with Eve Lamb

The intricate beauty of the landscape that surrounds her is a major source of inspiration for established Daylesford artist Loïque Allain. Working predominantly with linocut printmaking and weaving, her work has seen Loique awarded both national and state art prizes while her work is held in private collections around the world.

Eve: Loique your works are very beautiful and intricate. They look as though they’d be rather time consuming to create. Are they?

Loique: Yes they are. People ask me that a lot. When I’m working I can carve a large 1.5 metre by 1 metre piece in about seven working days. That is if I work constantly.

Eve: Do you particularly enjoy working large format?

Loique: Yes. I feel it gives a sense of freedom, an expansiveness. It correlates to being in the land as well because it is all encompassing and I guess working in large format gives you the opportunity to express that.

Eve: Well I’ve done a bit of research and discovered that you graduated with Honours in Printmaking from the Uni of Tasmania and completed a Bachelor of Visual Art and Design at Adelaide College of the Arts and also that you have had artist residencies in Italy at the Venice Printmaking Studio in Venice, and at Atelier Contrepoint in Paris. They sound like wonderful experiences and I’d like to know what initially drew you to art?

Loique: I guess my parents have been pretty inspirational. They work in the arts and always encouraged me. My dad managed some Indigenous arts centres at Aurukun and in the Tiwi Islands north of Darwin.

And my mum would run a lot of workshops with the women, painting and weaving. I spent some time with my mum and dad in those communities and I guess I was really inspired by the work coming out of those communities, particularly the large format work.

I thought going to art school was a really good opportunity. Also, when I was younger my parents worked in the scenic art department of film and theatre. I’ve always been around art and art from different cultures.

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other sectors?

Loique: Yes. My husband, Chris Dilworth, and I have our own wine business as well. My husband is a winemaker. We moved here because we’ve always loved the wine from this region. Chris was a winemaker with Owen Latta at Eastern Peake.

We started making wine there in 2017 and ‘21 was our last vintage. Now we’re running our own wine business. We’ve made a winery at Leonards Hill at the old Dwyers Mill. We moved there in November last year.

Eve: Well wine and art go together very nicely. What inspires you most in creating your art works Loique?

Loique: For the last couple of years I’ve been focusing on Cornish Hill in Daylesford, also Jubliee Lake, Lake Daylesford and Wombat Hill. I’ve been inspired by the local landscape that I visit on a daily basis.

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions on the horizon?

Loique: Yes. My friend, Clare O’Flynn and I share a studio space at 5 Howe Street in Daylesford. It’s the Wombat Hill Print Studio.

We’ve been here for just over a year and we’ve wanted to have an exhibition here for a while.  I’ve made a body of work over the last couple of years and the exhibition will open from 5.30pm-8pm on Friday, May 16. David Frazer from Castlemaine  will open it and then it will run for that weekend through to Sunday.

Eve: And you also run monthly workshops don’t you?

Loique: Yes it’s an introduction to hand printing linocuts. We start with an A5 size lino and we handprint onto Japanese paper. It’s beautiful. It’s made of mulberry wood. It’s quite strong. But it’s fine enough to handprint onto. Quite ethereal looking.

Photo & Video: Kyle Barnes

with Eve Lamb

Kevin Smith’s dynamic talent has made him no stranger to  winning art prizes, including an impressive collection of  the region’s most prestigious. This Little Hampton based  artist currently has a new exhibition of his work on show at Trentham’s Cosmopolitan Hotel.  

Eve: I hear you did nicely quite recently with a certain art prize?  

Kevin: Yes I won the landscape prize in the Daylesford  Rotary Art Show. It was a surprise on the night. It was a local  scene, the Trentham Falls. Petrus Spronk was the judge. I mean  it’s nice but I’m not in it for the prizes.  

Eve: You’ve been a practicing artist for quite a while now haven’t  you?  

Kevin: Sixty years. Since I was at art school. I was 16 and it  was called the National Gallery Art School at the time. It’s now  VCA at the back of the (National Gallery of Victoria) art gallery.  

Eve: But what drew you to art in the first place?  

Kevin: I was influenced by my older brother, anything he  was into, and he was into art. In my early teens I had a good art  teacher at college. The art students were seen as being ‘out there’.  I love the expressionists, especially the German expressionists.  

Eve: Now you’ve got this new show that’s just opened here at The  Cosmo in Trentham, how long will these works be exhibited here?  

Kevin: They’ll be on show here for a couple of months.  

Eve: There’s some fantastic large paintings here. How many  individual works are there in this exhibition?  

Kevin: Thirty-three, completed over the last year.  

Eve: What media do you prefer to use?  

Kevin: Usually oil but this lot is primarily acrylic.  

Eve: Can you tell me a bit more about this recent body of work?  

Kevin: There are some pure abstract, some expressionist  landscapes and townscapes. Some are just fun, like those Ned  Kelly ones. Young Ned Kelly was arrested near here, near Little  Hampton. There are also some social commentary pieces, a bit  political.  

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other areas besides art?  

Kevin: Yes. I’ve owned book stores and worked in the book  trade. My brother and I had a book store in Bourke Street, and  I also worked at the Adelaide Art Gallery. Ran their book store  for a few years. I did all the buying. I’ve also worked at Deans  Art Supplies and also as a stage hand working on sets including A  Country Practice. It was fun for a while.  

Eve: What do you enjoy most about the process of making art?  

Kevin: Just not knowing what you’re going to end up with. Playing with  colour and materials. I play music while I work, usually contemporary jazz.  

Eve: Do you have any significant events ahead that you are working towards?  

Kevin: I’m working on sculpture which will be going into the Trentham Art  Prize at Easter.  

Eve: What’s your subject?  Kevin: Dogs. My little foxy dog Bessie often gets worked into my work. I  don’t think she has for this (Cosmopolitan Hotel) one though. Poor bugger.  

with Eve Lamb

Clunes’ Christine Lethlean is renowned for her beautiful textile work and well known through her role as a textiles art tutor and regional  co-ordinator for the biennial Textile Palette exhibition held at Clunes’  Warehouse. But this talented 3D conceptual artist is equally at home working with media spanning print, sculpture, paint and lead to create  works that constantly push her own creative boundaries in a quest to elicit in others a desire to look more closely.  

