By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]W[/dropcap]hen artists Peter Bryant, Chris Small, Tony Neylan and Graeme Altmann first decided to exhibit together as the “Gang of 4”, the idea was to do so regularly.

That first exhibition in Warrnambool was way back in 1988 – when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister – and their second will be held this week (opens July 17), a full 27 years later.

(Mental note: do not hire these guys to organise your wedding.)

It has taken a little longer than planned, but the quartet – only Peter and Chris remain in Warrnambool – are eagerly anticipating reuniting at The Artery, which is only a few blocks west of where they held their first group show.

“It’s a bit like getting the band back for one more gig,” says Peter, a print maker and photographer.

“But the question is whether anybody else will give a s***,” he adds, letting out an infectious laugh that sums up how these four artists have always got along.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]T[/dropcap]he four first met in 1985 as first-year art and design students at what was then the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education and were part of a colourful, crazy, but supremely talented group of young artists (and lecturers) who are all still connected, and still producing great work, today.

This week’s exhibition, 4tified, will provide a snapshot of that creativity, including Graeme’s works on paper and up-cycled boat sculptures, Tony’s delicate, Japanese-influenced ceramics, Chris’s slow-fired raku ceramics and Peter’s limited edition prints and photos, most of which have been created specifically for the show.

For Peter, who runs Shipwreck Coast Art & Design, it is a refreshing return to exhibiting. It has been 12 years since his last show, which was also with Chris Small.

“It’s a bit of an adjustment to go from screenprinting as a business, to screenprinting my own art again, but one that I am enjoying…I think,” he says, with a grin.

Peter’s studio is tucked down a laneway behind the former Fletcher Jones factory, with the famous silver ball water tower a constant backdrop. Not surprisingly, it features prominently in his work.

“Yes, there are some very strong Warrnambool references, for sure, but also a few surprises,” he smiles.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”]A[/dropcap]s we move through the flotsam and jetsam of Peter’s studio, where he picks up various pieces of work-in-progress, you can’t escape the sense that 4tified is more than just an exhibition.

It is also a time for reflection – although not necessarily a quiet one – on each artist’s journey since they were 20-something-year-old graduates, full of hope about their creative futures and dreaming of lives as professional artists.

But as for so many young artists, the other diamonds and demons of life disrupted the best laid plans. Families, mortgages and the need to make a decent living have meant that art has often had to take second place.

4tified, however, has provided a renewed focus.

“I am looking forward to the moment when I can step back from it, because it’s done, but at the same time it is a really good thing that this exhibition has forced me to get back into it and to prepare works by a deadline,” explains Peter, who now has four young children.

“It’s a return to form for me and maybe if I can continue to do this, then who knows what might happen as I get toward retirement: there are now entirely new ways of selling and promoting your work that didn’t exist when we first started.”

You have been 4warned, the Gang of 4 will be back.

[box]4tified runs at The Artery, 224 Timor St, from Wed July 15 until August 1 with the official opening by Glenn Morgan on Friday July 17 at 6pm. Another Deakin/WIAE alumni, Kathryn Ryan, opens her show, A Quiet Place, at the W’bool Art Gallery on Sat, July 18 at 6pm.[/box]

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap]bout 18 months ago, things were looking decidedly grim for Artlink – a unique arts program for people with disabilities – when it moved from the heart of Warrnambool to the hard-edged industrial estate.

In fact Bluestone predicted at the time that it would signal the end for Artlink and, in many ways, it did: the Artlink program that operated out of the historic Ellerslie College building in Koroit St is not the Artlink program that now operates out of a non-descript building in Albert St.

Out of this death, however, has come a new life and it is jumping.

Jack Melican, who is a business development manager with Western District Employment Agency (WDEA) that operates Artlink, has at different times managed both incarnations of Artlink: the original and the new, and he is keen to show us the new.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] J [/dropcap]ack, like everyone else, lamented the loss of the Ellerslie College space which boasted a beautiful gallery that not only hosted exhibitions by Artlink clients, but the new and very popular Warrnibald annual portrait prize.

