By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]he South West International Women’s Day Art Prize is fast becoming one of the premier competitions for women artists across the region, with more than $4000 in prize money for the 2016 event.

Organisers Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West are offering a $2000 cash first prize – up from $1500 for the inaugural event – with the winning work to be acquired by the group and also featured on the cover of its annual report for 2016-17.

A $1000 cash prize will be awarded to the runner-up, with another $1000 cash prize for best emerging artist.

Bluestone Magazine is also, for the first time, sponsoring the People’s Choice award of $250.

Emily Lee-Ack, Executive Officer of Women’s Health, said the response to the 2015 inaugural event had been “unexpected and astonishing”, with the group expecting perhaps a dozen entries and receiving more than 70 that responded to the theme of “Women and Place”. (First prize was won by Marion Manifold).

The group is expecting a similar response to the 2016 prize, which has the theme of  “Hope”.

“Hope is a very broad theme that means a lot of different things to a lot of people,” Emily said of the choice.

“It is also a very uplifting and positive theme and we would like to think that there is a growing sense of hope in the community about how things can be changed. Without hope, we are lost,” she said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] E [/dropcap]mily said the prize, which will again be hosted by The Artery, in Warrnambool, demonstrated the commitment of Women’s Health to not only advancing women’s health interests, but also supporting women more broadly.

“The prize is one way of supporting and promoting women in a really positive way…and making their work visible in the community, not only during the exhibition, but with the winning work finding a permanent home in our space,” she said.

“It also reminds us of the great value of women in our community and renders this visible, where they are so often not visible.”

In anticipation of the same response to this year’s prize, a panel will be chosen to select those entries that will make up the 50 or so to be exhibited. A guest judge – who is yet to be finalised – will determine the winners.

The prize is open to women living in the councils of W’bool, Colac-Otway, Glenelg, Southern Grampians, Corangamite and Moyne.

[box]The South West Women’s IWD Art Prize will run at The Artery from February 26 to March 13, 2016. Entries close on January 28. Detailed information about how to enter will be available on the Women’s Health website from Tuesday Sept 29. For further information you can also contact Emma Mahony: emahony@womenshealthbsw.org.au or phone (03) 5500 5490.[/box]

You might also enjoy…

Rock my soul: Rosebrook chapel rises again

Raising the bar with children’s book art: Port Fairy

To the lighthouse: a trip to Cape Nelson

Feeling a building in your bones: Donna Monaghan

Fabrication II gives birth to a new life

By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] G [/dropcap]rowing up as a dyslexic kid in Rendelsham, South Australia, Casterton artist Collin Tenney spent most of his school years in sheer terror – unless it was art class.

“I would sit there stressed out of my brain that the teacher was going to ask me to read aloud and of course nobody wanted to know the dyslexic kid, but when it came to art class, everyone wanted to sit next to me,” Collin laughs.

In one of those often inexplicable counter-balances, Collin’s limitations with words – which continues to this day – was more than made up for by an artistic streak that emerged when he was just a toddler and began drawing on the walls of his childhood home, “much to the frustration of my poor mother.”

As a young man, art became his solace, his spiritual centre and a crucial way of communicating with the world.

“I ended up working in Queensland and that’s where I started taking lots of painting classes because if I was going to learn about making art, it had to be through tutoring rather than through reading books,” Collin says.

“That was when I was around 23 or 24, but unfortunately after that, life started to get in the way with mortgages and all of those other commitments that move you away from your art.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]he pendulum swung back toward the paintbrush when Collin moved to Casterton in 2007, a town that he knew only vaguely but felt a deep connection to after driving through on his return to South Australia after looking at a property in Winchelsea.

It was shortly after the death of his younger sister from breast cancer and Collin was determined to start living the life that he always wanted.

“I felt this incredible connection to Casterton, like I had been there before,” he explains.

As Collin was passing through the historic town (popln 1765), a song played at his sister’s funeral came on the radio and although he burst into tears, he felt it was another gentle push toward making the leap.

It proved to be the right choice.

In the seven years since, Collin has not only returned to painting with a renewed vigour, but has been among several artists driving the small but growing local art scene around Casterton.

Now, for example, there is an Artists of the Valley group that includes Collin and other award-winning artists like painter Julie Kent, printmaker Jenn White and warm glass artist Darryl Tresize (winner of the Drysdale Festival of Glass prize in 2014 and 2015).

Casterton will also see the opening of a new community art gallery – the Gorman Gallery – on April 25 after the building was donated by local real estate agent Peter Gorman.

“There were all of these people out there doing their own thing with art and now we are all supporting and helping each other, while also building an arts community in Casterton,” Collin says.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] I [/dropcap]n 2012, Collin bought the former CFA shed at nearby Sandford and opened his own studio, the Sandford Red Door Gallery, named for the fire-engine red door that came with the building.

“I love this gallery, I just love the space. It is an incredibly spiritual place for me, where I am doing what I love,” he says, “it is also a place I share with other artists, through classes, galleries and all sorts of functions.”