Eve: Hi Christine, what are you working on there?  

Christine: This sculpture is a 3D depiction of my own hands. I’m using papier mache and I will paint it and then add a rust treatment so that it looks metallic.  

Eve: Once it’s completed will it be able to be displayed outdoors?  

Christine: Yes. It will be suitable for display outdoors. Right now I’m doing the undercoat. I’m aiming to capture all the imperfections of my own hands, things like wrinkles and sunspots.  

Over the past 22 months I have been creating work focusing on the ageing woman, body shape, and the concept of letting go of what was and moving into what is. Work I have produced as part of this project was exhibited in several different exhibitions last year including at the fortyfivedownstairs gallery in Melbourne and at Oxygen College in Ballarat, and I’m continuing with this  project.  

Eve: What sort of work has this ongoing project included so far?  

Christine: It has included making a full-scale cast of my own body, working  predominantly in papier-mache using layers and layers of tissue paper, but also  using electrical duct tape and plaster cast. It’s my first ever full-scale life-sized  sculpture.

It’s called How Did I Get Here? and it’s concerned with the issue of homelessness that’s impacting more and more middle-aged and older women in our community. My daughters, who are both creative, have helped me with this project by  taking photos of me because the work is based on my body.

The girls take the  photos of me and then I work it up. But I’m also working with textiles, painting – I prefer acrylics, printing, graphite and charcoal for drawing. All of what I use in my work is recycled.  

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?  

Christine: Yes. I will have work in a show called Threaded that will be running for three weeks at Caelene Nee Glen Gallery in Brighton opening February 20. It runs to March 9.

I will probably have six or seven pieces in that, predominantly  textiles. It will involve four textile artists. Three of us are from regional Victoria and one is from Melbourne.

Eve: Do you have any preferred subject matter?  

Christine: Portraiture, landscape, even abstract. But I also do a lot of still-life.  Still-life but really moody…  

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other field?  

Christine: Yes. In a former life I was a health professional, a registered nurse. I was brought up on a farm in Western Australia’s eastern wheatbelt. We learned how  to make something out of nothing. I’ve always had an eye for aesthetics. I’m very  privileged now but I’ve had a difficult and challenging life.  

Eve: What area of nursing have you worked in?  

Christine: Aboriginal health, mental health, drugs and alcohol. I’ve learnt to walk with people.  

Eve: And you teach art as well don’t you?  

Christine: Yes, I teach people how to create a masterful art piece using textiles and  scraps. I have my studio here in Clunes where I teach on Mondays and Wednesdays,  and I also really like to regularly invite guest artists in for special workshops as well.  Every January I do printing classes – woodcut, linocut, monotype printing.  

But I also teach all over the place. This year I’ll be teaching in Melbourne, Ballan,  Broken Hill, Adelaide, Mildura, probably Geelong…  

I do like to teach. I think curiosity is a quality that is so underrated. When  something is giving you the shits you’ve got to get to a space where if something  hasn’t worked you just ask ‘well, what happens if I do that instead?’.  

I’m always working on projects that stress the shit out of me. But you’ve got to  make mistakes because it pushes you into new parameters.  

Throughout 2024, The Local got to catch up with many of the talented creatives who people this neck of the woods . Here are just a few of those profiled and who generously shared insights into their creative process…

With Eve Lamb

The large-scale sculptures that Jannie Alday make are sophisticated works of beauty as much as they are fully functional one-offs, designed to appeal to the connoisseur. Middle-eastern architecture is among the influences that ignited this talented creative’s  passion for simple elegant form and fluidity of line. Alday deploys traditional fabrication methods, welding and rendering, alongside modern technology to make sculptures that are sensual, tactile and alluring. Right now she is preparing to celebrate the launch of her new Newlyn studio.

Eve:  Jannie, your new studio here at  Newlyn would be the envy of many an artist. How high is that ceiling?

Jannie: It’s about five metres. I need it to be that high to fit the the lifting equipment. This studio developed over COVID lockdown and now I’m ready to open it. My studio is rendered with a product made from recycled glass…  Before, I had been building my sculptures in the re-purposed Railway Goods Shed in Creswick. But that was a short term solution. I needed a crane to move my work so I decided to build this purpose-built studio here.

Eve:  Well, while we’re on the subject, we should take a look at why you need that lifting equipment. Your sculptural work is clearly large-scale.

Jannie: Yes all my sculptural work is functional as well. So that bathing sculpture you can see taking shape will be fully functional, as will the pool of reflection.

Eve: Your work is incredibly imposing.

Jannie: My work is for the right setting only. I’m really fussy about where they go. What I do isn’t for everybody. It’s for aesthetes, people who really invest in the environment they live in.

Eve: What materials do you use to make these imposing pieces?

Jannie: I use stainless steel, marine grade steel, mild steel for my armiture. All my fittings are marine grade stainless steel and it’s got to be absolutely bullet proof.  Burnished marble, cement fondue… The armature for everything is hot-dipped galvanised which means there can never be any rust.  With my materials I’m always trialing different products. At the moment I’m trialing silica sands.

Eve: Have you always worked in the arts sector, or do you have another background as well?

Jannie: I used to work in the health sector and in project management, but when my father died about ten years ago I decided it was time to get serious about my work. My father, Max, has been a major inspiration and influence. He was a fitter and turner and had a natural talent for all things engineering. When he died about ten years ago I realised  the time had arrived for me to focus on my sculpture.

Eve: These pieces look incredibly complex. How much time goes into making them?

Jannie: The complexity is in the design and the research and development. Easily a month of design, and then the making-of and fabricating elements are probably an eight-month process. They’re all one-offs…  A lot of problem-solving goes into them and there’s a lot of complexity that people don’t see, like the internal plumbing. It’s got to be absolutely bulletproof.

Eve: Who, or what, are your influences?

Jannie:  I was captivated with renaissance drapery back in art  class, the dramatic shadows created between the folds I found mesmerizing…  Rembrandt and Leonardo’s use of chiaroscuro technique created a sensual intrigue… Middle Eastern architecture ignited my love of simple elegant form and fluidity of line. I am also fascinated by the qualities of water, the way it moves and flows.

