hands, faces, brains, glaciers and more have appeared in shows all over New Zealand, Australia, London and New York, on t-shirts, on record covers and in fine print publications.

A BREIF INTERVIEW:

1. How did you first get into illustration?

I’d always drawn and painted as a child and teenager.

After school I did a Bachelor of Art and Design and they sucked the life out of me, but then I started making gig posters and creating better work and things snowballed from there.

2. What style music do you mostly listen to when you work?

Psych, rock, classical, audiobooks, podcasts, 60s stuff, ambient - I can listen to anything 3. Please take us through your design process, where do you start?

I spend lots of time researching images, photography design and film, then collect and compile them. I paint them off my computer screen for reference, usually.

The melty face paintings are laid out in photoshop first. All the actual painting is done by hand, all I do afterwards is slightly clean up paintings as my scanner makes them a bit dark.

4. Do you have any advice for aspiring illustrators?

I get asked this so often by students. All I can say is you’ve got to put in the hours- draw every single day. Do lots of research, not just other illustrators. Definitely not just other illustrators.’

5. How would you best describe your style of illustration?

I like to think it has a timeless look that won’t go in or out of fashion, not that I care about that anyway... Watercolour and gouache portraiture probably best sums it up simply.

“The ideas are always there, it’s just a matter of figuring how to get them out.”

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JOHN OLSEN A B O U T : John Olsen was born in Newcastle in 1928, and studied briefly at the Desiderius Orban Art School and also attended night classes at Julian Ashton’s school of art. His international career took him to Paris, England, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, Kenya and so many more countries. His work also shows affinities with Far Eastern art and demonstrates an interest in literature. His chief subject, the Australian landscape, has been given expression to aspirations that permeate much of Australian culture. His acute evocations of local wildlife, Aussie and the intractable landmass itself constitute an art that is regional but in no sense provincial.

W O R K S : A typical Olsen painting combines an implied aerial view with an ambiguous and seemingly unpremeditated figuration. His characteristically quizzical line and irregular squiggles and dots deftly render countless organisms, large and minute. Their environment is conjured through loosely brushed and stained expanses of colour that are keyed to natural light. Olsen’s imagery teems with life. Yet the same lines sometimes read as geological mappings. In Olsen’s work there is no typical foreground, middle ground or background schema, nor any sign of European landscape’s concern with “human scale.” Instead he employs simultaneously the contrary vantages of naturalist and geographer or, to put it another way, the viewpoints of frog and eagle.m

F I V E B E L L S A R T I S T R E S P O N S E : “Five bells was my first commission to paint in situ to cover a wall … I didn’t hesitate. I brushed a line around the core theme, the seed-burst, the life-burst, the sea-harbour, the source of life. Inside and around this core, I painted images drawn from metaphors and similes in [Kenneth] Slessor’s poem of our harbour city, and from my own emotional and physical involvement with the harbour, and with my young family in Watsons Bay …

I wanted to show the Harbour as a movement, a sea suck, and the sound of the water as though I am part of the sea ... The painting says directly what I wanted to say: ‘I am in the sea-harbour, and the sea-harbour is in me’.”

“There’s so much naysaying in the world…we’re apt to forget that there is optimism.”

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‘Five Bells’ 1963

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ZOE YOUNG A B O U T : Born in 1978, Zoe Young grew up on a farm in Thredbo Valley, with a childhood that was immersed with art and creativity. In 2012 she graduated from her scholarship at the National Art School in Sydney, Australia with a masters in sculpture but she considers herself principally a painter. Her work is influenced by the rustic aesthetic of the mountains she grew up in. In the 2014 Archibald prize, Young’s portrait of the Winter Olympian and her childhood friend Torah Bright landed her as a finalist. She now works as an artist in residence at Frensham School in the Southern Highlands, where she runs afternoon drawing classes for young, creative students at the school.

A B R E I F R E V I E W : Zoe Young’s work is a perfect example of emotively expressing what the eye sees. Her subject matter, despite its originally mundane character, is inverted and given feeling through exaggerated colour, simplification of shapes and an innovatively appealing lack of tone. Young has definitely made her own personal mark onto the art world, giving her audience a refreshed view on the ordinary. Often involving personal elements of her life into her work, whether that be her cup of tea or her family, perhaps her secret to her beautiful, emotive expression is her incorporation of things that personally evoke emotion. Whatever her secret may be Zoe Young is definitely destined for a long and thriving future in the art world.

AN ARCHIBALD FINALIST: The painting of Cooma winter Olympian Torah Bright was one of 54 finalists for the 2014 Archibald prize with her work to the left.

“I was really surprised when I received the email explaining that I was a finalist for the award. I definitely jumped out of bed that morning. Originally I planned to do an epic painting, something larger-than-life that captured the excitement and daring tricks of her sport, something really bright, maybe even with a splash of glitter. But after the sitting, I looked through the sketches and thought, “I’m just going to paint what I saw”. I caught Torah in an introspective moment, a calm silence after the chaos of recent months, somewhere between the guts and the glory, and her private and public lives,”

“Drawing is at the centre of my art”

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‘Torah Bright 2014’

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JOEL PENKMAN AN INTERVIEW 1. What is your name and how old are you?

Joël Penkman, 33 2. Where were you born and where do you live now?

I was born in New Zealand, and live in Liverpool, England.

3. How does where you grew up and where you live now affect your art?

Where I grew up is different to where I live now, and as a bit of an outsider it’s easier to spot little idiosyncrasies. Often, it is the little things that make this place different that I paint.

4. Please describe the space where you do most of your creation Kitchen bench for inspiration, studio for creation. I often take a trip to the supermarket for inspiration too.

5. What kind of mediums do you use? Why do you choose to use these mediums?

I mostly paint in egg tempera. It’s a time consuming medium as there is a lot of preparation required, making gesso boards and grinding paint, but it does have some great qualities. The colours are beautiful and crisp, and it dries immediately so you can build up layers of colours quickly, it is more forgiving than watercolour and if it does all go wrong you can scrape off the paint and start again.

6. Is there a running theme to the work you create, or do you just make whatever comes to mind?

There does seem to be an edible still life theme running through most of it.

7. What kinds of ideas and things are you working on at the moment?

I’ve just finished some big illustration projects and am about to start some new paintings for myself. There will probably be a little more of the same plus something new. Hopefully more colour and maybe some relief printing to.

8. Where can we see more of your work?

I’ve not long finished illustrating a book that will be coming out in October, I think. You can also see my work at joelpenkman.com.

“I love food, and I love to paint, so combining the two seemed like a good idea.”

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HEATHER DAY A B O U T : Heather Day grew up in Hawaii and along the east coast of the United States, finally moving to San Francisco after graduating from Maryland Institute College of Art with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and art history. Her background in travel and culture encouraged her to see more of the world, where she discovered a connection to nature—her main source of inspiration. Day recently completed her 5th solo exhibition at The Wall Gallery in Oakland in November 2015. The Southern Highland’s Art Festival was proud to have her as a feature artist.

A N O T E F R O M D AY : “I travel seeking stories of all kinds—stories behind people, places, sound, and nature and bring them home to create an interpretation. Each of us sees the world differently. I choose to communicate my interpretations through layers of overlapping paint, expressing moments at every seam, edge, and line. Each mark represents my language of dynamic motion.

Working primarily with paint, my recent work is a reflection of travels in nature. I spend time collecting moments from wooded areas, agitated rivers, and panoramic views of the ocean and convey them through medium washes and emphatic marks. Colour is used like punctuation—a means to control energy and direct the eye. My process demands motion, requiring the entire body, not just the hand. I’m pouring and manipulating paint into its own current. Each painting ultimately seeks to balance the progression of growth and upkeep found in both nature and the act of painting.

WORK: Heather Day’s art is a form of visual storytelling. She is very interested in conveying moments of interactions between people, objects, nautre and life itself. She works primarily with acrylic paint as well as other unconventional materials, and is known for her innovative, graffit-style murals. The philosophy that everything is a product of an experience strongly frames each work. By conveying stories of movement and ideas of color through seams,lines, and layers, she involves her audience as they invited to personally interpret every vivacious stroke.

“Each of us sees the world differently through a screen of personal experiences”

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IMOGEN ROCKLEY A B O U T : Imogen Rockley grew up in Brighton on the South Coast of England. After school, she studied illustration at Chelsea School of Art in London and Falmouth University in Cornwall. Rockley found from her tertiary study environment one of her main sources of inspiration, the sea. Constantly incorporating oceanic imagery, Rockley’s love for bright, youthful patterns led her to her current illustrator career where she features in many children’s books. Her love for storytelling through art is also the reason why she branched into the make-up industry, allowing her to create a character within a story. Her influences include David Hockney, Paul Nash, John Bauer, Charles Keeping, Laura Carlin, Angela Barrett, renaissance portraiture, medieval art, The Arts and Crafts movement, the sea, and folk tales.

