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

The oval lighting for Newlyn’s Recreation Reserve is about to be upgraded to compliant AFL competition standard 100 lux level LEDs, with works starting this month.

The lighting upgrade aims to increase programming opportunities, prioritise player safety and contribute to the reserve sustainability.

This project is being delivered in a partnership arrangement involving the state government ($185,000) through the 2022-2023 Country Football Netball Funding Program, the Newlyn Football Netball Club ($60,000) and the Hepburn Shire Council ($60,000).

Words: Eve Lamb. Image: Supplied

Keep an eye out and you may just spot him hiking along the chilly, muddy Hepburn Shire roads this week.
While many of us stay rugged up indoors, much loved Ballarat-based Tamil refugee, Neil Para, 44, is this week walking through Hepburn Shire as part of his far bigger 1000 km trek all the way from Ballarat to Sydney.
Neil (pictured above) who with his family arrived by boat in Australian waters in August 2012, has set himself a target of covering 30 kilometres a day as he highlights the plight of refugees who have been left in limbo after their bridging visas were removed with no assurance of residential permanency anywhere sight.
Starting at 8am from federal minister Catherine King’s office in Ballarat this Tuesday, August 1, Neil aims to reach Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office in Sydney within a month.
There, he will intend to present a petition bearing 11,000 signatures and calling for “fairness for refugees who’ve lived here in Australia for more than a decade”.
Supporting him logistically will be groups like Ballarat Rural Australians for Refugees and others in the network.
Neil says the idea for the long walk came to him as he reflected on the response to a four-day sit-in protest that took place at Parliament House in Canberra in March.
“I feel we were seen, but we were not heard,” says Neil who lives with his wife, Sugaa, and their three young daughters in Ballarat.
“Every single politician – they were passing by – but they didn’t come and talk to us.”
Neil says that reaction has prompted him to launch the Union of Australian Refugees group and to tackle the walking challenge to draw attention to the plight of his family and those on bridging visas.
Before settling in Ballarat in September 2013, the Para family had spent months in offshore and onshore detention facilities, including in Darwin and Dandenong.
Neil says the move to Ballarat was part of what immigration officials told him was a program to “fast-track” visas for refugees and asylum seekers moving to regional Australia.
But he says the promise of a visa was later reneged on, and the family’s bridging visas were removed, leaving Neil and Sugaa in a situation where they struggle to survive without the ability to work.
Neil volunteers with the State Emergency Service in the evenings, while Sugaa, also volunteers in aged care and for a local community centre.
Refugee advocates say there are as many as 12,000 asylum seekers and refugees in Australia who were excluded from the federal government’s announcement in February on a pathway to a permanent visa.
Those eligible included 19,000 people – from the Legacy Caseload – who had been living in Australia on temporary protection visas (TPV) or safe haven enterprise visas (SHEV).
Neil and his family are now understood to be among the up to 12,000 people who missed out. Meanwhile, data released by the Department on July 13 shows it has approved 2740 applications from asylum seekers and refugees who pursued the permanent pathway option announced in February, while 15,676 claims are still being processed.
Of the 32,045 individuals in the Legacy Caseload group, 7725 are reported to have had their cases closed either through refusal, cancellation or expiration.
After leaving Ballarat this Tuesday, Neil plans to head on to Newlyn, and then to continue on Wednesday from Newlyn through Daylesford and on to Malmsbury.
Former members of the now disbanded Rural Australian for Refugees Daylesford are supporting him during the Daylesford section of his walk and locals are being encouraged to get out, welcome him and cheer him on.

Words and images: Eve Lamb

Italian born Daniele Tarasco brings a personal passion for fresh, flavoursome food and his background as a high-end chef to running Meraki certified organic farm at Newlyn North.

Originally from Matera in southern Italy, he and his wife Liv Reppas, have had the six acre property on its rich volcanic soil at Newlyn North since 2015 when they began the three-year process of certifying the farm as organic.

Their ethos is captured in the name of their little patch of paradise – ‘Meraki’. It’s  a word  modern Greeks use to describe doing something with creative flair or passion — putting “something of yourself” into what you do.