I’ve come to realise my grandmother has been an enormous influence too. She was a potter with a wonderful sense of colour and form and worked frm a tiny studio in her garden… And my father taught me so many skills… I turned my hand to wood carving, furniture making, welding, building, painting, sculpture and drawing…

At the rubbish tip one day I found a section of a burnt out mannequin. I was excited and inspired. I knew I  could use it to form part of the internal structure for a sculpture I had designed. Using my partner as a model I built my first serious sculpture ‘Arlechino’ (which became the Palais centrepiece during a Daylesford ChillOut Festival).

Eve: Do you have any special events coming up?

Jannie: Yes. I’m having a private showing here at my new studio in December.

Eve: Beyond that how can people see your work?

Jannie: By private appointment. People can reach me at jannie.alday@gmail.com

with Eve Lamb

Creativity has always been central in the life of Musk Vale ceramicist Minna Graham. This exceptionally skilled ceramicist creates hand-made, functional tableware with a sculptural twist. Right now Minna is preparing to participate in a national open studio event and to exhibit her work at one of Australia’s foremost contemporary ceramics galleries, the Skepsi Gallery in Malvern.

Eve: What do you draw on for inspiration in creating your work Minna?

Minna: (gestures beyond her studio door) Out there! The bush. Landscape. I think I’ve come to terms recently with the fact that I’m a landscape artist. I’m really interested in mountains and volcanoes. Big inspiring landscapes. And we do travel a lot. I do chase different landscapes. Patagonia is a big one that’s stuck in my memory. Since 2016, when we travelled there, I’ve been having a love affair with the mountains and glaciers of Patagonia The Himalayas. The volcanoes of Indonesia. The Australian desert… And also the small things.

We live very close to the earth here. After a while you notice things in detail, The seasonal changes. There’s so many amazing micro-details that fascinate me like the gum leaves changing colour, tiny little micro orchids. These influence my glazing and colour and texture as well. I like to have a sculptural element to my work … The landscape kind of finds its way into every aspect of my work both physically and metaphorically.

Eve: What are some of your main ceramics career highlights?

Minna: Probably one of the best was that there was an Amazon Prime series that was filmed at Byron Bay called Nine Perfect Strangers, shot in 2020 and starring Nicole Kidman. Anyway when that was happening people who follow me on Instagram started sending me all these photos of Nicole going ‘Cheers’ with a drink in hand, in the series. I was wondering why are all these people sending me photos of Nicole Kidman going ‘Cheers’ and it took me a while to work out that she was going ‘Cheers’ with a piece that I had made. And there is also a breakfast scene in the series which has a lot of my work in it as well. It was especially satisfying because I’ve heard that Nicole Kidman is a bit of a stickler for being in control of the aesthetic.

Eve: That’s an excellent highlight.

Minna. Yes. There was also some artwork in that series by another Daylesford artist as well, Gav Barbey. Some other highlights for me over the past 10 years … I’ve enjoyed being selected for some major ceramics awards in Australia including the North Queensland Ceramic Awards. I’ve been shortlisted as a finalist this year. It’s opening in late November. And at the moment I’ve got three teapots in the Sydney Teapot Show.

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?

Minna: Yes I will be participating in The Australian Ceramics Association’s national open studios event over November 23-24. My studio here in Musk Vale will be open and I will be doing demos though the day. I will also invite another local artist to be part of the open studio here as well. I will have the upstairs gallery open and work for sale there. I also set up sales items downstairs here in the studio and we have coffee and cake as well… I will also be part of a group exhibition in November at the Skepsi Gallery in Malvern which I’m very excited about. It’s a very well established gallery and attracts a lot of collectors. That opens on November 16 and runs for about a month.

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other sectors Minna?

Minna: I’ve done a lot of other things but I have always been in the creative arts. I have a background in music. I trained as a classical musician and I also used to make costumes for festivals and that sort of thing. Costume making and performing. But then in my late 20s I came back to ceramics and never looked back really. Both my parents were artists so I was never going to escape really.

Eve: Are there any changes that you’ve noticed in the wider realm of professional ceramics practice?

Minna: My God yes. The ceramics scene has enjoyed a real renaissance, probably since COVID. I think ‘ The Great Pottery Throw Down’ may have had something to do with it. Now people are becoming more educated. They have a bit more of an appreciation for handmade things. Ceramics is one of the toughest art forms to learn. There are so many elements to it.

Eve: What are some of the main professional challenges that you have to contend with?

Minna: It can take a good four plus months for me to get a piece from start to finish. It’s very time consuming. There’s zero instant gratification in ceramics (laughs). A friend once said to me when I was unloading the kiln: ‘it’s like some kind of horrible-wonderful anxiety Christmas’. And that’s true!

with Eve Lamb

Clunes-based Prue Simmons is a zoologist turned SAORI weaver who revels in colour and in this meditative form of creativity. Having discovered this beautiful form of Japanese weaving whilst exploring the mountains of Japan in 2007, Prue was instantly hooked. She has gone on to establish her Dyeing To Weave business and, as one of only three accredited SAORI teachers in Australia, is very busy sharing her love of the unique art-form through workshops, immersive retreats and special events throughout the district and way beyond.

Eve: Prue your journey to becoming a SAORI weaving textile artist and teacher is pretty interesting, and I get the impression it’s pretty much taken over your life.

Prue: Yes it has completely taken over my life in a wonderful way. I had worked as a zoologist for 10 years and if you’d said to me 20 years ago that I’d be teaching a meditative form of weaving I wouldn’t have believed you. It was not on my radar at all. I was very much a straight-laced scientist. And I didn’t come from a textile background. My poor mother tried to teach me to knit and I was terrible at it.

Eve: But you discovered  SAORI in Japan.

Prue: Yes, in my 20s. I was in Japan, volunteering and immersing myself in the culture and language. I turned up at this beautiful old school that had become an arts and crafts village in a tiny little hamlet in the middle of nowhere. I turned up to build a pizza oven. As a thank-you my first mentor, Toyomi, taught me SAORI and it opened up this incredible ability for me to see that I could be creative. It’s completely taken over my life in a beautiful way…

Eve: And you have gone on from learning the art of SAORI weaving to becoming a teacher of it as well, one of only a very few accredited in Australia?