Artlink was central, it was freely accessible to the public and it brought a local version of the “raw” art movement – quality art produced by people with disabilities – into the mainstream.

But the space was also expensive and, in the end, unsustainable.

“The financial decision had to be made, in order to keep the program going, that it be moved out of that particular building,” Jack says.

“The Artlink program is not the same as it was, and we no longer have artists employed to teach art, but it is still a valuable part of what we do.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] W [/dropcap]e took up Jack’s invitation to visit the new version of Artlink that sits within the cluster of WDEA work industries off Albert St, a short walk downhill from the Midfield Meatworks, which is clearly not the most picturesque location.

But once inside the building, it is a very different – and uplifting – world.

The arts program is overseen by Paddy Kelly, an Irishman with an accent to match his name and the lithe physique of a jockey, who moves around a workroom that is packed with people at work on their creative projects.

Some, like Martin Juchtzer are painting on canvas –  he is working on a view of the Tower Hill visitor centre – using techniques he learnt at Ellerslie College with artist and teacher Jenny Altmann.

Others, like Linda Kelly, are working with watercolours or colour pencils, while client Kelly Walters has produced so many works in acrylics that she has an entire space of her own to display them.  A team of three staff, plus volunteers, keep the paint – and banter – flowing.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] W [/dropcap]hen Jack says there is “a really great vibe in here”, he is not talking it up: you can feel it.

“Our Artlink people really love coming here and very few miss a day,” he says.

Between 16-18 people use the Artlink program, including people with disabilities who are involved in other WDEA work programs on site.

Some of these clients, as Jack explains, may never have tried art before, or had an opportunity to develop their creativity, but can now do so because of the co-location.

“It is a comfortable space, an inclusive space and a place that offers enormous social interactions. In fact I reckon we are the happiest workplace in Warrnambool,” Jack says, laughing.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] W [/dropcap]hile the focus of Artlink is now undeniably different – it is more about social contact than developing artistic technique – Warrnambool has discovered it has room for both.

Following the closure of Artlink in Koroit St, Jenny Altmann started her own business (Studio 4@Factory Arts) offering painting classes to people of all abilities, based at the former Fletcher Jones factory.

Studio 4 is now part of the wider revival of the Fletcher Jones site, with a gallery space to open soon.

And the Warrnibald portrait prize has also survived, following a year’s absence, with the Warrnambool Art Gallery to host this year’s event from July 18 to August 16.

Artlink may have splintered, but what it stood for, and aspired to, remains intact around the city. How wonderful.

[box]Artlink is at 11 Albert St, Warrnambool, and can be found on Facebook here. People are welcome to visit Artlink in action. For inquiries, contact (03) 5561 2579 [/box]

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This month my search for great mid-century architecture takes me to Portland to the home of Jack van Roo and Megan Jarrett who not only live in a very stylish Tag Walter creation, but are also proprietors of ‘be seated’ a boutique business specialising in the sourcing, restoration and sale of retro furniture and décor.

The house was originally designed for Megan’s grandparents, Theo and Jean, in 1962 and demonstrates an elegant refinement and maturation of Tag’s signature style.

The entry to the home is a carefully orchestrated ‘theatrical’ experience – the large welcoming porch reveals a number of ‘tricks’ to delight the senses and create an atmosphere of intrigue: walls of glass frame tantalising glimpses of the interior, or draw the view out over the large elongated pond and towards the garden beyond.

Planter beds filled with ferns and exotic foliage flank the terrace and create a ‘tropical’ bridge to the front door.

Inside the front door numerous original features continue the theme. Seagrass-wallpaper feature walls, ceiling bulkheads with concealed pelmet lighting, the centrepiece fireplace with its bewildering fusion of copper, granite, marble stone and timber.

With an extensive background in interior design, textiles and furniture restoration, Jack and Megan are the ideal homeowners and the interior spaces are filled with funky armchairs, well-mannered Danish teak tables and sideboards and original era paintings and prints.

