Arts
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Pottery art as big as an ox…
For years the old Taradale roadhouse has sat vacant and gathering dust – but recently all that has changed. The transformation of the old main drag roadhouse into a unique new ceramics business and gallery is turning heads. Oxart Pottery is the creation of enterprising couple Ian McColl and Leanne Manniche who bought the old…
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Good for your soul
Singing is making a comeback! Macedon Ranges Shire Council’s initiative #creativeencounters has funded several projects across the shire including a ‘pop up choir’ project that local choir leaders Tara Flinn and Andrew Price, together with music presenter and grant winner Elly McKinnon, are rolling out over the next three months. The project is called ‘Sing…
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Beverley Downie – a celebration of 50 years
The huge diversity of work in Beverley Downie’s new exhibition spotlights a prodigious talent. For this acclaimed local artist, her new exhibition at Castlemaine’s Market Building is a bitter-sweet celebration that comes as she shoulders a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. “Both my father and mother had Alzheimer’s but my father lived to 102 and when…
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Trentham gallery defies odds
Trentham’s artist-run Little Gallery is expanding and coming home to its original High Street premises after defying COVID lockdown odds that badly affected much of the arts industry. Rose Wilson, one of the artists who helped found the gallery nine years ago, said the gallery was grateful for outstanding support of the town and local…
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Status boost for Daffodil Festival
Kyneton Daffodil and Arts Festival has been named a shire signature event in Macedon Ranges Events Strategy 2021-25 after councillors pushed for the status boost last month. The festival, which attracts at least 18,000 people over 11 days each year, was previously regarded as a tier-two event against the council’s rating system, suggesting it was…
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Where art meets … footy!
Sport and art are often pitched as polar opposites. But now a Castlemaine artist has teamed up with the Castlemaine Football Netball Club to bring the two fields much closer together, creating a two-channel video to be projected onto the CFNC clubrooms. Play On is the brainchild of Castlemaine’s Martin John Lee and explores the loss…
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Time to Re-Activate
This Saturday for one night only the streets of Castlemaine will come alive with seven hours of free entertainment as part of the 2021 Castlemaine Fringe Festival. There will truly be something for everyone with a Teddy Bears Picnic at Victory Park, projections on the exterior of the Market Building, a pop-up disco, a hula…
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Festival bursts into life
Award-winning South Sudanese singer-songwriter and activist Ajak Kwai delighted the Castlemaine State Festival opening night crowd with her funky afro-beats and extraordinary voice in a sold out show on the main stage at Castlemaine’s Western Reserve on Friday evening. The performance was also live-streamed and shared via a live radio cross by MainFM so those…
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New publishing co-op launches first book
Friends since their days at the Victorian College of the Arts, Martine Murray and Anna Read are now launching a not-for-profit publishing cooperative in Castlemaine. As the two local creatives launch Parachute Press during the Castlemaine Fringe Festival, they’ll also be celebrating the publication of their very first book hot off the press. The Wanting…
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Sharing culture through art
Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space is currently featuring an exhibition of works by talented local Indigenous artist Arkeria Armstrong. The artist said her latest show was called Yilambu. “I am a Gamilaraay woman. In our language Yilambu means ‘long ago’. Gamilaraay country is in northwest New South Wales,” she said. Arkeria said she wanted to share her…
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Sounds of the commute
A community driven sound project is documenting and celebrating the sounds of the commute from Melbourne to Castlemaine and surrounds. Newstead electronic producer, vocalist, musician and sound artist Aimee Chapman is using the project to kick-off the 2021 Phee Broadway Theatre ‘At Home’ creative residency program. Her work, Coming Home, is inspired by the music…
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First festival out the gate
Castlemaine Botanical Gardens sets the scene for this evening’s Castlemaine State Festival program launch – and what a festival it promises to be. The result of clever reformatting to cater for vagaries tossed up by COVID, CSF 2021 has been expanded by seven days and makes ample use of outdoor venues to carefully manage audience…