August 2019 – Newstead Arts Hub

The Arts Hub is blooming: it might almost be spring.

Welcome Friends

Welcome to all our new Friends who signed up at our morning tea on Sunday June 23. If you are not a Friend yet, please become an active supporter of the Arts Hub. In exchange we’ll run a Friends event each year and you’ll be invited to other special happenings. To join as a Friend, download the form, make a donation, and send or drop it in to the Arts Hub.

Building Stronger Connections project

We were delighted to receive funding under the Mount Alexander Community Grants Program for Building Stronger Connections a project designed to expand the range of activities at the Arts Hub, streamline our communications, and get to know more about what our communities want from their Arts Hub. Creating our Friends group is one of our first steps. The project runs until the end of 2019.

To support the Building Stronger Connections project, we are pleased to announce that Melissa Proposch and Kir Larwill from Artpuff will be working with us, bringing fresh eyes, great connections and a wealth of experience. We were very fortunate to have had many talented people apply for the role, and we look forward to them getting involved in other ways.

Selina Wilson’s stunning colours – Endless BeauTEA

Our next exhibition is by Newstead local Selina Wilson: 31 August – 29 September, weekends, 10am-4pm. Opens 2pm, 31 August.

Selina’s recent works, created over the last 18 months, speak to her love of colour and play. Not one to take herself too seriously, her paintings aim to offer a smile and some joy. Colour, beauty and fun remain her primary sources of inspiration. Selina explores these themes across a broad range of media including synthetic polymer (acrylic) paint, resin, inks, porcelain, cloth and paper. Selina is a regular contributor in Arts Open, Newstead Open Studio Arts Trail and the Castlemaine State Festival.

Looking to 2020

Watch out for our call for Expressions of Interest for exhibitions, workshops, talks or other activities in October. Or if there is a workshop you’d love to go to, let us know too! The Arts Hub is open to all kinds of creativity.

Welcoming people to the opening of Earth and Stone, an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by John A. Smith and David Waters, local printmaker Diana Orinda Burns drew attention to the strong sense of place evoked in the exhibition. She pointed out how the exhibition conveyed the sensations of being in the landscape, not only seeing, feeling, but how hearing and imagination help channel a new understanding of place.

Both artists use earth and stone in their works, John in his ground gravel and earth pigments, David with his volcanic basalt sculptures and pigment paint. Both engage the viewer in ceremony and ritual, whether it be a mark in the landscape or a pattern on a rock, reminding us of the fragility of the earth we stand on, and the importance of creativity to bridge time and cultures.

Referring to John’s paintings, Diana said: “We are not outsiders, we are one with country, this is not a landscape but an actual place of being, it has no artifice or pretence, the paint surface rises up to meet us, inviting us to just be. We travel through exterior spaces to the interior space of place where imagination meets the mysteries of history and what has happened before.”

The Celtic weaving patterns on some of David’s sculptures and paintings, also drew her attention. Diana noted that the method is simple, with a simple figure-of-eight or infinity sign creating a pattern that is said to bring harmony, balance, unity, and rhythm. The clay-rendered weft pattern in his paintings are subtle and considered, conveying a sense of connectedness and belonging. In Diana’s eyes, harmony with oneself, others and the environment are at the heart of David’s work.

David’s pigments are not permanent; he causes no harm to the environment nor to each rock’s natural form and surface. In time, his drawings on the volcanic basalt collected from his home in Redesdale will wash away, but the invisible networks that express his intention will remain. Rock paintings and the rituals associated with them take us back to the beginnings of art history as we know it.

John Smith, Diana Orinda Burns, David Waters

Diana concluded that, for her, the exhibition is refined in its material content but very raw in the questions it provokes. It offers a humility where reverence prevails.

Open each weekend until 26 August. Don’t miss it!