Happening over this Labour Day long weekend, the Newstead Open Studios art trail is a locally inspired and crafted event, held  annually since 2015 and based in and around Newstead, in the heart of  Victoria’s Goldfields region.  

Spokesperson and artist Sarah Koschak (pictured below) said every year artists opened their studios  to visitors.  

“There will be lots of beautiful and diverse art for sale at each of the studios, you might even make a purchase or two,” Sarah says.

“We can’t wait to welcome you to our studios. As well as many of our regulars, you’ll find some new artists and studios in the mix.”  

This year the lineup of 18 artists plus two group shows includes printmakers, jewellers, painters, potters, sculptors and more.  

For an overview of each individual artist’s work and for more about the art trail head to www.newsteadopenstudios.org.

As part of the event, the second Small Sculpture Exhibition and Prize will be held in the Newstead Arts Hub along with a group show at the RedShed Arts Workshop.  

The Central Goldfields town of Newstead is 10 minutes from Castlemaine and 20 minutes from Daylesford.  Participating studios will be open Friday to Monday on the 2025 Labour Day long weekend,  March 7 to 10, 10am to 4pm.  

with Eve Lamb

Newstead artist Roger McKindley is known far and wide for his amazing Antares Iron Art Garden. Sprawling over a picturesque patch of riverside acreage, Antares contains the amazing sculptural creations of this  compulsively talented creative. Roger takes unloved, broken and discarded materials and transforms them into fantastic and quirky pieces of original art that captivate all who visit this special place. Antares Iron Art Garden  will soon open as part of the Newstead Open Studios art trail event held over March 7-10.  

Eve: This iron art garden of yours is pretty amazing. When did you start making it?  

Roger: Seventeen years ago.  

Eve: Can you tell me a bit about your creative process, how you go about creating  these unique sculptural pieces?  

Roger: When I find the materials it inspires me to think – ‘what can I do with  this?’ – I try and start the process the same day I’m taking it (the recycled materials) off the ute. It totally thrills me and once I get started on one thing something else  yells out ‘over here’ and it just takes off. I’ll still be working at night.

Eve: Some of these sculptures involve pretty hefty pieces of metal. It looks like a  fairly physical creative process.  

Roger: Yes. It can be. See that old boiler over there. I was carrying that on  the back of the ute and the police pulled me up and said ‘where’s the rope?’ and  I said…‘try to move it!’ (chuckles). See that propeller on it…that’s been on seven different things. Things have a life of their own.  

Eve: What are some of the materials that you use?  

Roger: Metal is my main one, but I’ll also use wood, stone, old glass, bricks.  Everything is recycled…I don’t like plastic. Some people donate materials. I’ll also  go out on little pilgrimages, searching. Most of the things I get are bent or broken so there’s an abundance of stuff everywhere.  

Eve: And you’re also very into art photography too aren’t you? I have seen some of  your photographs capturing some quite amazing fleeting scenes.  

Roger: Photography is my dream. Capturing moments. I put a lot of photos  up on Insta. I’ve had people beg me to hold an exhibition of my photos. I’m thinking about it.

Eve: How did you get into this practice of creating sculpture?  

Roger: In my 20s I lived at Golden Point at Chewton and I’d find things in  the bush. I was probably 27 when one day I found a lot of metal in the bush and  made my first metal sculpture and I haven’t stopped since. I’d make sculptures in  the bush and also on the beach as well and people would stop and say ‘that’s so  beautiful’. I love metal. I love shapes, and I love the abstract because you can read more than one thing into it.  

Eve: Can you tell me a bit about your working background?  

Roger: I started my gardening apprenticeship in the Castlemaine Botanical  Gardens. They were the best days of my life, although I didn’t know it at the time. They’d trust me and leave me to work in a part of the garden by myself and it  was just wonderful being trusted like that.

Then after I completed my gardening  apprenticeship I travelled up the east coast and met blokes making art and realised  ‘oh you can be a bloke and be into art as well’. That was in the 1980s.

I also went  to the Northern Territory but it was too hot for me there. I passed out twice in the heat. Now I still work in a couple of private gardens.  

Eve: Antares has featured on TV a couple of times hasn’t it?  

Roger: Yes. It’s been on ABC’s Gardening Australia and on Better Homes and  Gardens.  

Eve: And it’s about to be part of the Newstead Open Studios Art Trail long weekend in March.  

Roger: Yes. I’ve been involved in the Open Studios event for at least seven  years now. Karen Pierce and I were the two local studios who started it, and now all these amazing artists have come on board.

I also go in the Festival of Gardens  over the Melbourne Cup week. I’ve done that six times, and I’m also on Insta and  Facebook, and I open the garden up to people by appointment.  

Eve: How do you find having people visiting your art garden and roaming about?  

Roger: I enjoy sharing my art and lifestyle. I’m totally off-grid here. I have  different clubs visit – camera clubs, car clubs, garden clubs – and a lot of people  from overseas.

I’ve had all sorts of nationalities here. I love to hear the laughter  as they walk through. Some people are shocked…and I love seeing people come back.

Setting off into the bushland with her fine art pens, quality paper, camera and fortifying thermos, Strangways artist Belinda Prest is one happy woman.

The accomplished Strangways artist and teacher admits she’s in her element when she has a mission of the artistic variety to complete outdoors.

Recently, Belinda enjoyed exactly this type of mission as she  lovingly depicted six of the region’s significant landmarks – volcanic peaks and ranges. Her drawings have gone on to feature in the newly launched book, Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling Legacies in Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country by  Professor Barry Golding and Clive Willman.

“I had just a wonderful time,” says Belinda recounting her multiple “missions” to sketch the six peaks in question – Mount Kooroocheang, Tarrengower, Alexander, Beckworth, Greenock and Franklin, all featured in the book.

But the eye-catching outcrops that add vivid interest to the wider local landscape that Belinda, and her sculptor husband Trefor Prest, call home are just one of the many points of beauty this local creative celebrates with her innate eye for exquisite detail.

A former primary school teacher, current yoga and dance teacher, and trained artist, Belinda’s detailed pen drawings pay homage to the stately and wizened old trees, powerful vistas and markers of human presence both humble and profound, that characterize the region.

“I always draw with fine art pens,” she says.

“Sometimes I use a grey lead and just plot a little bit of perspective, but I then tend to go straight into the pen. And I like to use a good quality paper called Arches watercolour paper.”

A noteworthy additional feature of Belinda’s work is her frequent incorporation of small snippets of journaled text, typically appearing at the bottom of the drawing.

For the viewer these snatches of text provide extra insight into the artist’s personal experience at the time of creating the work – the memory of a place, a time and perhaps a precious small fleeting observation of  something else unseen in the sketch itself.

Next month Belinda’s work will go on show as part of the annual Newstead Open Studios Art Trail event taking place over the March 7-10 long weekend. The large studio that she and Trefor share at their Strangways bushland home will be open – along with 13 other local studios that all feature, showcasing the wealth of creative talent residing in the area.

Belinda admits she relishes these open studio events as a chance to meet others who share a knowledge and love of the area.

“I’ll have about 25 new drawings which I’ve completed over the past year since we opened last year, besides earlier works, and also some of the six peaks drawings,” she says.

Trefor will also have some of his new (and earlier) trademark organic-mechanical works, rendered in beautiful brass, copper and steel, included as part of the couple’s open studio.

The full list of studios participating in the Newstead Open Studios event can now be found on line. Suffice to say art lovers are in for a busy March long weekend.

Words: Eve Lamb