Prue: Yes there are only three of us here in Australia  accredited to teach. I went back and did training to teach over a decade ago now. I trained with  Sensai Misao Jo who has since passed away just shy of her 105^th birthday.

Eve: What is it that about SAORI  weaving that so captivated you, Prue?

Prue: The SAORI loom is actually designed to be a moving mediation where you get a chance to get into that flow state and drop down into that creative space in your heart and it’s lovely to see that unlock for other people too. I am on a one-woman mission to share it with as many people as possible.

I don’t like having to concentrate when I create.  I want to create from the heart not the head.I want to just relax and enjoy my creativity, not feel pressured to recreate a particular pattern, to copy someone else’s work, to be worried if I’m doing it ‘right’. I never considered weaving in the past, as it seemed too complicated, too mathematical and too structured for me.

SAORI is not about repeating patterns. It comes from a person’s own inner source of creativity. The Japanese call it Kansei which translates to your inner creative spirit. No two pieces of SAORI weaving are ever going to be the same. It’s about self expression. And then you get to wear a part of your personality. You get to wear this tangible moment in time.

It’s been such a such an honour and privilege to teach hundreds of people. For me it’s not just a form of textiles I’m teaching, it actually offers people an amazing awareness of their own creative potential.

Eve: And I believe that you also happen to run llamas on your property at Clunes. Do you use the llama fibre in your work?

Prue: Yes. The llama fibre is a specialty fibre for me and I am getting my llama fibre commercially processed. But you can do SAORI weaving with any fibre. You can weave with wool, cotton, cashmere, silk, paper, even things like dried material from your garden… And it’s a very sustainable form of weaving which is something else that I love about it.

Eve: So now that SAORI weaving has pretty much taken over your life, through your own creative practice and teaching others, and also as one of only two people in Australia accredited to import SAORI looms, is it what you do full time now?

Prue: Yes. I had another part-time job at the library for 11 years, singing to young babies, and I loved it. But I had to give it up this year.

Eve: I know that you have plenty of workshops and teaching retreats on your calendar ahead, both in this area and interstate. Do you also have any exhibitions coming up?

Prue: Well the exhibition we held in June this year (at the Clunes Warehouse) was so successful that we’re going to make it an annual event now. We had people visiting from all over Australia. It was the largest exhibition of SAORI weaving ever in Australia.

with Eve Lamb

Taradale potter Ian (Ox) McColl unearthed a passion for pottery while still in his teens. It was a discovery that has shaped his life’s path ever since. Now Ian and his wife, Leanne Manniche who is also a talented and accomplished ceramicist, run Oxart at Taradale offering a unique gallery attraction full of functional and aesthetic creations as well as the opportunity for others to learn their time-honoured functional craft and multi-dimensional art.

Eve: G’day Ian. How did you get into pottery?

Ian: I was in year 10 at school and chose ceramics because I thought it would  be easy and wouldn’t require exams. I loved it from the first moment I got on the pottery wheel.

Eve: What has been your path since then?

Ian: I went to uni in Bendigo and studied ceramics and then went into the industry, working on a large commercial scale. Then I became a school teacher, woodwork and ceramics, but I’ve been working as a potter full-time now for about the last four years.

Eve: Now I know that your wife, Leanne, is also a ceramicist. How do the two of you go working together? How does your work differ?

Ian: Yes, Leanne got into making pottery, hand building and also working on the wheel, after meeting me. She also does a lot of the firing and also a lot of the marketing and selling through the gallery. Leanne is much more into painted decoration. There’s no competition at all (laughs).

Eve: I know that a lot of your own work is functional, but how do you incorporate art and artistry into your practice?

Ian: The eternal question that arises with ceramics is function versus artistry. My main thing is form. Every time you create a new form that’s where the artistry is. I love working with form, using the wheel at the same time, creating objects and from there I use glaze to enhance the form so it’s also about the glazes and the colours. I use a lot of the Japanese style glaze called shino.

Eve: Well that leads me to ask you whether your practice has taken you to some interesting places?

Ian: Yes. It has. I did a short stint in Japan. Everywhere I travel I try to reach out to potters in the area to try and learn from them. At the moment I am in Narooma (NSW) learning from a friend, Cameron Williams,who specialises in making enormous pots. I’m learning a lot.

Eve: Are they for outdoors? Garden urns?

Ian: They’re suited to either outdoors or indoors.

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?

Ian: Yes I will have work in the Ross Creek Gallery group show at Smythes Creek over October 5-20. I will have some of the big pots that I am learning to make now in that exhibition. I will also be part of the Australian Ceramics Open Studios weekend event over November 23 and 24. And we also have our annual Friends of Oxart Christmas market on December 1 at our gallery in Taradale with a lot of other makers and artists.

Eve: How are your classes that you offer at Oxart going? Who do you get participating?

Ian: We’re doing loads of classes, and also workshops, and we’re getting everyone from kids to people aged over 90. We have one student in his 90s. We haven’t had anyone aged 100 yet. We’ve had a class with mums and their toddlers. We also get kids and teenagers. We have regular classes and people can learn what they want to learn whether it’s wheel work or hand building.

Eve: How do you find teaching?

Ian: I think the act of teaching refines your own practice all the time. It really, really hones your own skills.

with Eve Lamb

Woodend photographic artist Deborah Mullins draws plenty of inspiration from the landscape, including frequent trips to the Outback and also from her own 1.6-hectare garden on the stunning 16-hectare Hesket Farm property where she and her husband Tom reside. Deborah’s work has been displayed in many galleries in Melbourne and the Central Victorian region. Some of her latest work will be part of Little Gallery’s winter fundraising show launching in Trentham this-evening Friday, August 2.

Eve: I can see why your surrounds inspire a lot of your work.

Deborah: Yes. We’ve been here for 14 years now and just absolutely love it. We have never regretted our move from Melbourne for a minute.

Eve: Your garden here inspires quite a lot of your work doesn’t it?

Deborah: It does, and the animals and birds within the garden itself. I also do quite a bit of still life photography as well. It’s a hard genre and not everybody likes still life but I enjoy doing it, and it is suited to winter.

Eve: Can you tell me a bit more about your process of creating images and the way you use the term photographic art or digital art, as distinct from ‘photography’?

