Arts

When Caroline Powell bought a 1949 house on a corner block in Evans Head, she had no idea what was hidden in the walls. Her brother Lyall Powell was renovating and as he pulled the stained plywood off the walls in the entry hall, he came across three panels of posters featuring films from the 40s and 50s.

Mildura Library is providing an alternative to relax and keep cool while enjoying a social evening by extending its opening hours on Thursdays as part of the Libraries After Dark program. Libraries After Dark is a state-wide initiative initially aimed at providing problem gamblers with alternative options and venues for socialising through extended evening opening hours at libraries.

Emma Pritchard. Proud Bundjalung, Dunghutti and Gumbaynggirr artist Danielle Gorogo doesn’t just have one canvas displaying her beautiful artwork, she has several. Only in this instance, her canvases are the stunning uniforms Clarence Regional Library staff are proudly wearing.

Emma Pritchard. Orchestrated by Maclean teenager Nash Crofton, Clarence Tunes is a home-grown music festival which aims to provide local performers with an opportunity to gain valuable experience and boost their confidence on stage in front of a live audience. Nash told the Clarence Valley Independent he felt inspired to organise the event to help support the live music industry in the region, and the response from musicians and singer-songwriters keen to join the line-up has been incredibly positive.

D Buck. The Maldon Village Quilters group has a history spanning decades and continues to thrive ... at the request of Maldon Hospital, we made and donated two quilts to be used for palliative care patients, and have made three Healing Quilts for members facing serious illness as well as one for another much loved member of the Maldon community.   Some of our members also make Hero Quilts for Australian service personnel, especially those serving abroad, and others make caring quilts for neonatal units and other worthy causes.

Serena Kirby. This December marks 40 years since the first Denmark Arts Market was held at Berridge Park. What started with just a handful of stallholders and a few locals casually playing music on the grass has grown into a regional drawcard that brings thousands of people to town on market days.

The Koala Art Trail Design competition is to encourage creative designs for decorated fibreglass sculptures that will become a feature of a Koala Art Trail. This will be a project proposed by the Tourism Department of the Narrandera Shire Council to increase engagement of visitors and locals within the various tourism and retail businesses. The aim is to create an art trail of 800mm high, decorated fibreglass Koala Sculptures in and around Narrandera.

The Clarence Valley’s own eagerly awaited annual fiction collection has been launched in time for Christmas. ‘Stories from the Clarence Valley 2021 – Look Up,’ a collection of stories by 60 local writers, has been nearly a year in the making, according to Long Way Home co-founder Claire Aman.

Nancy Whittaker. Just down the road from me is the fabulously revitalised Methodist Church, which is now Cascade Art Gallery.  At the recent launch of Jeff Gardner’s book of poetry and prints Lucy the Dragon, Dr. Juliet O’Conor made a very insightful speech. She is a specialist in children’s book history, having curated a collection of five centuries of children’s books at the State Library of Victoria.

Lismore Theatre Company is keen to hear proposals from directors interested in staging a play for 2022. The company has some productions scheduled for the new year but is keen to open the 2022 program to new shows including some more traditional theatre options with a comedic flavour.

Ali Bohn. “I wanted to make the bathrooms a nice, bright space to go when you’re feeling flat and I thought a nice mural of flowers would look really good": Barham Public School Captain, Shaylah Carter.

A small school has changed its name to KeithUrbenville to honour the songs they love to sing by rockstar Keith Urban. On Monday, December 14, Urbenville Public School students sat in the classroom to have what they thought was a zoom session with Kate Moore, the director of education leadership. Instead, they were shocked and surprised when Keith Urban appeared on the screen and chatted to them for six minutes.

Bonalbo Artists Alliance exhibition coordinator Vilya de Tozser said 105 portraits featured in the exhibition at Bonalbo Memorial Hall on Saturday, December 11.

The Museum of the Riverina is showcasing the link between artists and regenerative farmers in a new exhibition at the Museum’s Historic Council Chambers site. Earth Canvas touring exhibition explores the creative experiences of both regenerative farmers and artists, their respective engagement with the land, and their vision for a healthier world.

Founded and forged in the Victorian Goldfields, the Maldon Town Lamp has been perfectly recreated from the Victorian Gold Rush era, a time where most small towns made their own lamps locally and did so with limited resources.

A towering moving sculpture, light shows and late night trading in the heart of Castlemaine, lead Mount Alexander Shire Council’s invitation to residents to step out and celebrate the year’s end ... From Wednesday 8 December until Tuesday 4 January Taradale artist, Alex Sanson’s towering kinetic sculpture Spherophyte, will fold and unfold in hypnotic motion in Victory Park, Castlemaine.

When Lily misses out on a well-deserved promotion the day her boyfriend is offered a job overseas, she faces a choice: should she embrace an expat life, or follow her childhood dream and become a florist? Deciding to follow her heart, she moves to Clearwater, a fictional town on the NSW south coast, and decides to start again. But fitting into the tight-knit community proves harder than she expected ... It's been seven years from inspiration to publication, and author Lisa Darcy, from Gerroa on the NSW coast, is thrilled readers are loving Lily as much as she does.

A brand-new book is currently in the pipeline, featuring 16 amazing rural, regional and remote women in business. ‘Rural Business Women – Inspiration and advice to grow your business from regional Australia’, aims to inspire and offer advice to other rural women who are thinking of, or have already started, a business from a rural, regional or remote area of Australia.

After a year of lockdowns the Moooving Art herd have broken loose to explore the region and the Greater Shepparton Visitor Centre needs your help rounding them up! Wandering away from their usual sites, the cheeky cattle have left behind a list of clues to solve before they return home. The treasure hunt consists of several cow locations around the region including Shepparton, Mooroopna, Merrigum, Murchison, Tatura and Dookie.

A stunning snapshot of apiculture has taken out first place in the 2021 National #AgDayAU Photo Competition. This year, the competition received a record number of awe-inspiring entries, all capturing the many diverse agricultural careers right across the country.

The bottom of your kitchen draw isn’t where you would expect to find award winning art, but Darren O’Brien did. The Glenwood resident took out top spot in the open category at the 2021 Waste to Art Competition with Bitza, the junk yard dog who represented the problem of rubbish in our oceans ... Darren described Bitza as a “big pile of crap” and that creating the work had been a labour of love.

The Regional Venue Collective is a co-operative approach to venue management between three venues, the Byron Theatre, The Regent in Murwillumbah and Star Court Theatre in Lismore in the adjoining LGAs of Lismore Shire, Tweed Shire and Byron Shire. The venues have come together to host nominated shows and tours and to incubate the creation of original works to tour the region and further afield.