INTERVIEW WITH RO CKLEY: 1. Please discuss the process of your work I work mainly in gauche, watercolour, coloured pencil and ink. I really like seeing human imperfections and varying textures in artwork and I think these materials lend themselves to this.

I work in quite a disorderly way, jumping between a couple of projects at a time, I find this keeps things fresh and one project often informs the other. I Work in sketchbooks, I do lots and lots of thumbnails trying out different compositions and colour pallets.

I get quite into research, especially anything historical and sometimes have to stop myself going off on a tangent. I like to listen to audiobooks while I work I find the right book can help you get a particular atmosphere or mood in whatever you’re doing.

2. What would be your ultimate goal as an artist Very difficult question. I would like a very big bookcase in my house that I am able to fill with books I have made.

3.. When did your artistic journey begin?

I work mainly in gauche, watercolour, coloured pencil and ink. I really like seeing human imperfections and varying textures in artwork and I think these materials lend themselves to this.

I work in quite a disorderly way, jumping between a couple of projects at a time, I find this keeps things fresh and one project often informs the other. I Work in sketchbooks, I do lots and lots of thumbnails trying out different compositions and colour pallets.

I get quite into research, especially anything historical and sometimes have to stop myself going off on a tangent. I like to listen to audiobooks while I work I find the right book can help you get a particular atmosphere or mood in whatever you’re doing.

4.. Do you have any advice for young artists?

My main advice is to try and be interested in as many things as possible, inspiration for work can come from anywhere, even if it seems very unrelated.

Also I think it’s very easy to get ‘the fear’ if you do something creative. It can be a bit overwhelming when you have lots of very talented people around you, you can become self conscious and doubtful about your own work, which can be a real obstacle. I have found it helps to have a secret sketchbook that only I see. So I don’t have to worry about making every page pretty or every drawing good- it’s just a physical record for whats in my brain.

Going for a swim, a walk or doing the washing up helps when I’m stuck on an idea. When I sit back at my desk I usually know what to do.

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LAURA CALLAGHAN A B O U T : Born and raised in Columbus, GA, I developed a love for art as far back as I can remember.

I attended Auburn University and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Art, and now live and work as a full-time painter in Charleston, SC. I am a follower of Jesus, and am so thankful to Him for providing a job that I love. I am currently working out of a creative studio space called Redux Contemporary Art Center. My paintings consist of mostly figurative and non-objective work. I am forever learning and trying new techniques, mediums and subjects. Inspired by light, movement, surprising color combinations, social interaction, and patterns, I try to collaborate these elements and form abstracted, pixilated compositions.

AN INTERVIEW: 1. How do you first approach a brief for an editorial commission?

It depends a lot on the time frame I have to work with. Ideally I like to do a lot of research and collating of reference images beforehand.

I dismissed Pinterest as a shrine to cupcakes and wedding invites at first but now I’m obsessed with it! I’m not someone who draws out lots of thumbnails, I’m too impatient so usually dive straight in to sketching and figure out layout and composition by trial and error. Once pencil roughs have been approved I ink the image using an isograph pen and then colour using watercolour or Photoshop depending on time.

2. What is the difference between your editorial work and your personal work?

It makes a big difference to be involved in a piece of work from start to finish, the initial concept, planning and creating – I put far more of myself into personal work. It’s an opportunity to experiment without wasting a client’s time or money. I didn’t have the opportunity to make many personal pieces last year but I’m making a new body of work to exhibit at Pick Me Up in April at the moment and it’s so much fun – I missed it! I enjoy a good editorial brief but you can’t beat the freedom of personal work.

3. Are you usually given a lot of freedom for interpreting a brief?

I’m at a stage now where I cultivated a particular style so editors know what they’re getting when they commission. In most cases the art director will attach a few samples of previous work I’ve done and requested something similar in tone or colour palette.

So yes I think comparatively speaking I have more free reign now than I did when I first started freelancing.

4. What are the most difficult editorial briefs?

I find the drier more corporate briefs most difficult. I work as a graphic designer part time now which has afforded me the luxury of turning down jobs which aren’t of any particular interest or which I feel my work would not be right for, but there are always tight months so I can sometimes end up working on an illustration that’s a chore to finish.

5. What would be your dream magazine to illustrate for?

I’d love to do something for Lucky Peach, they are doing really interesting and unexpected things with their content and design, it’s be fun to illustrate something food related! I’d also like to work with Vogue, mostly because I think it would impress my Mam.

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CARLOS BARRIOS G E T T I N G I N T O A R T : “I was born on June 26th 1966 in America. I had a childhood filled with visits to magical ancient places, pyramids and temples. As a child art was an important discovery, it came to me for the first time in a stone belonging to an ancient city. I was on an excavation site wondering around amongst fragments of ceramic, obsidian and stone. I picked up one small stone, rectangular in shape, and as I looked into it I saw many figures. I kept it, and could observe it for hours, this fragment seemed to contain a film of moving and changing figures.

At about six years of age I discovered some pots of paint and brushes in my father’s workshop.

As I moved the paint around with the brushes through my imagination I could see many things, I allowed my hand to follow and trace them.”

CAREER: Barrios works with the mediums of oil, charcoal, acrylic, mixed media and bronze.

Barrios’ artwork was exhibited at Art Hop 1997 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and he was the artist in residence at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre in 1998. In 2000 Barrios’ work was included at the Central American Biennale, San Jose.

In 2003 Barrios’ artwork was exhibited at the Australian Museum as part of the exhibition “Death - The Last Taboo”. Barrios has twice been a finalist for the Art Gallery of New South Wales Sulman Art Prize, in 2005 with “Pushing the pram”, and again in 2006 with “Feeding time”. Barrios has twice been a finalist for the Blake Prize for Religious Art, in 2006 with “Flying angel”, and in 2007 with “Compassion”. In 2008 his work was exhibited at the Miami Art Fair. Barrios’ work was included in the 2009 “Reflections of Australia” group exhibition in China. He was the 2009 Liverpool City Art Prize, Two dimensional contemporary prize winner for his artwork “Festival”.

A BRIEF REVIEW: Carlos Barrios, from his Southern Highland’s studio, creates incredible paintings that blend fantasy and reality. Something that he has done since he was a boy in El Salvador.

Barrios led a childhood that reads like a fairy tale – his father was an archaeologist and collector of art and antiques, so Barrios grew up surrounded by the remnants of ancient cultures. During his childhood of exploring pyramids and temples, collecting fragments of inspiration, Barrio’s magical childhood crumbled when the civil war erupted. To make sense of the chaos, Barrios would draw at night by candle light, capturing the disturbing images he witnessed from the innocence of a child.

Now settled with a young family in Robertson, Australia, Barrios painting style embodies the great humanistic tradition of modern western and Latin American art.

Using themes reminiscent of artists such as Picasso and Gauguin, Barrios deals with the myriad of human experiences and the essential unity of man with nature.

“Art makes me aware of different levels of existence within the universe”

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BEN QUILTY A B O U T : Ben Quilty is an Australian artist producing rich visual images which have earned him a national reputation. Acclaimed as a portraitist, Quilty creates thickly impastoed canvases using vibrant coloursand broad brush strokes that build up layers of paint. He works in a wide range of genres, including portraits and still lifes, but also landscapes that reflect his fascination with Australianness, a passion which has its origins in Arthur Streeton’s edict that Australian artists should look to their own backyards for inspiration.

HIS WORK: Portraiture for Ben Quilty is about the emotional relationship he develops with his subjects, and the creation of an intimate bond which allows them to place their trust in him to tell their stories. As a result, the portraits of these Australian servicemen and women are imbued with their experience of war. They express the dangers the soldiers encountered in Afghanistan, and the complex emotions they felt on returning home.

Back in his studio in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Quilty began making portraits based on the photographs he had taken in Afghanistan. But this approach lacked the sense of immediacy he had enjoyed while sitting with the soldiers and making drawings of them. He wanted to create portraits from live sittings, so he asked some of the soldiers to come to his studio. Throughout the studio sittings, they spoke openly about memories that they would otherwise have found difficult to share.

Keen to capture their sheer physicality, Quilty asked the soldiers to sit for their portraits naked.

