Grampians Art Trail April 2012
© 2012 Rjn
Ee
by gum! It’s gradely to be here with a wee snippet of news. On
Saturday, 07 April, in the company of a ‘new chum’ from Poland
named Adrian, I spent a joyous afternoon following part of the
Grampian’s (Geriwerd) Arts Trail through Stawell, Deep Lead,
Pomonal and Halls Gap.
Didn’t
do it all and unfortunately it was not until after I had returned
home that I thought of making this note for the blog. So I did not
take many photographs or obtain the clearances I needed. There may
therefore be subsequent updates, if you are interested check back
each week for rewrites, additions et etcetera.
First
stop was at Deep Lead and I was particularly impressed with the
artistry of Doris Percival who was born at spectacular Mitre here in
the Wimmera in 1922.
For fifty years she has been producing pictures
using thin strips of different coloured Australian melaleuca tree
barks. Doris’s draughtsmanship and colour reproduction is a joy to
behold.
She composes her pictures from field drawings and photographs
to obtain her desired layout of old building bedecked landscape or
mountain vista.
As she is using a natural material the colours have
an amazing similitude to the colours seen in the field. Although the
pictures exhibited are all small, her pictures are full of detail and
exactitude.
Here is a picture of the pioneer cottage that her father was born in at Mitre. The chimney is still standing even though the wall & roof are long gone.
What
an uplifting moment it was to discover her work hidden away at the
back of the exhibition. I have now recorded Doris for “Passions”.
Thank you Doris for sharing your superb artistry.
From
Deep Lead we motored down to Great Western and, when we stopped in
the village, were “greeted” and surrounded on either side of the
main road by
the
‘locals’ in the accompanying pictures. I took the photographs
because I reckoned no one would believe me without the evidence! When
I met the owner of these somewhat
sinister
characters I queried if it was safe to enter her premises or would
she cast a “hubble bubble boil & trouble” spell over us,
transforming us into more of her rabbitoids. She just smiled and said
she didn’t understand me....however my cat now looks at me
differently and keeps licking her lips....
We
then spent an exhilarating thirty minutes admiring and trying out
Meryl Bowers wonderful Venetian style ball masks. Contact Meryl on 03
5356 -2537 or -2402. Expertly made and decorated the masks were for
sale at very reasonable costs.
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Mantilla Maiden |
 |
Magnifique Meryl |
 |
Has Anyone Seen My Sunnies? |
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The Peacock King |
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Foxy Adrian |
Potential
purchasers, as with so many cases of superb craftsmanship in
Australia, are saying “Oh I could make that in a jiffy” without
understanding or knowing the technique, time and ability needed to
create such masterpieces. Sadly a lack of everyday cultural exposure
and education to empower people to recognise beauty and its means of
creation identifies an ongoing deficiency within our culture.
Such
seemingly ignorant citizens exhibit a finesse akin to the fabled
sledgehammer used to crack the walnut. One wonders how they come to
be on the art trail and not simply getting shit faced at the local
pub or drug party....but perhaps some are trying to break the habit.
Where has Victorian & Australian cultural development and growth
gone wrong? (If you are new to the blog check out Agenda
21 above.)
As
a hint to the organisers, I suggest that every means be explored to
make the Art Trail more permanent and ‘on’ for 365 days of the
year even if only through the use of the internet at the main
libraries and galleries.
Also
at Great Western is the Toll Gate Gallery of John & Vija Harris.
http://www.tollgategallery.
John works in the sculpting field particularly using Mt Gambier
limestone. Many of his works are displayed on the perimeter of the
gallery and its adjoining garden.
Vija
specialises in lino prints of plants and flowers but also paints.
Although she claims to have difficulty with colour I was greatly
struck with the vitality of Vija’s colours, particularly in her
landscape paintings of the Flinders Ranges completed during a three
month camping expedition there. Contact John or Vija on 03 5356 2288.
A
dash back to Stawell and Pomonal Road took us to my Alpaca bonnet and
organic rhubarb suppliers, Steve & Glenda Gliese at Blue Moon
Alpacas. Steve was busy on the hand loom turning out his wonderfully
light, gorgeously soft and very warm baby Alpaca wool scarves and
shawls. Contact Steve or Glenda on 03 5358 2581.
or for some pictures
Steve
explained the process of the weaving, the source of the wool (Alpacas
running in the paddock outside), the variety of natural colours
available, the different grades and their uses, the advantage of
Alpaca over duck or goose feathers in bedspreads. (I can still
remember, when a child, the lead-like weight of the feather quilt and
those quill prickles after all these years).
In
return, I briefly told Steve of the Lancashire mill trade and how the
factories killed off the hand-loom weaver and sadly introduced such
Victorian ‘wonders’ as smog pollution, lung disease and child
labour into the economy. “Where there’s muck, there’s brass
lad.” And you cannot get much muckier than a young factory loom
worker dyeing of lung disease at the age of 25 after fifteen years in
the factory breathing in the cotton dust and fibre. Nowadays people
just live in the polluted atmosphere of cities like Sydney, Mexico
City, New York, Beijing et etcetera for similar effects.
I
also shared with Steve what I was told was the origin of the word
sabotage which came from the reaction to the industrialisation of
weaving in France. There the common means of damaging the factory
machine, that had taken the place of the hand-loom weaver, was to
throw your solid wooden clog into the works thus smashing up its
wooden mechanism. The French for clog is ‘sabot’ giving us our
English sabotage.
In
Lancashire the traditional clog was made of a wooden sole and a
leather upper. I always remember my father telling me that he wore
clogs until he became a member of a profession at the age of 28. He
was then not just expected but required to wear shoes, a collar and
tie with a suit. He also said that his feet were never as comfortable
again as they had been in Lancashire clogs.
The
fact that the breathing wooden clog sole was individually hand shaped
to the wearer’s foot may have had something to do with it. That the
clog sole and leather upper were hand nailed together explains why
most lasted much of a lifetime. Compare with today’s machine made
injection moulded ‘sweat pit’ like sneaker that rots away after
stinking for 12 months or goes out of fashion in three months. As any
clog dancer will tell you “Thee can’t dance on t’cobbles proper
if thee hasn’t got thee clogs on t’feet. Dancing barefoot on
t’cobblestones is second only to barefoot dancing on a
hundredweight of tin tacks or nutty slack thrown on t’raoad.”
From
Stawell we headed to Pomonal and we only had time for a quick
“hello” to Judith Burke aka Grampian’s Creations, call her on
03 5356 6306.
Email: naturalfibres@gmail.com
Judith makes her own fabric and creates jackets, shawls
and other garments from her materials. Adrian was very taken with her
see-through scarves interleaved by coloured woollen skeins. Or
perhaps it was a dream of his new lady wearing one and improving on
Lady Godiva’s eye-popping coverage that pleased him!
We
then just had time to visit Tim Butler, learn where the wood that he
uses comes from and admire his hand crafted Red Gum furniture. At the
time of our visit he was displaying a table that had an incredibly
well developed leopard-like pattern. Tim’s skilful cutting &
assembly of the timber maximised the display of this wonderful grain.
Otherwise call him on 03 5356 4321.
My
sadness at not having met everyone participating on the trail will
hopefully be overcome by them contacting me. Then I can rectify my
loss and that of everyone else reading the blog.
©Rjn
2012