Deborah: I like to push the boundaries. I have a huge library of photographic images that I have taken over the years and I do a lot of composite work. I do a lot of Photoshop work. I use the images I have taken using a digital camera to create new landscapes and scenes. I suppose it’s a bit like a digital collage. I use photographic images in a similar way so you could call it digital art. At the moment everything I create is of photographic origin. There’s no AI in it. I take the photos and mix them up and overlay and combine to create some sort of new image.

Eve: How did you get into photographic art?

Deborah: I did an advanced diploma of photography, finished in 2011 and pretty much started with straight landscape photography.

Eve: What work are you planning to exhibit as part of the Winter Show?

Deborah: I’m leaving it until the last minute to decide. I’ve got a couple of different series I have been working on recently. One is a series I’m doing called Entice which involves urban landscapes and the figure of a child…and another landscape series focusing on the colours of the landscape. We do a lot of outback travel. I draw a lot of inspiration from the Outback. The textures, colours, the birdlife. I also do aerial photography.

Eve: Do you use a drone for that?

Deborah: Yes. Tom drives the drone and I tell him where to go so I can focus on getting the image.

Eve: Have you ever worked in any other area besides photography?

Deborah: Yes, I was a physiotherapist and then a health educator. I managed health education programs.

Eve: What do you shoot with? And what sort of lenses do you use?

Deborah: A Canon R5 mirrorless and a standard DSLR, a Canon 5DS R. If I’m doing a lot of bird photos I use a 100-400mm telephoto lens with an extender that gets it out to 600mm. I also use a fixed 50mm lens which is an absolutely brilliant lens, a 100mm macro lens, and a very wide 11-24mm rectilinear wide angle lens.

Eve: Besides Little Gallery’s winter fundraising exhibition, do you have any other upcoming exhibitions on your radar?

Deborah: I have got work on display at Verdure in Romsey and I will be a feature artist at Art For All which is a major fundraiser for Fairfield Primary School in Melbourne over September 6-8. Then I will also have some work in the Kerrie Hall Art Show over October 18-20.

Eve: What do you enjoy most about your work as a photographic artist?

Deborah: I like the challenge of creating something new. I like trying to turn something that might be seen as quite bland into something that might be considered more interesting. As much as I can I try to create a bit of a story in my images. I think that lends itself to interpretation a little. I don’t like to spoon-feed people. I like to leave it a little more open to interpretation and it can be very interesting to see how differently various people interpret the same image.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who might like to feature in The Local? Eve would love to hear from you. Email editorial tlnews.com.au

With Eve Lamb

Malmsbury artist Tia Alysse discovered her natural and considerable talent for art while still a school child. From a very young age she was encouraged in her arts endeavour with praise from teachers. Her love for animals, however, would see her go on to study veterinary science at university before she ultimately resolved to dedicate herself to art. Tia has been selling her artwork commercially since late 2016 through galleries, interior design stores and her own studio, and now teaches painting classes as well. This gifted artist’s love of animals and the living world is reflected in the beautiful works she creates, some of which will soon be exhibited as part of The Little Gallery’s upcoming winter fundraising show in Trentham.

Eve: Hi Tia. Beautiful work! Your love of animals is obvious in your work. Do you think there’s any chance you might ever go back to studying vet science?

Tia: I don’t think so. I think I might be a bit too sensitive.

Eve: How far did you get with your vet studies before you switched to focussing on art?

Tia: I did one year.

Eve: Are you able to devote yourself to your art full-time now?

Tia: Yes. After so many requests for pet portraits, it led me down the path of focussing on animals. Commissions are such a big part of what I do. Also in the last two years my Country Canvases art classes have been my bread and butter. I will also be doing Spring-Summer workshops where people can choose a class by subject matter.

Eve: Why animals?

Tia: I do a bit of everything, but I feel like I have a real soft spot for animals. They’re one of my greatest loves really.

Eve: Your work is very realistic. It’s an amazing ability. Do you paint in any other styles as well?

Tia: I used to be a lot more expressive and abstract, but then I started to focus much more on figurative and realistic work. The demand for portraits has lent me more to realism.

Eve: Any recent career highlights?

Tia: I have just completed a mural for Nellie’s Shed, the garden and retail store, in Woodend. It was amazing to work on that scale.

Eve: That sounds like a lot of fun, to work large-scale in such a public space. What is the size of the mural? Is it outdoors?

Tia: Yes it’s outdoors. There were four exterior panels and each piece was 1.2 by 2.1 metres. I used a sort of notion of leading you down the garden path. It is a bit whimsical. I’d definitely like to do more murals into the future.

Eve: What is your work process, Tia? Do your work from photos or do you tend to sketch animals in the field or habitat?

Tia: I mostly work from photographs. When I first started painting pet portraits I’d get asked to take pictures of people’s pets for them, but I’ve since started making it a strict rule to supply the photo of the pet you want painted. But I do take a lot of reference images for things like bees and lady bugs. I take photos quite avidly, and I do painstaking pre-sketch work.

Eve: What media do you work with?

Tia: Acrylics mostly. But I do use other media as well including charcoal.

Eve: What are some of the portrait subjects you have had so far?

Tia: Mostly cats and dogs, but there’s also been horses, the odd lizard. There have been alpacas, rabbits, husbands.

Eve: (laughs) Ah! You paint humans as well?

Tia: Yes. Occasionally people. I do like to enter the Archibald just for the fun of it.

Eve: That’s great. Did you enter this year?

Tia: No not this year, but a couple of times in previous years.

Eve: Who have your chosen subjects been?

Tia: There was Manfred Zabinskas of Five Freedoms Animal Rescue one year, and also my partner’s parents who have been acknowledged with an OAM for fostering over 100 children.

Eve: What are you planning to exhibit as part of the upcoming Little Gallery’s winter fundraising show, Tia?

Tia: One larger piece and six smaller pieces. For the larger piece I kind of wanted something that has a cosiness to it with the English animals that I love to paint. Owls, pig, hare, deer. And for the smaller pieces, some little bees.

Eve: What do you enjoy most about your arts practice?