He was not interested in creating a traditional heroic male nude. Rather, he needed to see the body after its protective layers of uniform and body armour had been stripped away. For him, their nakedness expressed both the strength and the frailty of the human condition in time of war.

Each soldier was asked to select a pose that reflected an aspect of his or her experience. Some of them drew on an actual event from their deployment, others on the tiredness or the emotions they felt after their return to Australia.

P R A C T I C E : In his paintings Ben Quilty uses an impasto style and medium. Impasto is a term used to describe a thickly textured paint that can appear to be three- dimensional. It also refers to a technique artist’s use where they usually take a pallete knife and quickly splash on the paint leaving distinct brush strokes which can be more important than the subject matter itself. Quilty likes to experiment with cake decorating tools when his artwork to see the different textures they can make.

“To watch them try to struggle to come back and fit in, and drop, fall, crashing down to the earth - is very crushing and confronting.” - following ‘After Afghanistan’

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Lisa jo A R T I S T S T A T E M E N T : “Making art is about setting something in motion. For my practice, it is about pushing against compartmentalization and finding new, unfamiliar access points. Art is not always about documentation or representing a filtered view of a thing, it is about many things at once. In my varied mediums, it is about setting certain elements against each other to find a new and changing visual language. Within this language, art can begin to demand that one contemplate artworks in relation to their own internal and external relationship with it.

My paintings are not about seduction and often not about beauty. Instead they are about opening up an ongoing exchange, nudging a more complex intercommunication with the viewer and also with the artist. Images that are flirting with both figuration and abstraction are held in a suspended state against categorization. This allows them to enter into larger, more varied interactions.”

A NOTE FROM JO: “I love to travel, read detective type novels, love to eat, enjoy cooking, like fishing when they are biting, like seeing new things, did I mention eat, but most of all I LOVE to PAINT. However, I’m unlike any artist you’ve ever met. I cannot claim to have studied at any prestigious art school nor did I know at age three I was destined to be an artist.

In fact, I did not like art in school. No, that’s not correct. I passionately HATED art at school and only passed because my Mum helped me!

My favourite subjects were ‘maths’ and ‘science’. And so it followed I studied Agriculture Science at University; later became an Accountant and even later became an internet marketer. But somewhere between school and now I started to feel a “need to do art”; a “need to paint”. Which I continuously ignored and wrote off as nonsense. And yet, felt a need to paint. Which I continued to ignore.

My ever patient and supportive husband, Neil and I built our motor home together. We sold our home and possessions and headed off on our adventure around Australia. The plan was/is to spend 5 years working and traveling around Australia, to see our country and see if we can find a spot to settle (some say to settle and grow up – I say never!).

A couple months into our trip and that “need to paint” raised its ugly head again! (Why would it just not leave me alone.)

So, I gave in and bought some paints. Not one to do things by halves – I bought arm fulls of paints and brushes and spatulas and papers and more paints – well the colours looked really pretty and how did I know what sort would be best. I really had no idea on “how to” and decided the only real way to learn was to just let instinct take over and see what I could do.

And so I squirted out my first paints and became hooked. I instantly fell in love! I loved the colours even before I got them on the canvas! I loved the way the paint moved and the colours merged. I was no longer that kid in high school that detested art and somehow I’d finally found my “thing”.

So, now I’m an Artist travelling around Australia, in a Motorhome. Our car trailer doubles as my art studio (or should I say triples, because it is also our laundry). It’s great fun (most of the time) seeing new things and meeting new people – so much inspiration for painting.

Phew – as usual I’ve talked too much.”

“I’m unlike any artist you’ve ever met”

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Photograph by Luke Gram

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JEWELLERS

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F E AT U R I NG Noy Alan Sophie Buhai Beth Macri Corinne Snare

NOY ALAN A B O U T : Noy Alan is a jewellery designer and goldsmith. She has a Bachelor of Design and a Master’s Degree Student at Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art. Her love and curiosity for colour, shape, material and intricate detail are shown in her unique creations. The basis of her designs is the idea that a piece of jewellery is a functional work of art, containing emotions, thoughts and inspiration from the designer to the consumer. She loves to create conceptual, contemporary and unique one of a kind pieces that combine sophistication and formality with a rustic urban vibe.

W O R K S : Noy Alon’s conceptual jewellery pieces are made up of brass and polymer innovatively coalesced with an epoxy coting to enable the creation of new jewellery with a completely new aesthetic that is unique to Alon. By processing the epoxy putty covering the metal structure, the jewellery obtains new qualities through erosion and thinning the consolidation of the separate materials into one piece. The large sculptural-like pieces feature the brass structure peeking out through the solidified putty, to look almost like the putty is slowing eroding around it. While the size and forms of most of the pieces make wearing them not so practical, the idea and the finished product make for beautiful objects.

A B R E I F R E V I E W : As a consumer, self-appointed artist, and lover of art and the combination of the unexpected, it’s hard not to be intrigued by Noy Alon’s fascinating creations. The composition, shape and attention to detail are what create such an inimitable form of functional art. When I first saw Alon’s work, I was immediately struck, completely consumed in his surprising amalgamation of what looks like concrete and gold. The two completely juxtaposing materials somehow find a sanctuary in each other as they intertwine. Aside from the fascinating aesthetic, a sense of nostalgia and unseen curiosity is irrevocably created in the almost futuristic form. Needless to say, Alon’s work is a one of a kind series of masterpieces.

“My love and curiosity for color, shape, material & details have brought me to the world of jewelry.”

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SOPHIE BUHAI A B O U T : Sophie Buhai is a designer/artist living and working in Los Angeles. Her namesake jewellery collection, established in 2015, has renewed the modernist tradition of solid sterling silver with an emphasis on sculptural silhouettes of substantial weight. Each piece is made by hand in Los Angeles by master silversmiths using recycled silver to minimise environmental impact. Her work has been featured in Vogue, The New York times, T, M Le Monde, and WSJ, among other publications.

AN INTERVIEW:

1. Describe your personal style.

California 90’s modernist via the consignment shop? I think that’s what it is right now, if that’s even a thing!

2. Who are your favorite designers?

Christophe Lemaire, Geoffrey Beene, Vintage Yves Saint Laurent, Zoran, 70’s Issey Miyake, 90’s prada, Norma Kamali, Maryam Nassirzadeh, 3. What are your favorite places to shop?

My mothers basement for 80’s and 90’s gems (she never threw anything away), Scout, Maryam Nassirdazeh, Barneys, Ebay.

4. Who are your style icons?

Charlotte Rampling, Joan Didion, Mary Mcfadden, Angelica Houston, 90’s Kate.

5. What is your most recent purchase?

A camel suede vintage gucci apron dress... I have no idea what I was thinking. It’s not practical... but it is 70’s Gucci.

6. Do you have any stories about amazing deals you’ve gotten on awesome pieces?

Everything truly good I have was either my moms or my grandmothers. I think there is a randomness to hand-me-downs that ends up feeling more authentic and special. The best pieces are the ones that only you have - I think that’s why I love vintage.

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7. Are there any key pieces you find yourself wearing constantly?

Well that’s a tough one, I tend to mix up my style a fair bit, but I’d say I always rely on my Deadstock high waisted jeans, espadrilles, Vena Cava blazers, clergerie loafers, leotards, Moroccan hippy dresses.

8. Can you give us smart shopping advice?

Oh definitely! Rule number one is to never buy anything full price. There is always a sale or something cooler hidden on the Internet. Great style comes from the hunt, rather then how much money you spend.

9. What’s the best thing about your job?

That’s hard, there’s so many parts about my job that I love. I suppose that the greatest things would have to be always continuing to try and find new ways to be creative, breaking rules, becoming obsessed with a new theme every season, and collaborating with friends on projects.

10. What are the best beauty products that you recommend?

Argon oil on your face, Aesop deodorant as perfume, Chanel lipstick.

11. What are the five things you can’t live without?

Silver jewelry, mascara, ballet flats, high waisted jeans, red lipstick.

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Beth Macri ABOUT: From an unconventional background comes unconventional jewelry. Beth Macri worked eight years as a Structural Engineer for bridges and high-end architecture in both London and New York City.

Inferring dimensionally complex designs from 2D drawings was a necessary skill. From this perspective, her first jewelry collection, The Hidden Message, was born. Instead of using I-beams to hold gravitational forces, Beth uses letters and symbols to hold meaning to the wearer. Using her unique training in advanced architectural technologies, paired with NYC’s finest jewelry craftsman, Beth Macri creates architecturally derived forms with an heirloom quality. Beth lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Jason, their son Harvey and a Boston Terrier named Boz.