One of Collin’s great inspirations is the late Margaret Olley, not only for her exceptional art, but her eccentric personality and he has produced several portraits of the artist, including one that took out the 2013 Clarice Beckett Art Award in Casterton (see separate story on the 2015 Clarice Beckett Art Award here). Collin plans to complete a collection of 12 “Olley’s”, as he calls them.

“When I first studied portraiture, I hated it, hated it, hated it and then I did a big work of Margaret Olley and I don’t know, something shifted,” he says.

The Clarice Beckett is one of several art prizes Collin has won in recent years, including the overall prize for the 2015 South-East Art Society’s Open Art Award, held at the Riddoch Gallery in Mt Gambier, for his landscape depicting a typical Casterton scene during the dog trials.

“My subjects keep changing and nobody is ever quite sure what I am going to do next, and sometimes neither am I,” Collin says, laughing.

[box]The Sandford Red Door Gallery is at 6027 Portland-Casterton Rd, Casterton and is open Sundays, but please call (03) 5581 2559 to confirm. You can also find more examples of Collin’s work on the South West ArtAtlas here. Entries for the 2015 Clarice Beckett Art Award close on May 22. You can find full details in our story here.[/box]

[button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”]Please click here to subscribe and support Bluestone Magazine.[/button]

You might also enjoy…

Unearthing literary treasures in a tiny town: Roz Greenwood

Spreading joy through art: Kathryn Weatherly

Revealing the eye of the tiger: Peter Clayfield

Taking a walk on the wild side: Brett Jarrett

CLOSED – winners Jacqui Eberbach and Kate Scanlan

Bluestone Magazine is giving away 2 tickets (valued at $90 each) to attend the International Women’s Day Gala Dinner on February 28 at the Quality Suites Deep Blue Hotel, Pertobe Rd.

All current and new subscribers are eligible to enter.

The first 15 current subscribers to email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au and the first 5 new subscribers will go into the draw.

Winners will be announced no later than February 5 and notified via email and our Facebook page.

Tickets to the dinner are $90 ($50 concession) or a table of 10 is $850 and available online via TryBooking here or from reception at Emma House, 131 Kepler St, Warrnambool (cash only).

You can read our story about the event here.

* New subscribers also have chance to win one of the six fantastic gift packs from Glenafton Goat Milk Skincare. See full details here.

CLOSED

[dropcap style=”color:#A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]o celebrate our first birthday we have given away some sensational prizes each week for the past four weeks. We love to reward our supporters!

All of these prizes were available thanks to the generosity of some of our wonderful business supporters and local artists – thankyou to each of these people for believing in Bluestone Magazine and helping us continue to grow.

Below is the list of winners for our final week. If you would like to be part of future competitions, please subscribe and join the ever-growing Bluestone Club.

[box]

Week 4:  CLOSED – winners: Colleen Rentsch, a $40 voucher Whale Bone Gallery, Port Fairy; Philip Trigg, a $40 voucher from Brightbird Espresso, Warrnambool; Rebecca McGrath, a unique ‘softie’ babbit (child’s soft toy), by W’bool artist Megan Nicolson (value  $45).

* *

Week 1: CLOSED – winners: Kylie Oates ($100 Merrijig voucher); Rose Pritchard (Lana’s Garden hamper); Ondrea Howie (Warrnambool: This is Home, plus a limited edition Bluestone Magazine mug!).

Week 2: CLOSED – winners: Heather Armstrong (bag, matching wallet and purse (valued at $165) from  Lizzie’s Labels of Love,); Bronwyn Lane ($40 voucher from Brightbird Espresso); and Lori Cameron (handcrafted ceramic noodle bowl by Clare Fennessy, value $50).

Week 3: CLOSED – winners: Gillian Cumming (one night’s) accommodation at Harmony at Tower Hill ); Peter Clayfield ($50 voucher Piccolo Restaurant) and Phyllis Walsh ($40 voucher from Lozzar’s Lounge Cafe). [/box]

Thank you to all those people who support Bluestone Magazine by being either paying subscribers or business supporters or both. We would not have made it this far without you.

On we go!

Carol & Louise

CLOSED MARCH 23 – winner Louise Parlour

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] W [/dropcap]e love to reward our Bluestone Club members (our wonderful paid subscribers) for supporting our online magazine and helping us to produce a quality read each week.

Already we have given away a number of great prizes and this week we are offering one paid subscriber two breakfast/lunch vouchers (valued at $28) from The Farmer’s Wife Harvest Cafe, Port Fairy thanks to owner, Jo O’Keefe.

All you need to do to be in the draw is be a paid subscriber – (that’s easy, just click here) – and you will be automatically in the running.

We will draw the winner at random next Wednesday March 26 and announce the winner on our Facebook page that night (and contact you!).

Keep your eye peeled under the “Win” tab for more great competitions that are open to all of our Bluestone Club members.

Winner: Louise Parlour.