 Tia: It’s very therapeutic. Very calming. One of the reasons I work a lot at night is that it is my quiet, alone time. Working at night allows me to engage at a deeper level with the work. #

With Eve Lamb

Just at home riding a Harley motorcycle through the desert as he is mingling in a classy art gallery, Sailors Falls creative, Michael Lelliott works with paint, drawing, photography, film, sculpture and sound to celebrate beauty where he finds it. Currently, inspired by a very recent desert excursion, he is working on a suite of new paintings to exhibit as part of this August’s winter fundraising show at The Little Gallery in Trentham,  where he will be among participating artists.

Eve: Michael I hear that you are currently preparing for a rather special show at The Little Gallery in Trentham, the gallery’s annual winter fundraising show. What do you have in mind for that?

Michael: Phillip Edwards,  who has the Bullarto Gallery, and I are just back from a trip to the desert, the Mungo National Park, camping in swags, and I am doing on a body of work coming out of that trip for The Little Gallery show.

I am also planning to enter a work (coming out of this trip) in the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize.

Eve: A camping trip to the desert. Sounds like fun. Can you tell me a bit more about about it?

Michael: What I love about getting into that space, that landscape, is that the more you sit and wait, the more that’s revealed. You start to see the shift in colour and the shift in time, and the Mungo is on this amazing dune that’s constantly being pushed back revealing layers going back in time.

We had a little walking tour there with an Indigenous guide. And while we were there we also started painting under moonlight which was a really interesting experience.

Eve: What sort of media are you working with as you prepare work for the upcoming winter show at The Little Gallery?

Michael: Watercolour, pencil and gauche on paper. I often work at night. You can get a lot done at night, play dance music and have a glass of wine while you work. The work I am doing is very physical. I put a lot of movement into the work. I’m not a traditional watercolourist.

Eve: What is your background?

Michael: My background is in product design, consumer products. I still do a bit of brand work but I am now becoming a full-time artist.

I studied art at the Victorian College of the Arts in the late 80s, early 90s, print making and photography and I had an arts practice for 30 years, lived in Fitzroy, Europe, Germany for a while. I was pretty focussed on brands, product design but I decided to refocus at the end of ’22, start of ’23.

Last year I spent the first six months just discovering mark-making again. We went to the desert. Mutawintji and Bimbowrie. I think ‘space’ is the right word. The landscape gives you permission to be present.

Eve: Are you inspired by any particular artists?

Michael: So many. Right now I’m thinking of Fred Williams, also of Russell Drysdale in terms of landscape. Those sort of 40s, 50s, 60s Australian artists.

Eve: I know that you are truly a multi-media artist, who is even known to dance, but what genre are you working with currently?

Michael: Still life and landscape. With still life and landscape I can get out of my own way. With photography though, I do focus on people. And I tend to shoot without setting it up.  

Eve: Anything else coming up on your artistic radar, Michael?

Michael: Yes. A group show at the Bullarto Gallery with Phillip Edwards and one or two other artists in November.

I’m heading to the States (USA) in July and we – a group of friends, actors, artists, sculptors and I – are riding our Harleys from LA to New York, starting our trip by going across Death Valley.

We’re going to follow The Rockies so I’m expecting there’ll be other work coming out of that for the Bullarto show. Australia is my heart-space. But it will be interesting to see how the desert there is different.

I am also going through a series of photos I did between 2010 and 2014 for a book. It’s particularly about motorcycle subculture.

Words & Images: Eve Lamb

When bodily stresses intervened, artist and designer David Dawson went from making a living as a builder to creating Blampied’s unique Overwrought Garden Art workshop, gallery and display garden. In so doing he and his partner Karen McAloon have created a thriving enterprise that now employs nine staff and has become a much-loved attraction for the region. It’s a prime example of marrying art and functionality to create enterprise and bring joy into the lives of many.

Eve: Hi David. How long have you been here now?

David: We’ve been here (Overwrought Garden Art at Blampied) for about eight years but we’ve been in the area, living at Mount Franklin for 20 years, from Melbourne originally.

Eve: How did you get into this line of creative work?

David: Well even when I was a kid I always loved working with my hands – Lego and plasticine. I used to work with wood and I ended up working as a builder. But it got too hard on my body so I had to look at another means of making an income.

I started out making some wrought iron gates. I took them to the Seymour farmers’ expo and they sold. I got orders and I thought … ‘that worked!’ But I didn’t just want to make wrought iron though. I wanted to make really unique organic designs with trees and leaves and birds, and so I looked into different ways of making different shapes and came up with laser cutting.

Initially I got this done in Ballarat and had it couriered back here, and I then shaped and welded it here. I did that for a couple of years. But then I realised I could do my own cutting and I started out with a CNC plasma cutter before I bought my first laser cutter about seven years ago. Then we got a second one during Covid. I’ve come up with all my own manufacturing techniques and I make all my own jigs.

Eve: What items do you make?

David: (laughs) If it’s metal we make it. Garden art, sculpture, wall art, garden furniture, gates, privacy screens, bird baths, fire pits… But we don’t do structural engineering jobs. I’m not a structural engineer.

Eve: How do you come up with the designs?

David: People always ask me that and I don’t really know how to answer… I see things in nature and I imagine how they’d be in steel. Sometimes I start with a photo and I edit and adapt the design.

I love a challenge and some of the best designs come from people saying ‘can you make this?’ For example a tawny frogmouth project.

Eve: Can you tell me a bit more about your journey of establishing this site here at Blampied? It’s transformed a fair bit since you started out here.

David: Yes. This (gallery and retail space) was a fallen-down hayshed with a dirt floor when we started out here about eight years ago. The workshop was an open shed with no floor. I and another guy rebuilt the entire place and I landscaped the garden. I designed and built the garden here from scratch and I am really happy with the way the garden has come together.

Eve: How many people do you employ here now?

David: We’ve got nine employees, not counting myself. We are very proud to be able to support local people and we try to buy all of our materials locally.

Eve: What would you rate among your more memorable projects to date David?

David: Probably the biggest one was a set of gates for Burnley Gardens. They were a 150^th anniversary for Burnley Gardens and the design featured espaliered fruit trees.

Eve: I hear that you and Karen are just back from a pretty interesting trip to Vietnam. What came out of that trip?

David: We’ve always tried through this business to support local and other artists and while we were in Vietnam we did some arts workshops, and we met some artists making interesting pieces and we have now brought some of those pieces back to exhibit and sell here.