THE HIDDEN MESSAGE: Beth Macri’s jewellery products are known around the world for their exceptional quality and originality put into each innovative design. The most popular product, the Hidden Message Necklace by Beth Macri, is an innovative and unique interpreation on the idea of personalized jewelry. Upon first glance, the pendants appear as simple structural and abstract elements until the wearer flips them up, revealing their true form: a letter, number, or symbol customised by the wearer to create a personal flare. Influenced by a career in architecture, Beth Macri’s designs were inspired by the I-beam, where the shape of each character follows the form along the entire length of the charm. The charms allow a true, meaningful message to be worn close to your heart - a story to be told to the world at your command.

QUESTIONS FOR BETH: 1. Who makes the jewellery?

The Hidden Message Collection is a collection of original, patented and proprietary works

by Beth Macri. Beth conceptualizes every idea and sees each piece through the entire design, development and production process.

We work with a great team of jewelers who hand make our jewelry in the heart of the New York City jewelry district on 47th Street.

Every Hidden Message Necklace is made by hand in the Beth Macri HQ in downtown NYC. Your necklace is truly one-of-a-kind to you.

2. Can you add additional pendents?

You can absolutely purchase an additional pendant, without chain. This is very popular with parents and grandparents who want to add a new pendant with the arrival of each new addition to their family.

3. Why is your jewellery so expensive?

Because all of my jewelry is designed, developed, and produced in New York City.

“The perfect way to add your own personal flare to your jewellery”

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CORINNE SNARE TELL US ABOUT YOUR ARTISTIC JOURNEY: I have always had an interest in art, but found i lacked talent in drawing so i would always find other mediums to explore. I found that i would do a collage of something rather than draw it or create patterns instead. Growing up, my best friends father was a ceramist so i had been making pinch pots since i was 3 years old, so this was something that i kept going back to over the years and really help hone my interest in object based art forms. It wasn’t until year 11 of high school that i was looking for another medium to find new ways to work in when i took home some wire from my art room. I came back the next day with rings, earrings and pendants made with just wire and whatever glass marbles or pebbles i found around the house. This was my breakthrough into jewellery. Now that i knew what i wanted to do, i had to figure out how to achieve it. My school was very different to yours in that there were no funds nor accessibility to the kind of tools and materials i would need to produce this kind of work, nor were there anyone to teach me. I had to do all of that on my own, so in the summer break i took a short course to learn the basics, bought my tools and materials and designed my major work out of copper. I decided i wanted to enamel, so had to figure out a way to do that as well, and used the bunsen burners in the science labs to finish my project. This was a great starting point as it taught me to be independent, resourceful, and most of all innovative.

From there i studied 3 years at Sydney College of Arts in a Bachelor of Visual Arts majoring in Jewellery and Object Design and i did a minor in Ceramics. This helped me to build my skills, develop my aesthetic and solidly my dreams of making this my career. I then took a break and travelled and lived overseas in order to broaden my experiences and to draw inspiration from other sources. Upon my return to Sydney i enrolled in my Honours year that saw me push my ideas further and take me to new places. After that, i came down to Sturt to be a Graduate Resident which help me launch my production line of work and be the stepping stones to the business that i run today. In 2013 i launched my label A Silver Circle Design and started selling at market stalls, online and through stockists. This is something that i have been gradually growing over this time. My work focuses on clean and elegant forms while still being a little quirky and interesting.

“My work focuses on clean and elegant forms while still being a little quirky and interesting.”

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a r t i s t s t a t e m e n t g u i d e 50

HAVE YOU EVER read someone’s artist statement and thought, “what the heck does that mean?” If so, you have read a bad statement. Stick to these five rules and you’ll avoid all possible catastrophes.

1. KEEP THE STATEMENT SIMPLE The artist statement should be written both clearly and concisely for a wide range of people who will read it. The artist is neither speaking down to someone who is artistically uneducated, nor are they trying to impress someone ‘higher’ than them.

2. STATEMENT SHOULD SAY WHY The artist should explain why they create this kind of art. This could be in the form of an explaination of motivation, or subject matter or maybe a description of someone who is inspirational to them and their work.

3. STATEMENT SHOULD SAY HOW Explaining to the reader the ‘how’ can be a short sentence or two about the artistic process or describing if there are any special techniques involved, as well as unusual materials.

4. WHAT IT MEANS TO THE ARTIST Overall, this is a personal statement of the meaning of the art for the artist. This may be the most difficult thing for the artist to write about as it will reveal something personal about the artist. It is difficult to write about yourself, especially when you need to keep it short. For this, try and compact it down to 2-3 sentences.

5. KEEP IT SHORT Remember that people’s attention spans are quite short and that if the artist statement is too long, too complicated or poorly written people will just not read it!

Avoid big, flowery and complicated words.

It just does not work. You are not trying to impress anyone, you are trying to communicate to a very wide audience what your art is about.

Artwork by Mouni Feddag

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1. HONOUR YOUR PREDECESSORS I feel I have to say this as disclaimer for everything I have to say. We have trouble getting into the minds of others, and it’s certainly impossible to get into the mind of an artist. Young artists should admire classic artists from a distance. Make no attempts to recreate their work, to recycle their logos or distort any of their pieces for your own artistic efforts.

2. BE ORIGINAL, DON’T BE TRENDY Young artists have to be careful not to be creative based off trends. Trends in the 2010s have the shortest lifespans imaginable due to Twitter and Instagram, where trends live and die. Classic artists such as Michelangelo, and Da Vinci had no trends to reference for their artwork. They may have been inspired by other entities, but their final works came from within.

3. BE INNOVATIVE From the critics who analyse the work of other artists, I hear, “That’s easy, I could have thought of that,” or “If I had that, I could do the same thing.” My response is always simple, “But you didn’t.” Artists today must not only be creative, but also innovative. Art is the ability to create something that someone else hasn’t created already. I’m not implying that re-creating something with new implications is not art, but it’s also not 100 percent original.

4. CLASSIC WITH ALWAYS BE CLASSIC Finally, in a continued effort to help young people find inspiration, I suggest studying the ways of the past when creating. Philosopher, George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” As young artists, you have to study your art history, compare it to our present art trends and figure out what you, as an artist, can do to move things forward.

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CERAMISTS & SCULPTORS 54

FE AT U R I NG Janine King & Steve Harrison Tracey Mitchell Rami Kim Stella Bagot Suzanne Sullivan

STEVE HARRISON + JANINE KING A B O U T : Steve Harrison is a woodfirer, teacher and kiln designer living at Balmoral Village where he set up the Loopline Pottery with Janine King in 1977. The two make pottery together under the Loopline Pottery label as well as running the Kiln and Clay Technology Company Hot and Sticky and making one-off pieces under their own names. Their aim is to be completely self-sustainable as potters. Harrison was born in England, but came to Australia in 1956. He obtained a Ceramics Certificate from the East Sydney Technical College in 1971-72, then spent a year at Terrey Hills with the Japanese potter Shigeo Shiga before establishing a small workshop - Steve’s Pottery - at nearby Beacon Hill. Between 1975 and 1976, he and Janine King briefly took over the Jenner Road studio in Dural, NSW, from Malina Reddish and Dennis Monks. King had also studied ceramics at East Sydney Technical College and became an exhibiting member of the Australian Potters’ Society in 1976. Pursuing a research interest in woodfiring using local clays and glazes, Harrison obtained a Post Certificate from ESTC in 1978, an MA Hons from Wollongong University in 1995, and a PhD from the University of Western Sydney in 1998. As well as working in clay, he makes works in metal, stainless steel, aluminium and cast bronze. King has been exhibiting regularly since 1975 and was a finalist in the Meroogal Women’s Art prize in 2004 and 2008. Harrison’s works are impressed ‘SH’ in a square with the S inside the H. An early version has the ‘S’ and ‘H’ joined together. King’s works are impressed ‘JK’ and sometimes incised ‘King’. The Steve’s Pottery mark is an impressed ‘SP’, the Jenner’s Road pottery mark is an impressed ‘JRP’ and the Loopline Pottery mark is an impressed ‘LLP’.

“Each pot I make is a response to a question I ask myself.

I hope I never find the answer”

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TRACEY MITCHELL A B O U T : Tracey Mitchell is an incredibly talented ceramist that lives and works in the Southern Highlands, NSW, Australia. Her delicate and intricate works have brought her far in the art world and her rare ability to create such subtly gentle and detailed pieces has gotten her lots of positive press and response from the public and art critics. Having an interest in art making since childhood Mitchell always knew she was destined to be an artist.