Megan recalls visiting her grandparents at early age and being spooked by the bedroom curtains with their large garish brown rose pattern – perhaps a precursor that has sparked her interest in textiles and fabrics!

One of my favourite areas of the home is the outdoor entertaining terrace. With its stone terrazzo tiles, breezeblock screen wall, innovative built-in outdoor bbq  and brightly colored ‘butterfly ’chairs, this composition pays homage to some of the great innovative concepts of the time by architectural heroes such as Richard Neutra and Quincy Jones.

During our interview Jack tells me of some very special items of furniture that they are currently working on, so we decide to pay the ‘be seated’ workshop a visit.

Entering through the tradesmens’ door, I am  completely unprepared for the sight before me – a vast cavern stacked high with row upon row of retro gems, some a little shabby, some very much worse off for wear.

We push into the melee towards the ‘holy grail ’ of the retro afficianado – and there they are!!!

A stunning pair of original Grant Featherstone armchairs complete with the original cut velvet upholstery. Rarely seen outside the auction house or museum, these chairs represent the pinnacle of design innovation by Australian designers of the modern period.

Jack takes an almost macabre delight in informing me that the owner paid just $5 each for these chairs at a recent garage sale………..

We conclude our visit with a tour of the ‘be seated’ showroom to view the latest items lovingly restored and repurposed.

It is clear that the couple make a good team – with Jack’s considerable joinery and reupholstery skills and Megan’s eye for colour , texture and pattern in the selections of  rich fabrics used to give these pieces a new life.

Once again I leave my visit with the van Roo-Jarretts reassured in the knowledge that not only is another great retro style home in good hands, but there is also a thriving business in our region that is actively preserving the furniture and décor of this innovative era.

[box] This column is normally reserved for comment on local issues, but occasionally it will also be used for short thoughts about every day life. This is one of those occasions. [/box]

SHORT THOUGHTS – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] T [/dropcap]he sudden passing of Warrnambool watch repairer Peter Hogg was a shock, not because I knew Peter well, but because I didn’t.

Instead, Peter represented to me all that we love about living in a small city like Warrnambool – and I am sure it is the same for Portland, Camperdown, Terang, Koroit and all of the other towns that make up south-west Victoria – where certain names and certain families have been a part of the community for so long that you feel like you know them all.

The Hogg family was like that. For more than 40 years they ran one of several jewellery stores in the main street of Liebig St and, for the past 15 years, Peter was responsible for maintaining the iconic T&G clock on the corner of Liebig and Lava streets.

When the clock stopped, for whatever reason, it would be Peter who would be called to climb up the stairs, across the rooftop and into the clocktower to check the mechanism.

Even in these days of digital and mobile devices, everyone knows when the T&G clock is “off” and feels a strange sense of unease until it is working again, as if the timepiece is the quietly beating heart of the city: as long as it’s still going, we’re doing okay.

As the keeper of the clock, Peter was an important part of all of our lives, even if we didn’t know it.

It was for this reason that I contacted Peter in early 2013 to ask if he would be photographed inside the T&G clocktower for a small book of 30 Warrnambool icons – the known and the less well-known – and he readily agreed.

The photo shoot for Warrnambool: This is Home gave me a casual connection to Peter where we later felt comfortable having a conversation if we bumped into each other “down the street”, which is where Warrnambool does a large portion of its casual socialising.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] S [/dropcap]trangely enough, one of our last – if not our last – such conversations was about how we were starting to lose people from our generation: the one’s who passed through school together in the late 70s and early 80s at either CBC, St Anne’s, Warrnambool High School, North Tech and Caramut Road, as they were then known.

We were entering an age, we lamented, where health problems did not always “get better” and we really needed to remember that old cliche about pursuing your dreams and grabbing hold of life.

Many of the people we profile for Bluestone Magazine are doing just that, which is why their stories resonate with so many.

And I may have even told Peter, but then again, I may not have, that I was going to do just that by flying 13,000km to see Bette Midler in concert in Los Angeles to celebrate my 50th birthday.