We went to a place called The Hope Centre in Hue. It works with people who have disabilities and gives them vocational training. We have brought back some of these pieces to sell here and we want to continue to support them.

I want to go back and spend more time there, meet more artists and build more contacts.

Eve: With your own work, what materials do you work with?

David: Mild steel and we use hydrochloric acid to rust the surface. I also use stainless steel for backing, or acrylic sheet, and also galvanised iron for backing. I can also work in coreten which is designed to rust and then stop rusting.

Eve: What do you find most fulfilling about your work David?

David: I love seeing the joy it brings to people. Some of the work I try to make is a bit quirky. It makes people smile and I love that. Everything I make I get a kick out of making.

with Eve Lamb

From his earlier days as a rock musician and his years at the prestigious Academy of Art in Dresden, Germany – to his new upcoming exhibition at the Convent Gallery, Daylesford’s Monty Osewald is the sort of vivacious talent whose creative work gets noticed wherever he goes. His personal story could be described as fiery, even phoenix-like. Ahead of his new show that opens later this month, he shared a little of that story.

Eve: Now I know you have an exhibition coming up at the Convent Gallery here in Daylesford,
later this month Monty. When is the launch?

Monty: It opens on Sunday April 28. I’ve been doing a burlesque series of prints of a stunning model, Mini Mayhem who is a burlesque performer. She is going to open the exhibition at 2pm with a burlesque act and that will be followed with me doing a painting of her in her outfit for the day. Of course the show’s up as well.

Eve: Yes. Please tell me a little more about the show. What does it feature?

Monty: It’s forty years of work. It’s called Forty Years of Painting, Drawing and Prints. There are about 50 works and it will run for a month. In one section there is the latest burlesque series done in 2023 and 2024, featuring Mini Mayhem. There’s a section for the Dresden paintings, the Samoan series, a Daylesford series and also a surreal series that I did following the death of my mother.

Eve: Monty can you tell me about your story as an artist? I believe it’s quite eventful.

Monty: I finished my rock n roll career in 1984. I wasn’t getting paid enough in that so I thought, oh I’ll do some painting. I did arts school years before that. I was at the Gordon in Geelong, VCA in Melbourne. But after I finished my qualifications I just went out and played rock n roll for years. I started doing artwork with a group show at the Works Gallery in Geelong and then a solo show at an artist-run space called Artery in Geelong.

I hadn’t painted for years and all of a sudden it just burst out. That went pretty well and I got a show at the Geelong Gallery and was bought up by a Sydney Group called the Sydney Art Bank. In Sydney I bumped into a really famous guy called Kym Bonython, an art dealer and entrepreneur who brought bands like The Beatles out to Australia. He said ‘show me what you’ve got’ . He said ‘bring all of it to my place in Kew’…

I pulled it all out and threw it down on the lawn outside his mansion in Kew. He said ‘I’ll take the lot’ – and we showed it in Adelaide and in Sydney and I ended up in group shows with people like John Coburn, Fred Cress, Charles Blackman. That gave me a lot of impetus to keep going.

I was in Geelong at that time. I ended up making fibreglass paintings and spent more than 12 months making this massive exhibition of paintings, each a couple of meters long and a meter-and-a-half high. They were all finished and ready, and I had booked the Qdos Gallery in Lorne and we had a show to do the next day.

All the paintings were in the factory down at Fyansford. That night I went to bed probably 3am. I lived at Lara. The next morning I woke up to go to school – because I was a school teacher as well – and I got a phone call in the morning. Somebody had set fire to the factory. All of the 17 huge paintings that I’d done were incinerated in this massive fire.

The guy that did it was an arsonist. He had problems. We saw him in the court. He got five years jail. He
had destroyed plenty of people’s businesses and caused millions of dollars worth of damage.

Eve: That’s terrible. Monty, how did you cope?

Monty: It wasn’t aimed at me but I lost out on a fabulous fibreglass show. Who knows what might have happened. I just sort of slumped. I didn’t know what to do next. I hung around for about a year and then decided ‘right I’m out of here’.

I went and lived in Dresden in East Germany for five years. I was actually born in Kiel in Germany so I can speak German. I’d sent a video clip of myself working at my studio in Lara to all of the major cities in Germany. I arrived in Dresden and went up to the front door of Akademie Fur Bildende Kunste, a massive academy. Beautiful.

I said ‘I’m looking for the video tape that I sent’. They said ‘we can’t find it’. I said ‘I’ve come a long way. I’ll wait until you find it’. And while I was sitting there, waiting, one of the professors came over and said ‘can I have a look in your art folder’.

He looked through it and said ‘come with me’ and he gave me a studio which I worked in for four years after that at the Academy in Dresden – for nothing.

Eve: That’s wonderful.

Monty: Out of the despair of the fire comes this.

Eve: And you’re still a practicing artist today. What is your genre of preference now?

Monty: I think that it’s expressionist.

Eve: And what is your preferred medium?

Monty: It’s oil paint. I use other materials but a lot of my collection are monoprints – oil
paintings on aluminium plates and those images are transferred to paper through an etching
press.

Eve: What is your subject matter of choice?

Monty: I’m really interested in people. But I also love doing landscape. Now I just love the fact that I am just painting for myself and just accepting the marks that come out. It’s a very spontaneous sort of mark-making ritual that I do. I’m living the life that I’ve always wanted to live.

With Eve Lamb

Lyonville artist Suzi Donovan is not sure how to describe her artistic style. She is still experimenting with landscapes, clouds and still life but also trying seascapes, rocks and forests. Also extending into abstract work, this local creative is busy right now preparing for her first public exhibition, together with fellow artist Gayle Cykner, at Trentham’s Cosmpolitan Hotel.

Eve: How did you come to art?

Suzi: From an early age I always wanted to be a fine artist. My parents steered me into graphic design.

Eve: How did you nurture your innate arts talent? Studies?

Suzi: As a teenager I went to the Maryland Institute College of Arts (in the US) where I did a three-month course in drawing the human form from skeleton to skin. I learned to “see” as an artist. It was amazing. As a graphic designer before computers, I was trained in all disciplines – illustration, photography, drawing, typography and design. In my 30s I took up watercolours and botanical art for many years.

Eve: Where do you do most of your art work Suzi? Where is your home studio?