A NOTE FROM MITCHELL:

My joy in the organic world speaks through my work on a continuing basis, interweaving itself with a strong desire to embrace balance and pattern. I am interested in how ceramics, be it utilitarian or sculptural, live with us in our daily lives and have the power to influence us in the subtlest ways. The foundation narratives in my work are a consideration in relation to memory and how it forms and in turn, informs us.

I work predominantly in porcelain exploring its qualities – luminosity, density (or lack there-of) and fluidity.

I use Southern Ice porcelain - I love working with it and don’t think that anything beats its whiteness. I am currently casting in Southern Ice, very finely, and doing intricate shellac resist decoration. I line the inside of my work with Cornish Stone Celadon (yes, I still have a bag) or let the clay speak for itself and finely polish the pieces after firing. I am always seeking purity and translucency. My previous works involve casting coloured layers of SI and carving back into it. The colour stains I use are Clayworks lavender and turquoise. I am constantly drawn to porcelain for its clarity and translucency and my focus is on high-fired ceramics. My joy in the organic world speaks through my work on a continuing basis, interweaving itself with a strong desire to embrace balance and pattern.”

“Set on three sunny acres in a large garden, my small, light filled studio is well set up for hand building, slip casting and throwing.”

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RAMI KIM A B O U T : Rami Kim, (also a.k.a Ramis Kim) is a Los Angeles based artist, maker and an award winning animator whose practice is focused mainly on sculptural and functional ceramic objects.

With her background in animation, her work is whimsical and poetic. Her inspiration comes from organic shapes, nature, feelings, and people. She currently works out of her studio in Glendale, CA. Given her background in animation, it’s no surprise that artist and maker Rami Kim‘s ceramics veer into the quirky and whimsical side of things. Each of her hand-built and hand-painted clay pieces are crafted in Los Angeles. I especially love the ones that feature a little element of surprise.

AN INTERVIEW:

1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started with art?

I grew up in Seoul, Korea and I’ve been drawing since I was a little girl. When I was 16, I was fortunate to attend Walnut Hill School, a small art school located in a small town called Natick, Massachusetts. The school led me to open my vision to grow as a young artist. In 2000, I came to Los Angeles to attend Cal Arts to learn animation. Working as an animator and background painter at an animation studio is good and all, but I always wanted to work on my own stuff. So I started making art again. From that point I have gotten full satisfaction for myself that I couldn’t get from working in the industry.

2. We heard you’re into vintage fashion. What’s a favorite vintage piece that you own?

My antique victorian style velvet couch! I love vintage items because they each have such character and their own story. Buying vintage also helps the environment by reducing the use of new resources!

3. Ramis is a pretty unique name. Where did it come from?

This is kind of funny story but I will tell you since there are some people who get confused with my name. I always went by Rami Kim, which is my pure korean name until I got out of college. I wanted to make my art website but I found out that there was another Rami Kim who was a famous DNA scientist and a quilt designer and the domain name that I wanted was already taken. So I just added “s”, at the end of my name for domain and Ramis became my artist name since then. I still go

by Rami Kim in animation related field though to separate.

4. Give us three people, places, or things in the last week that inspired you.

1. The smell of spring 2. Yoga class 3. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (film)

“My pieces emulte a side of me that can only be expressed through a quirky, unexplainable art”

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STELLA BAGOT A B O U T : Established in 2012, Atelier Stella is an ever changing collection of unique ceramics hand made by Stella Baggott in Brighton, England. “My work is modern, stylish and brings a smile!

I lovingly design, hand build, fire in my kiln and glaze small batches of work to give you a truly unique, one of a kind work of art, so if you like a piece grab it while you can!” All pots are all hand built, sculpted from slabs and pinch pots to create unique pieces that I would love in my home. I’m influenced by Cornish, Italian and Swedish potters from the 50’s and 60’s, mixing the rustic use of patterns with the frivolity of character.

A BRIEF REVIEW: As you all know I’m a bit of a functionalist at heart, but I’m always intrigued when designers give their work that added touch of personality and character. Take for example these amazing ceramics by Stella Baggott, who makes these pieces under the alias Atelier Stella in London, England. It’s great to see someone local to us producing items like this on a regular basis, even if Stella only makes them when she gets time away from her other creative job as an illustrator.

Stella makes these by hand building and sculpting from slabs of clay, interestingly she rarely ever produces the same piece twice and likes to fire work in small exclusive batches. Her inspiration stems from Swedish and Italian potters from the 50’s and 60’s, mixing in these rustic type patterns with an abundance of character. They remind me of Le Corbusier for example, who became famous in later life for adopting quirky shapes in his structures and projects, the La Chapelle de Notre Dame du Haut and his sculptures stand out for me. I have to say these also have an essence of Picasso about them, mainly with his ceramics where he often decorated them with exciting faces and expressive animal shapes, much like what we present here. Obviously to compare something else to a famous artist or designers work is a bit silly, but it’s great to see the different inspirations and get a mental map of the general aesthetic/theme.

I find it funny looking at these sorts of pots since they really bring a smile to your face, I also think it’s quite fascinating how each one has a particular character or persona. If you’re like me you’ll be picking out one that really stands out to you, personally I prefer the heavily glazed ones, such as the darker blues or greens, they almost look like they’ve been carrying some scars and have seen lots of life. When you pick these items up you’re sure to connect with them. These photos happen to be from Atelier Stella’s tumblr blog, which I’ve linked to just below, I’ve also left the web address of her web shop which gets updated whenever Stella has things to sell. I would personally recommend checking back in February, as that’s the time she’ll be updating her selection with a wider array.

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SUZANNE SULLIVAN A N O T E F R O M S U L L I VA N : I work out of a small, shared studio, just a few yards from Buttermilk Channel, in South Brooklyn, New York. I’m inspired by ecology, which is mostly stuff I find on the ground, things that fall from the trees, or get dropped by, I guess, birds. I like multiples and repetition and I like repletion of things that don’t look alike, if that makes sense. You probably can’t make it out, but somewhere on the wall is a table full of pinch pots. Maybe four or five years ago, I spent my summer vacation covering my dining room table with pinch pots, colored and arranged along the visual color spectrum. We gave them all away at a pot party, and, you know, things have just evolved from there. One of my favorite things in my studio is the photo of my son and daughter playing music, down the street at a concert that my daughter gave at Jalopy. They are awesome.

The emotional difference between how you feel when you are closing up the kiln with pieces to fire and how you feel when you are about to open the lid after the firing is huge. I just love the kiln. I have a home studio too, and I share it with my husband, who is a writer. I find joy in arranging things. I like small things. I do a lot of sewing, and it’s hard for me to say whether my textile work has influenced my ceramics or the other way around. At the home studio, we’re pretty surrounded by my stuff—it feels a little like a lab. Even though my pots are pretty functional, I like to think of them as part of a giant installation piece.

A BRIEF REVIEW: There are so many talented and creative ceramicists out there these days. Back in March, Paula Greif emailed me with a list of some great talent and introduced me to Suzanne Sullivan’s work. Thank you, Paula! I instantly fell in love with all of Suzanne’s work. The simple geometric patterns contrast beautifully with the rough, hand formed surfaces. And look, she has an addiction to spoons too! Why do we love them so? Her’s are wonderful. I wish I had one of these when I was enjoying my red kuri soup the other day. The dark pieces would have played off wonderfully with the bright orange. Paula mentioned that Suzanne also makes quilts. She knows what I love.

Suzanne’s partner, the writer Robert Sullivan, published a book entitled “My American Revolution”.

Suzanne responded to his writing by making historical quilts that reflect his words. From what I can see, they are stunning. I love imagining the creative conversations between the two while the works were being created. Collaborations are beautiful things to witness, aren’t they?

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Photographers.

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FE AT U RING Phoebe Rudomino Mehran Djojan Luke Gram Alexander Howen

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PHOEBE RUDOMINO A B O U T : Phoebe Rudomino is a commercial diver and underwater photographer based at the Underwater Stage at Pinewood Studios, the only facility of its kind in the world. She specialises in behind-the-scenes underwater stills and video for feature films, TV and commercials. This photograph was taken during a shoot for a commercial and was part of ’Water on the Lens’, an exhibition of underwater set photographs taken at Pinewood which took place at County Hall on London’s Southbank in 2009.