I felt embarrassed telling people that I was going to spend my savings travelling across the world to see a concert, but such has been my life-long admiration of Bette Midler, that the first thing my old high school teacher Allan Scarfe asked me after not seeing each other for more than 25 years was: “Do you still love Bette?”

I had to do it, and I did and it was worth it, really worth it.

And now Peter, the time-keeper, the person who sustained Warrnambool’s quietly beating heart, is gone and I am acutely aware of just how important that journey was.

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Words and photos Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] B [/dropcap]luestone took a short winter’s break recently and when we returned, we found not one, but two fabulous and funky new cafes had sprung up in Warrnambool.

Both – Graze, and Rough Diamond – have slotted in to what is fast becoming the most vibrant and interesting part of the CBD, around Kepler, Koroit and Fairy streets, where the historic shopfronts are being restored, long-empty buildings are slowly filling and, perhaps most importantly for small businesses, the rents are much cheaper than in the city centre.

This combination was irresistible to Henry Bird, a familiar face around the Warrnambool cafe scene since his early involvement in Brightbird Espresso (which also serves some of the best coffee in town), who together with his wife, Katherine, is behind Rough Diamond.

Henry and Katherine have gutted and refitted what was surely one of the most uninspiring buildings in Koroit St; a dark, 1970s, low-profile brick place opposite the former Warrnambool Standard building that has had many incarnations, most recently as a Coca Cola office.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]he Birds have give the building an entirely new look and feel with recycled timber furnishings (made by Port Fairy craftsman Jordan Small using timber salvaged from renovations on Henry and Katherine’s home), plenty of natural light pouring in, and a cute patio area with fake grass and milk crate tables.

“That’s where the name of the cafe from, actually, because this place was such a rough diamond,” Henry explains.

“It was perfect for us, though, because we wanted to be off Liebig St, not only because it is more affordable, but because of what is happening around Fairy St and Kepler St.

“There are a lot of people putting themselves out there and giving things a go, which is creating a whole new feel to this area.”

Such is Henry’s reputation for knowing what “works” with a cafe, Rough Diamond featured in The Age Good Food section just three days after opening, (you can read the review here),  all of which adds to the sense that Warrnambool’s cafe culture is gathering cred.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] J [/dropcap]ust an espresso shot away from Rough Diamond is Graze, a combination cafe and gourmet deli that replaced the long-standing Lozzar’s in Kepler St.

“This is something we have wanted to do for a long time, to have our own business and to run our own cafe,” says owner Moira Aberline, who recently returned to Warrnambool after 10 years in the UK, where she met partner Paul Riley.

Both Moira and Paul worked in hospitality, with Paul a former chef’s consultant in several fine dining restaurants that were known for their “rosettes” as opposed to the “chef’s hat” system used in Australia.

Like so many other ex-pats of her generation, Moira felt the time was right to return home and the pair wasted no time in applying what they had learnt overseas to Warrnambool. The completely remodelled cafe is both cosy and modern and, even on a mid-Winter’s day, busy.

“It has been fabulous: we have been really overwhelmed by the support we have received and to be part of the buzz that is happening around here,” Moira said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap] lot of that buzz can be traced to Day Kitty, right next door to Graze, which about 18 months ago moved into the tired shop once occupied by Flaherty’s chocolates and turned it into a gorgeous space of marine ply and white tile.

The purely organic focus of the cafe became its very appealing point of difference and owner Victoria Carey is in the process of taking that one step further by offering organic groceries and fresh food.

With the pioneering Wyton’s across the road and Bohemia, another early arrival, a little further along toward the highway, Kepler St is barely recognisable from the days when pretty much the only cafe on offer was the quaint Kepler Kettle.

“Oh, I used to love the Kepler Kettle! It was just gorgeous,” Moira says with a laugh.

Now, however, it’s the espresso machines that are giving Kepler St and its surrounds a full head of steam.

[box]You can find Rough Diamond (M-F, 7-2) on Facebook here. Find Graze Urban Cafe and Deli, (M-F, 7-5; Sat 7-3) on the web here. Day Kitty is on Facebook here and Bohemia Cafe and Bar here.[/box]

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