Circling Back exhibition opening

Circling Back exhibition opening

Circling Back exhibition opening

On Sunday 9 June, we opened our new exhibition “Circling Back” featuring new sculptural work by local artist Harriet Goodall. Over 250 people joined us for the opening and we welcomed special guest Sophie Hansen who gave a very encouraging speech about the value of engaging with community through art. Over two thirds of all work sold within the first few days and the exhibition is a ‘must see’. 

It’s not too late to enrol into Winter School!
Take the opportunity to book into one of the creative winter courses designed to feed the soul. We still have a few places available across some popular courses:

  • Organic indigo vats: shibori and resist printing with Julie Ryder - Explore different types of indigo vats and the many aspects of shibori in order to resist dye with indigo - clamping, stitching, pole-wrapping, resist paste printing and much more. 
  • Creative papermaking with Peter Taylor - Learn to recycle coloured paper, pulp production and sheet formation moving on to natural and man-made additions; dyes, double-couching ‘sandwiches’, embossing, joining sheets, bowl making, surface treatment & chromatography.  This course is ideal for those who are interested in extending their current art practice. 
  • Metalworking with Vicki Mason - Learn from a master of her craft!  Using the rolling mills as a tool for drawing on metal, explore design elements, solder inlay, making jigs, findings and patination.  Ideal for those looking for a new avenue of exploration and invention! 
  • 5 one-day children’s classes - Mixed media & drawing, Painting & drawing, Basketry, Printmaking on fabric, Ceramics.  $95 per day or $440 for the week.  Morning tea, lunch and all materials included. The children’s classes run in line with the adult classes enabling for parent and child to have a creative week.

For more information or to enrol online, please visit http://www.sturt.nsw.edu.au/education/winter-school  

Alternatively, call Sturt Shop on + 2 4860 2083 (open 7 days, 10.00am to 5.00pm).

New weekly class in Jewellery
A new weekly class for adults wishing to learn jewellery/metalwork has been scheduled for Wednesday nights in Term 2 from 6.00pm-9.00pm. There are a few places still available for this class.  Contact Sturt Shop.

Short Courses
Our next weekend of short courses will take place on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 August 9.30am-4.30pm

Make a low stool with Evan Dunstone
(This is a 3 day workshop: Friday 2-Sunday 4 August)
Level: All levels| Cost: $465 + materials $230

The low stool is comprised of a simple 3-board construction that relies on 2 critical joints. A “bird’s beak” connecting the legs to the top is consistent across all three joinery options. Entry level Students can choose a through-wedged-dowel joint to finish off the Bird’s Beak. Intermediate woodworkers can choose a single through-wedged-tenon option while advanced woodworkers can choose a twin through-wedged-tenon option.

In this course you will learn marking out techniques, accurate joinery, tool preparation, sharpening, chisel handling, hand sawing and much, much more.

You will be supplied with 1 x (500 x 246mm x 30mm) and 2 x (350mm x 246mm x 350mm) panels of clear Tasmanian Myrtle, a piece of 3mm MDF to protect your work during chisel work, a piece of rubber mat to protect your work during other processes and an accurate 45 deg. chiselling jig made from 420mm x 110mm x 42mm rock maple (you can keep the jig).

Evan is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary chair designers, represented in galleries throughout the country. Awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study contemporary chair design and manufacture in England and the USA Evan found the Fellowship his passport to a greater understanding of the craft and deeper appreciation of design.

Explore rib basketry with Jillian Culey
Level: All levels | Cost: $310 + materials (TBA)

Create three baskets in one weekend exploring the ancient art of Rib Basketry. Day one you will have the opportunity to create two small rib baskets using various weaving and construction techniques and on day two focus on a larger piece with an opportunity to incorporate your own handmade string.

Jillian Culey is a fibre artist who is inspired by the natural fibres she uses and by the ancient and universal craft of basket weaving. Her work explores the woven form; its delicacy, its strength, its simplicity and its complexity. Jillian designs and creates baskets and sculptural pieces for exhibition, retail stores and private collections.

Current exhibition…

Circling back - Continues to 28 July

A stunning exhibition of sculptural work using basketry, woven installations and wall hangings in salvaged metal and natural fibres explores traces in a rural landscape.

Since childhood, Harriet Goodall found herself drawn to climb through fences and forage old house sites and farm rubbish dumps where old machinery rusts and falls apart or even cars burnt and left on roadsides. Harriet has always collected haunting relics from these sites and been intrigued by the mysterious energy that lingers when things are abandoned.  Soon nature begins to reclaim the elements and the indelible marks of age and decay begin. What remains of us when we leave a place? How long do traces of us remain on the landscape?

“I am forever circling back, not just in my dreams, but literally also to collect materials I find by the roadside or in the paddocks. I weave through these fences and burnt out car panels with naturally coloured fibres that mimic the scribbly lines of insects on bark, striations in granite boulders, wending rivers or sheep tracks in dry paddocks. My heart beats for the decay and beauty of inland Australia and this is an elegy for the loss of feeling that I belong there.”

Raised in rural Australia, Harriet Goodall is a full-time sculptor and basket maker exploring the intersection of traditional craft with contemporary art and design. She has taught regular basketry classes for more than ten years in Australia and internationally and has pieces in private and commercial collections.

Sturt’s next exhibition …

Cadence – natural rhythm - 4 August-22 September

Rhythm, pace, patterns. Cadence surrounds us and this exhibition is inspired by it. We look to repetitive patterns found in fauna and flora together with subtle textures of grain and feathers. We find inspiration in the rhythmic call of tree frogs after an evening of summer rain or in the annual migration of a Bogong moth. We witness the result of unrelenting cadence upon geological formations, where tidal waves etch tessellated sandstone tiles or simply the cadence within the routine rhythm of a human life. 

Artists include Tania Rollond, Yvette Marie Tziallas, Lou Harriss, Chelsea Lemon, Roberto Gnecchi Ruscone, Virginia Sprague, Jane Frances Reilly, Julia Flanagan, China de La Vega, Penelope McManus, Phoebe Middleton, Bella Gnecchi Ruscone, Imogen Keen, Cath Derksema, Lucy Turner.