A R T I L E B Y S A T C H I : Using her “Underwater Stage” as a backdrop, Phoebe Rudomino has her subjects and muses swim, dance and twirl—fully clothed—in tanks full of water. Her images alternate from brightly illuminated ethereal shots like her Johnson and Johnson’s submersed ballerina image, to the sensual, dimly lit shots in her Water Nymph collection.

Needless to say no two shots are alike as water flows around her subjects with a keen eye and sense of adventure, why dabble on the surface when going under water is so alluring? Seems to me Phoebe Rudomino is the real water nymph.

Based at the Underwater Stage, Pinewood Studios, Phoebe specializes in behind-the-scenes underwater stills and video for feature film, TV and commercials. Film Credits (underwater EPK and/or Publicity Stills) include Casino Royale, Atonement, Elizabeth The Golden Age, Death Defying Acts, Mr Nobody, The Boat That Rocked, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Clash of the Titans. Just to name a few.

Phoebe is a graduate in Philosophy and Modern Languages having studied at the Sorbonne, Paris and University College London. She is pursuing a M.Sc. degree in Social Anthropology today. Phoebe has been actively involved in a number of international humanitarian projects.

She has worked for an NGO in Nepal and experienced conditions of segregated ghettos in Tibet, all of which challenged her personal ideas about power and epistemology and helped her to form a number of theories about the anthropology of conservation.

Photography is often hard enough to master on dry land, let alone underwater. Despite that, UK-based photographer Phoebe Rudomino has most definitely mastered the art, and specialises in underwater still photography and video at the Underwater Stage in Pinewood Studios. Her list of credits in film, television and advertising is quite extensive, to say the least.

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MEHRAN DJOJAN AN INTERVIEW 1. When did you first think about photography?

I started when I was thirteen years old and got my first camera.

2. What does photography mean to you?

Photography means everything to me. It gives me the opportunity to create my own, tiny worlds and to visualize my daydreams, even if its just in a picture. I love every kind of photography but I have a special aim for portrait photography.

3. When you take a portrait, what is important for you?

The most important thing for me is it to arrange everything harmonious and to create a comfortable surrounding.

4. What’s the photo you want to take and never did?

I have so many ideas I can’t put into practice. For example if I don`t have the appropriate requisite available or the lack of proper locations.

5. What’s your photo-mission?

It just makes me happy when I`m able to breed a creation wich can be interpreted in thousands of ways, based on the subjective views of every single beholder.

6. Do you think it’s important to follow a school to learn how to shoot?

Not really. In my opinion, all you need to get good photographs is to be creative and having fun while doing what you do. The rest is merely a matter of time.

7. What are some key elements of your photography?

The composition between a human and its surrounding. I try to evoke a sort of harmony between the individual and the environment. You can say more than a thousand words with the use of body language and facial expressions. These are just two aspects that affect my photography, just like nature, which also plays an important role in a lot of my images.

8. Are you more drawn to surreal or naturalistic portraiture?

I like both of them. But to be honest, right now I have a preference for surreal portraits. They give me the power to display all my childhood fantasies and enable me to let my daydreams come true.

“I try to evoke a sort of harmony between the individual and the environment.”

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LUKE GRAM A B O U T : Sophie Buhai is a designer/artist living and working in Los Angeles. Her namesake jewellery collection, established in 2015, has renewed the modernist tradition of solid sterling silver with an emphasis on sculptural silhouettes of substantial weight. Each piece is made by hand in Los Angeles by master silversmiths using recycled silver to minimise environmental impact. Her work has been featured in Vogue, The New York times, T, M Le Monde, and WSJ, among other publications.

AN INTERVIEW:

M: Who are you? Where are you from?

I’m a relatively simple guy. I fell in love with the mountains and have devoted my life to chasing them. I was born in Ontario, Canada, far from the west coast and the mountains they hold.

M: Why photography?

I have a terrible memory to be honest. I started bringing my camera with me so I could remember the beautiful places I went with all the wonderful people I’ve met.

M: When did you start taking pictures?

I started taking photos seriously when I was 18 and moved out from my home to the west coast.

Like I said, I had a lot of great opportunities to explore nature and I knew it was the kind of memories I never wanted to forget.

M: What makes a good photograph?

A good photo to many is color, composition and lighting. Simply put, a good photo to me is one which has emotion. Whether it conveys it, evokes it, or reminds you of it. Emotion is key to everything M: How do you feel travel makes good art?

Travel makes good art because without it, life would blend into a monotonous routine of the norm.

You need to experience new places. New people. New cultures, new ways of life, new scenes, and new memories. Without it, what else is there to life?

M: Why Nepal?

LG: Nepal has always been to me the holy grail of mountains. I love them, I live for them, and to me I can not call myself a true lover of the mountains until I’ve been to the highest of them, and the place where it is so engrained in the culture.

M: How does music play a role in what you do?

Music is a huge inspiration to me. It’s essentially a mental fuel which keeps emotions high, thoughts focused, and hopes high. It stimulates a creative factor in all people I believe. It’s so universally engrained in us to keep us mentally stimulated and energetic.

“I fell in love with the mountains and have devoted my life to chasing them”

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ALEXANDER HOWEN J O U R N E Y I N T O P H O T O G R A P H Y : Photography has been part of my life since I was about 8 or 9 years of age when my parents gave me a Kodak Instamatic. This plastic marvel which took flash cubes propelled me to record those around me. By the time I was about 10 I was regularly using the family 35mm camera (a range finder design) to add to our family history.

At about 12 years of age my family moved to England for 3 years. For me it seemed unlimited photographic opportunities opened as we travelled the world, particularly Great Britain and Europe.

By this time the family camera was almost exclusively in my possession. By now we had a Canon SLR which did not have fully interchangeable lenses. I took thousands of transparencies and many hours of Super 8 film. It was in this period I formed my attachment to Canon cameras. By the time I was about 16 I had saved up and bought a Canon FTb and zoom lens. This fully mechanical camera was my mainstay and is still going strong. Throughout my last years at school in Australia I documented much of school life.

I graduated to range of great Canon film cameras produced in the 1980s and 1990s and as I moved into a period in which I worked in professional photography. I still love medium format (120) film cameras. In my opinion the Canon T90 was the best all round 35mm film camera ever produced

by Canon.

A NOTE FROM HOWEN: Photographing weddings, portraits, events and working in public relations photography (effectively photojournalism) gave me the skills and courage to deal with ever changing environmental conditions while covering events as they unfolded before me. This is the core of what I love – documenting the curious, the beautiful and everyday life as it manifests itself wherever I happen to be.

My photography has been almost fully digital since about late 2002 however it was not until Canon released the 5D that I felt comfortable with digital as a viable replacement for film. There are times however when a small, simple camera allows me to blend into the scene unobtrusively and capture images I would miss if seen holding the “heavy artillery”.

I have returned to professional photography with a renewed passion. My Redbubble collections are a little eclectic. They range from patiently recorded landscapes to fleeting moments on the street.

“Patiently recorded landscapes to fleeting moments on the street”

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Work by Victoria Semykina

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GALLERies

“An artist is typically a being that is filled with so much passion, love or pain for certain lands, people, ideas or images that all they can do with that overflow is bleed it out by creating. And with this type of art the energy will be shifted from the depths of them and into the depths of audience to be felt. It is a dance. A transference. An intimacy. It is to touch and awaken another human in a place they hadn’t known was aching, or sleeping. Both are opened. Both are nourished. Both are transformed.”

- Victoria Erikson

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S T U R T G A L L E R Y

Open from 10am - 5pm, seven days a week on Range Rd, Mittagong, NSW Sturt was established in 1941 and is Australia’s oldest craft centre. Sturt is a centre of excellence for the promotion & teaching of Australian contemporary craft and design.

Situated just one hour south of Sydney, ten minutes from the F2 Freeway and five minutes from Tourism Southern Highlands at Mittagong, Sturt attracts over 50,000 visitors each year and is one of the major cultural attractions of the Southern Highlands region.

Sturt presents contemporary craft courses for people of all ages and skill levels in full-time, part-time and short course formats. The full-time VETAB

accredited Certificate IV in Furniture Design and Technology attracts up twelve students each year from all over Australia.

Part-time courses in jewellery, ceramics, wood and weaving are taught to over 100 students each week. Our residential Summer and Winter Schools attract over two hundred students in January and July to take part in a wide selection of craft and fine art courses. A selection of short courses in weekend or a simple one day introductory formats are offered during the year.

Sturt maintains a collection of Australian post-war contemporary craft. The collection began to develop in the early 1950s and continues to be added to today by the many visiting artists who come to Sturt to live, work and teach in our special environment.