Suzi: I now work in what was the potting shed at my home in Lyonville. There is lots of natural light and I’m nestled right in the garden which is lovely. There are sparrows nesting in the roof who chatter away constantly.

Eve: That sounds like a suitable ambience for creative endeavour. Can I ask you which artists have influenced your work?

Suzi: I love the work of John Olsen, Fred Williams, Margaret Olley, Manet, Monet, Chagall, Matisse and Brett Whiteley.

Eve: Are there any other factors that have influenced your creative practice?

Suzi: I have always been an observer. I am very influenced by the beautiful landscapes and skyscapes surrounding us here in the Macedon Ranges. I love colour – colour is important to me.

Eve: Yes we are so lucky here with our landscapes and skyscapes. What is your media of choice?

Suzi: I now paint in oils. On holiday I take my drawing journal, pencils and watercolours.

Eve: What is your subject matter of choice?

Suzi: I paint landscapes because everywhere I look around me is a beautiful painting. I paint the clouds because the sky is so big here. The clouds are so big. I paint a still life of something important to me – my nana’s vase, my grandmother’s teapot or homegrown veggies on a kitchen bench.

Eve: The beautiful things in life! Have you ever worked in any other areas besides working as an artist?

Suzi: I am a yoga teacher. I have taught yoga asana, pranayama, meditation and yoga Nidra to children, teenagers and adults for about 20 years. The practice of yoga has taught me to observe on a deeper level. After graphic design I worked as a colour consultant for a few years. This work enhanced my awareness of subtleties in colour.

Eve: What are you working on at the moment?

Suzi: I am currently working on a large abstract landscape.

Eve: Any particular projects in mind for the future?

Suzi: In the future I hope to work on larger canvases. I would like to try mixing media – maybe try creating more texture, going more abstract. Having more fun.

Eve: Sounds like you’re having a fair bit of fun already. When you work in the studio do you like to play music and if so what is your music of choice?

Suzi: Yes, I do play music – depends on my mood – usually I like music that is peaceful. I often play yoga music.

Eve: To date, what have been your career highlights as an artist?

Suzi: I am very new to oil painting. I had my first private exhibition last year when we opened our garden for the Real Gardens of Lyonville event. It was so exciting to sell my work for the first time and people loved it. One couple drove all the way from Melbourne to buy one.

Eve: Do you have any exhibitions or special arts events coming up that you would like to let others know about?

Suzi: My first public exhibition is coming up in April. The opening is on Sunday, April 14, at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Trentham from 3pm to 5pm. I am exhibiting with my friend Gayle Cykner. The paintings will be on display until mid-May.

Eve: That sounds like an event to attend. Suzi, what would you rate as the greatest rewards derived from your personal artistic practice?

Suzi: The greatest reward for me is to create a painting that celebrates the beauty around us – a painting that I love and that brings joy to others.

With Eve Lamb

Sarah Koschak’s fascination with pottery began as a small child and never really left. For several decades, though, it was a passion that lay dormant as, in adulthood Koschak travelled the world, working as a photographer in some amazing places. These days the childhood fascination is made manifest as this talented local devotes herself to creating objects of beauty and functionality at her studio/gallery at Newstead.

Eve: Hi Sarah. Can you tell us a bit about your ceramics journey?

Sarah: I’ve had a connection with pottery since I was seven years old. I remember being at a craft fair and watching a potter throw pots on an old kick wheel. I was mesmerised. I can remember everything really clearly about that day. It’s just one of those pivotal moments that switches on a light.

I took classes in my early 20s, but as I was traveling and working as a photographer, it was hard to find the space and time to devote to pottery. It was only in my mid 40’s that I decided to dive in and learn the craft. In 2015 I began learning with potter Phil Elson in Castlemaine.

Eve: Sarah, I know that your prior working life as a photographer, working alongside your partner, nature sound recordist Andrew Skeoch, took you into some remarkable parts of the world. Do you think those experiences have now influenced your work as a ceramicist at all?

Sarah: I haven’t set out for it to do so consciously. I don’t think I aim to do that. We’d do these long field trips in Australia or around the world. Andrew would go off sound recording and I’d spend my time photographing. Photographing was more like a meditation. You just have to open up to where you are so you can really see.

Obviously nature was a big part of it because we were doing nature sound recordings in jungles, forests, ancient historical sites. I’m a fairly quiet, meditative person and my approach just follows through. Now I love creating beautiful shapes and glazes.

Eve: Yes, the glazes you achieve are very beautiful. Sophisticated colours. What are you aiming for with your glazes?

Sarah: I think elegance and timelessness are both in there. I’m not aiming for something that’s popping with bright colour or is in-your-face.  I make all my own glazes, and the work is fired in the shed attached to my studio. I have a two burner gas kiln.

Eve: Are there any particular ceramicists whose work you admire?

Sarah: I think the Japanese and Korean work. I really resonate with a lot of their glazes. A lot of the glazes I choose come from those traditions. But I try not to copy.  

Eve: I know you work using porcelain clay but do you also use any other types of clay as well?

Sarah: I only (wheel) throw in porcelain as my clay, but I do use other clay that I brush on to get another effects. Working with porcelain … it’s a bit of a diva!

Eve: Are you introducing anything new or making any changes to the way you work at the moment?

Sarah: I’m trying to work with bigger pieces.

Eve: This is a great little studio that you have here in Newstead. How long have you been here now?

Sarah: Coming up ten years here this year.

Eve: Are you currently preparing for any special events or exhibitions at the moment?

Sarah: Yes. I will be part of the Newstead Open Studios Art trail event that is taking place over two consecutive weekends in March. March 9, 10 and 11 and over the next weekend, March 16 and 17 as well. I love it. I love working consistently towards a big event like this. The shelves will be just heaving with work. I might have 500 people come through the studio over the weekend. It’s a really nice social time for me because I usually spend most of my time here working away on my own.

Eve: What do you find most rewarding about your work and creative practice Sarah?

Sarah: The most rewarding is to have a form in mind that I want to make and then being able to execute it. It’s just very satisfying.  I think there is timelessness in certain forms that just endure and I love the fact that people will buy my work and it will get handed down. It takes a long time for a ball of clay to end up as a bowl or a cup. There’s a lot of heart and soul that goes into making ceramics.