“I’ve always worked with my hands from a young age,” says Daniele who left Italy in his late teens and worked for top notch eateries in London, Melbourne and Hepburn before getting into organic farming fulltime at Meraki.

“I’ve always been connected to food. When I was growing up food was a crucial cultural part of life and then I developed this passion for growing food. On school breaks in Italy I started to get into hospitality, into cooking.”

Since taking to culinary creation from the tender age of ten, he built a fine dining career with stints at Gordon Ramsey’s Maze and earning the title of Head Chef at No. 8 by John Lawson where he was nominated as The Age Good Food Guide’s Young Chef of the Year.

 Liv (Olivia) has a professional background working as an organic auditor working for property certifiers and, in the lead up to their establishing Meraki, had been looking into organic gardening as something they too could pursue.

“We found this place and we wanted to turn it into a small farm. While we were setting up the farm I was working at Peppers. I did two and a half years as head chef at Peppers before shifting fulltime into farming,” Daniele says.

Right now they’re growing all manner of delicious fully certified organic vegetables and also producing and selling certified organic eggs courtesy of their Lohmann Brown layer hens.

The layers are dutifully guarded by the couple’s two large handsome Italian Maremma dogs – Trajan and Luna.

A whole range of seasonal vegetables are currently flourishing on site and, when The Local visits for a quick tour on a recent drizzly winters day, Daniele lists what’s growing. It’s an impressive assemblage.

“At the moment there’s carrots, beetroot, Tuscan Kale, black cabbage, onions, garlic, turnips. swedes, potatoes, leeks, radicchio, pumpkin, brussel sprouts, celery, broccoli and we’ve also got some herbs – coriander and parsley,” he says.

He regularly does the local markets including the Daylesford Farmer’s Market on Sundays and also monthly markets at Creswick and Ballan, selling Meraki’s fresh organic produce direct to the public.

“I generally grow things I like to eat, and I grow mainly for flavour,” Daniele says.

“We’re also supplying Spade to Blade but my main focus is direct to the public either through the markets or home deliveries.

“Whatever is in abundance goes to a couple of local shops like Tonna’s in Daylesford, and Hepburn Wholefoods, and a couple of local restaurants.”

On the property there’s also a small, young apple orchard and a small, young olive grove. At this time of year the olives are just starting to colour up ahead of harvest time and Daniele says he has plans to pickle.

Edible flowers that play a useful role in the process of organic farming are also part of the bigger picture.

“I plant marigold and calendula to help with companion planting and to establish a niche for beneficial insects,’ Daniele says

Liv (Olivia) runs the couple’s other on-site venture – Little Luxe B&B accommodation –which particularly seems to go down a treat with city folk hankering for big skies, peace and tranquillity.

However, now, after about eight good years at Meraki, family circumstances have compelled Liv and Daniele to place their little certified organic patch of paradise on the market as they look to relocate to the Riverland area in South Australia.

 The organic certification comes with the property, so the listing is a chance for someone else who is keen to move into this space to make their own dream of farming organically become a reality.

 It can be hard work, particularly in cold blustery weather, but it’s something that they love at Meraki, as is improving the soil for future generations , a personal goal for Daniele,

“Over three or four years we have managed to raise the soil pH by 0.5,” he says.

Such a soil-sweetening movement, a reduction in acidity, may sound slight but it can make a big difference.

“When we moved up this way I also did a two year diploma in organic farming and it helped set up the farm,” Daniele says.

“Even if the work is not easy, you need to start thinking months in advance, and there are long hours, it is rewarding. I raise all my own seedlings from seed and at the end of it you’ve got this beautiful produce and you can actually taste the difference.”

 The positive feedback they receive from fans of the Meraki produce is particularly satisfying.

“You get feedback from people saying things like ‘these are the best eggs you can get in town’ or ‘these are the best onions I’ve ever eaten!” Daniele says.

While Meraki is now on the market, Daniele says they will continue to grow and sell their nutrient-packed fresh organic produce for the foreseeable future – including at the usual regular local markets, throughout this winter.