Uniquely, almost everything in the Sturt collection was made in Sturt’s own studios and workshops. In 2011, thanks to a Community Heritage Grant from the National Library of Australia, the Sturt Collection was the subject of a significance

carried out by curator Grace Cochrane. The report found the Sturt collection to be of national significance as one of the most important collections of Australian contemporary craft held outside of our national collecting institutions. The Sturt collection is comprised of almost 800 objects of ceramics, some woodwork, jewellery, small metalwork, textiles, glass, basketry, photographs and artwork on paper. The collection also includes significant industrial machinery used (and still in use today)

the making of craft on the Sturt site such as kilns, looms, spinning wheels, potter’s wheels and wor benches. In 2012, thanks again to funding from the National Library of Australia, the Sturt collection was the subject of a Preservation Needs Assessment.

Part of the Sturt collection is on permanent display and can be viewed by arrangement or on selected public open dates (including every Sturt exhibition opening) throughout the year.

Come for a course or a workshop, use the amazing facilities, or just visit the beautiful gallery and cafe!

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M i l k f a c t o r y

Open 10am - 5pm seven days a week, 33 Station St, Bowral NSW The Milk Factory Art Gallery and Exhibition Space was established in 2005 with the dual aim of providing art lovers with a venue in which to view contemporary artwork as well as offering a unique space for exhibitors to profile their works. The original Milk Factory was built in 1921 primarily as a depot for local farmers to manufacture dairy products. Over time the factory has had many uses. Encompassing a floor area of over 90 square metres and with over 7 metre high ceilings this impressive space is ideal for exhibiting large works of art as well as sculpture and installations.

The Gallery is situated in the heart of Bowral’s CBD, within 1 ½ hours drive from most parts of Sydney, Canberra and Wollongong. Solo exhibitions are organised for invited artists from all areas throughout the year as well as mixed and group shows.

This includes all mediums from original works to printmaking, ceramics, photography and sculpture. Open seven days, the café is considered to be one of the best venues in the Bowral CBD. Recommended in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide in 2010, 2011, the café is open for breakfast, lunch, sweets and treats.

THE SUMMER EXHIBITION: Includes a mix of works from the Gallery Stockroom and exhibitions held throughout 2015.

Works include paintings, etchings, limited edition prints, photography, sculpture and glass.

Exhibiting artists - Fiona Craig, Greg Hyde, Glen Preece, Paul Battams, Gillie & Marc, Harry Pidgeon, Richard Morecroft, Alan Healy, Steve Harris, Conchita Carambano, Gordon Fitchett, Felicia Aroney, Ivan Good, Paul Harmon, Charles Davis Photography, Elizabeth Burton, Meredith Wool, Penny Lovelock and more.

A MIXED SHOW: Following the Summer Exhibition and leading into our first major show for the year at Easter, A Mixed Show continues to show case our gallery artists featuring painting, sculpture, glass, photography and glass.

Exhibiting artists include Nicole Ayliffe, Fiona Craig, Greg Hyde, Glen Preece, Paul Battams, Gillie & Marc, Harry Pidgeon, Richard Morecroft, Steve Harris, Conchita Carambano, Gordon Fitchett, Philip, Ivan Goodacre, Paul Harmon, Charles Davis Photography, Elizabeth Burton, and more.

END OF FINANCIAL YEAR, STOCKROOM SALE: The Stockroom Sale comprises of works that have been held in our Stockroom for over two years or more.

This is a perfect opportunity to pick up an original piece of art at a ‘once in a year’ reduced price. Our gallery artists will also be contributing works from their Studios that they wish to sell at a reduced price.

Works will include paintings, limited edition prints, works on paper,sculpture, glass, ceramics, jewellery and more.

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B O W R A L A R T S O C I E T Y

Open 9am-1pm on Mon, Wed, Thurs & Fri in Short St, Bowral NSW The Berrima District Art Society (BDAS) was founded by Kate Smith and a committee of interested members of the general public in October, 1950. It took until 1963 for the BDAS to rent a room in the Berrima Court House for the society.

Then in 1970, through the generosity of Edgar Bent, the society aquired enough money to purchase a cottage in Short Street, Bowral, which is still today the permanent home to the BDAS. In 1993, a seperate building, designed by architect Col Graham and erected by Ross Meredith, was built in the grounds to accomodate workshops.

Classes and weekend workshops, for

adults and children are still held in this building throughout the entire year, every year.

It was only in 2006 that the previously named Berrima District Art Society changed their name to the Bowral & District Art Society.

In recent years the addition of a sculpture garden and renovated workshop facilities allowed the Bowral & District Art Society The committee today consists of Tony Deigan, Vivienne Helliar, Helen Johnston, Tracey Miller, Nicki Holliday-Smith and Susy South, with the president, Maureen Varnavsky and treasurer Kevin Windybank.

JAN POOLEY-HIBBERD PAINTING EXHIBITION: Jan resides in the Southern Highlands. In the past decade the changing moods have been her contemplation daily and the motivation for her artworks: the changing sky with movement and colour, the mists rolling through, the hills in the gentle rain with blue-green and bluegrey of the many dams.

‘Living and working in the Highlands is an inspiration!

There is so much change.

As I overlook the vineyard, the dams, and the hills I am compelled to capture the various moods with my watercolour paints on a beautiful grainy paper.’

In creating, there is a shift towards abstraction and as we view the works we see the preoccupation is with the marks on paper and the texture and colour.

The exhibition, ‘Seizing The Moment’ showcases the work of Jan Pooley-Hibberd and has a selection of the works of Susan Webb with whom she studied with.

WORKSHOPS: Come and join us for a couple of hours of pure creation.

These workshops will suit students who have been exposed to a chosen media area and want to extend their knowledge to the next level, as well as beginners willing to learn the secrets of the medium. If you enjoy the challenge of producing loose, bold and free creation then our workshops are for you. There will be lots of patient demonstrations to guide you through.

“To encourage the practice and appreciation of the Arts in the Southern Highlands“

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FEMINIST ART FROM DEL KATHRYN BARTON: In the world of art, there exists many types of feminisms, and it is fair to say that Del Kathryn Barton’s art can be considered feminist art.

Barton’s art is mystical; it embraces ideas of femininity, female sexuality and motherhood, and aligns women with nature. Her art both works within a feminist frame and troubles it. While her artwork illustrates women as one with nature, this can also be seen to assist the woman/ man and nature/culture binaries.

There is certain eroticism in nature, animals and woman, and Barton’s treatment of these subjects illustrate the automatic sexualisation of these ideas. Could Barton be simply representing traditional gender roles: a woman as a mother and sexual being, or is this type of representation of women in art, by women, revolutionary?

Barton has received negative criticism for her uncensored depiction of female genitalia, the gratuitous amounts of breasts that adorn her female figures, the images of orifices being penetrated by animals and colourful tubes, and of course her decorative style has been critiqued as being overly gratuitous. Maybe what critics fear is Barton’s explicit depiction of women’s sexuality, a fear which Barton certainly doesn’t share. The artistic representation of a woman’s understanding of her own body might be confronting or even offensive to critics of Bartons’ work. Barton comments on this phenomenon, explaining that ‘we are living in more conservative times, and I do think that comes at a creative cost.’

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Work by Natalie Foss

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What’s next?

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Painting by Teil Duncan

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- THE SOUTHERN highland’s The Southern Highland’s Art Festival is the newest and finest four day event that celebrates art, design, music food and wine, all produced from our great community.

Our goal is to let the wider world see the amazing talents the Southern Highlands have to offer and let everyone join in on all the creative and fun opportunities for all with an enthusiastic community spirit.

All in one beautiful location in Berrima, this incredible festival will play host to dozens of talented local artists including Archibald prize winning Ben Quilty and Order of Australia recipient John Olsen, as well as many more extremely talented artists. Each artist will have an onsite studio, fully accessible to the public, letting you take a sneek peek into the exciting life as a professional artist.

30TH march - 1st APRIL, 2018

If you attend this incredible festival, you’ll be able to watch and talk to all of our amazingly talented artist as they work as well as see examples of their finished pieces. In addition, all the artists will be commissioned to create a work that ‘captures the essence of the Southern Highlands’.

On the final day of the festival, all the completed works will be presented in an auction, all proceeds donated to the artist’s choice of charity.

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As well as our creative geniuses, vibrant, talented musicians, tasteful wines and inclusive outlets for your own creativity, no festival would be complete without good food. The Highland’s is famous for it’s delicious organic dishes. From the finest Michelin star chefs to edgy food trucks this festival has got enough flavours to send your stuffed to the top stomach to heaven and back.

ART FESTIVAL FOR 2018 Over 2017’s Easter weekend, take the plunge and immerse yourself in a world of inspirational creativity in our wonderfully welcoming community. In addition to viewing art and the process of its intriguing creation, you’ll be able to make some yourself! In our inclusive and free workshops we encourage persons of all ages to have a go at painting, ceramics and pottery, drawing, sculpture and so much more.

Our fantastic festival invites everyone to get involved.

If you’re a friend to the Highlands or have never made the accquaintance, The Southern Highland’s Art Festival in 2018 is the most amazing way to initiate an great relationship.

Trust us, it’ll be love at first sight when you get your first glimpse at the Highland’s incredible, green countryside and beautiful country sunsets.

THE LOCH, BERIMMA, NSW

We want everyone to take in the inspirational landscape of the Southern Highlands and creatively express it. Whether that be in poetry, in a drawing or painting, singing along to some grooving homegrown musical talent, writing a quote on our ‘canvas for the public’ or simply in sitting back with a mellow drop of red from our local wineries, it’s impossible not to be moved by our breath-taking atmosphere.

So when you’re planning your 2018 Easter Weekend, remember that for a perfect weekend with the family, escape from the city, a romantic getaway into the beautifully, picture perfect Southern Highland countryside, or simply a day to enjoy, The Southern Highland’s Art Festival is a must for everyone and anyone. Be sure to keep it in your calendar for a weekend of cool creativity, infinite imagination and fabulous fun for all!

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- COMPETITIONS E M E R GI N G A RT I S T :

The Southern Highland’s Art Festival is presenting a competition for all those under the age of 25, who are wishing to pursue in the world of the Arts. The prize is $5000 cash. The applicant must take a photograph of their finished work and email to emergingartist@highlandsart.com

with a 200 word statement about the work, and a brief artist statement that describes you, your style and what your aspirations are as an artist.

PORTRAITURE PRIZE:

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UNDISCOVERED ARTIST:

The Undiscovered Artist competition is open to all of those hidden talent artists who are over the age of 25 and haven’t been given the opportunity to present their talents to the world.

The prize is $4000 cash and a $500 voucher at Bowral Art Supplies. We invite all medias, shapes and sizes.

To enter you must email a photograph of your work to undiscoveredartist@highlandsart.com

with a 500 word artist statement, telling us about your hidden talent and a 200 word brief about the work.

LANDSCAPE PRIZE:

The Portraiture Prize for the Southern Highland’s Art Festival in 2018 invites all portraiture artists to paint, draw, sculpt or create in any artist form a portrait or self-portrait. The prize is $2000 cash and a $1000 voucher to be spent at either OfficeWorks or Bowral Art Supplies. To enter you are to email a photograph of your work to

The Landscape Prize for the Southern Highland’s Art Festival in 2018 invites all landscape artists to paint, draw, sculpt or create in any artist form a landscape or self-portrait. The prize is $2000 cash and a $1000 voucher to be spent at either OfficeWorks or Bowral Art Supplies. To enter you are to email a photograph of your work to

portraitureprize@highlandsart.com

portraitureprize@highlandsart.com

with a 200 word statement explaining the work and a 100 word artist statement telling us about you.

with a 200 word statement explaining the work and a 100 word artist statement telling us about you.

- COMPETITIONS 3D ARTIST PRIZE:

2D ARTIST PRIZE:

The 3D Artist Prize invites all artists who are interested in sculpture, ceramics or any sort of art that involves a 3D, or even 4D, experience for the audience. The applicant can be of any age but must be an Australian citizen. To enter you must email several photographs or a video of your work to 3Dartistprize@highlandsart.com with a 200 word statement explaining your work and a 200 word artist statement, telling us about your artistic style and journey.

The 2D Artist Prize invites all artists who are interested in print making, painting, drawing, or any sort of 2D art to compete in our competition. The prize is $2000 cash and a $500 voucher to be used at Bowral Art Supplies. To enter you must email a photograph of your finished work to 2Dartistprize@highlandsart. com with a 200 word artist statement explaining your work and a 200 word artist statement telling us about your artist style and journey.

‘CRYSTALLISATION’ PRIZE:

‘ M E M O R I E S’ P R I Z E :

The Crystallisation Prize invites all artists to create a work that conceptually represents the artists idea of ‘crystallisation’ in any media or artistic form. The prize is $3000 cash and an offical exhibition of the work at The Milk Factory in Bowral. To enter you must email either a photograph of the finished work or a 15 second video of your work to crystallisation@highlandsart.com with a 200 word statement explaining the work and a 100 word artist statement telling us about you.

The ‘Memories’ Prize invites all artists to create a work that conceptually represents the artists idea of ‘memories’ in any media or artistic form. The prize is $3000 cash and an offical exhibition of the work at The Milk Factory in Bowral. To enter you must email either a photograph of the finished work or a 15 second video of your work to crystallisation@highlandsart.com with a 200 word statement explaining the work and a 100 word artist statement telling us about you.

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- OTHER BU NDA NO ON EA STER MA RKETS A market for the Craftsmith! Sewers, Knitters, woodworkers, Photographers, Leatherwork and Silver Jewellery plus all you need for meals during the week. Fresh Fruit and Vegetables , Freshly baked Bread , Lebanese take home meals, Hot Indian dishes, Japanese Pancakes, Honey and Eggs plus a delicious assortment of cakes, pies and beautiful melting moments.

And after your stomach has died and gone to heaven you’ll be overcome with creativity and inspiration from the amazing assortment of artists and art that is perfect inspiration for all DIY lovers. You’ll come home with a million artistic ideas that will improve your home, work and hobby life!

Trust us, it is well worth the beautiful, scenic drive to have the perfect outing with the family, the perfect date idea with your partner or just a fun weekend for all ages.

CR EATIVE WOMENS C IR C LE EVENT C ONQU ERING D OU BT & A DVER SITY You’re invited to Creative Women’s Circle’s first-ever panel event in the NSW Southern Highlands!

Join us for tea, coffee and an inspiring morning by the fire amid the stunning rural surrounds of Farm Club in Werai, just ten minutes from Moss Vale.

In this special panel event, South Coast-based woodworker and miniature boat builder Elise Cameron-Smith, Sydney based textile designer Karina Pires of House of Six, and Highlands based floral designer Alison Kennon will share the stories of their own design practice, with personal insights and practical advice to help you conquer doubt and adversity, and achieve all your creative goals and dreams.

Hosted by Catherine McCormack, former freelance writer /editor and current associate editor of Country Style magazine, this is an event not to be missed! Creative Women’s Circle Members receive a discounted ticket to this event.

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EVENTS JA Z Z EVEN T - TH E ESCALATOR S The fires will be lit, and guests will be greeted with a glass of local wine & delicious canapés as The Escalators pull back the curtain on the library of jazz classics that inspires their music: the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole & more.

Inspired by that seasonal urge for warm & cosy environs, The Escalators have curated an ‘unplugged’ acoustic sound that is perfect for intimate spaces, right down to the use of an original 1930s archtop guitar, double-bass, and a modified drum kit true to the traditional sounds of the era.

The gorgeous tone of Jenny Blunden’s voice embraces you & steals your heart. Lachlan Mackenzie’s guitar weaves with pick-pocket grace through a rhythmic framework rich in interplay between Bradley Parson’s upright bass & the drum kit captained by Hayden Moore.

ST U RT WIN TER SCHO OL The first Sturt Winter School was held in July 2006, offering approximately 15 courses and has become a regular part of the Sturt calendar. Enjoy a real Highlands winter with the open fires of the Sturt and Frensham campus and be challenged by craft and art classes in a unique learning environment. Proposed courses and tutors are available in January each year.

Sturt is an endorsed provider of professional development by the NSW Institute of Teachers, so the Winter School is also a great opportunity for educators to learn and expand their skills in an exciting and enjoyable environment.

Sturt Winter School 2016, Monday 4 - Friday 8 July, is offering 16 adult classes and we are also introducing daily classes for children, offering a choice of different experiences for each day of the week. Don’t forget to look at our accommodation options - children under 12 years can stay for $50 a night when staying with parent/guardian.

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SPONSERED BY: Destination Southern Highlands Wingecarribee Shire Council Bowral District Art Society Cennential Vineyards Bowral Art Supplies Frensham School Tourism NSW Officeworks

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“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” - PABLO PICASSO

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MEET THE ARTISTS 2017

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Come & meet the a r t i s t s n e x t ye a r.

E a s t e r We e k e n d , 2 0 1 8