Calling those interested in tree change: Armidale based NERAM Launches "Come run our café" campaign.

The New England Regional Art Museum is now calling for applications from hospitality professionals with an outstanding culinary vision to operate the onsite cafe and has today launched the “Come run our café” campaign and video.

Thanks to the generous donation from Bruce and Rose McCarthy, the café has undergone renovations with a brand-new commercial kitchen now in place and an equipment fit out soon to come. The newly refurbished space will be ready at the end of September and we are now looking for fresh talent to become the operators.  

Our NERAM community knows how important the success of the café is to providing an outstanding visitor experience at the Museum. A great museum that offers a great dining experience creates a cultural and culinary destination and we think that the NERAM café has infinite potential.

Expressions of interest to be the café operator close on October 15th 2020. You will find details here. 

The above comes from the official NERAM release, but is actually fairly dry. What is it about NERAM that makes this an an attractive proposition? Why do we need you, people with skills and flair? Let me explain.

Armidale is a university city with a population of 23,000. It offers superb educational facilities, a varied life style combining metro and country, NBN to the premises connections, more sporting facilities that you can (to use an old phrase) poke a stick at. 

Armidale has more writers, artists,  publishers and intellectuals per head  than any equivalent city in the country. This leads to a vibrant intellectual life. 

Within Armidale, NERAM has a special place as the repository of some of Australia's greatest art collections including the Hinton and Coventry collections. It's openings and facilities are an integral element in city life. 

Interested? Then let's look at some nuts and bolts. 

If you take on the challenge, you have two key markets. 

Armidale autumn scene

The first and largest is the local and regional population who come to NERAM for openings, festivals such as the Black Gully Festival or just for breakfast, lunch or coffee. The second is the visitors who come from out of town as tourists, to visit family or for particular activities and who stay for a coffee or a meal. 

This includes a significant event component, making catering a major potential source of revenue.  

If all this sounds good, what might go wrong?  A bit, actually. 

To begin with, and as you might expect given my description of the city, Armidale has a large number of reasonable coffee and food places. 

As part of the museum precinct, NERAM is about a mile from the city centre. No foot traffic. While you will get some traffic from NERAM visitors, you will have to work to get locals to come to you. This will take time. 

You will also need to work with NERAM and with other bodies including the University to get people to come for events and occasions. The University has its own competitive facilities on campus, but will still cooperate in terms of special events. 

I suppose in all this that the biggest question is just how you to define your competitive edge. How do you build on the facilities and location that you have?  I suppose, and this is based on my own experience, that you localise and regionalise. The region has a plethora of wine and produce. Why not sell that as well?

I am not an expert in hospitality, but I do think that this option now presented is worth a serious look! 

 

Stories Connect - Armidale, the Ezidis and creative expression

Back in August 2017 (Armidale to settle 200 refugees - overview and discussion) I reported that Armidale long fight to become a refugee resettlement centre had finally been successful.

Khalid Adi and his family colouring in. Photo Armidale Express.

Two years later Armidale is home to some 400 Ezidis.

Earlier in 2019, the New England Writers' Centre launched Stories Connect, a major program focussed around encouraging creative expression and making connections between newly- resettled Ezidi refugee families and other members of the Armidale community, through the sharing and creation of stories, pictures and music.

Supported by generous grants from the Regional Arts Fund, the Country Arts Support Program, Create NSW and Settlement Services International, with much-appreciated support from Armidale Regional Council, Arts North West and NERAM, Stories Connect launched in June. Over several months it featured a range of activities and events, from creative workshops for school age children and teenagers to community storytelling sessions; from the creation of documentary photographs by emerging photographers.

Stories Connect showcased the wide range of local talent and potential, both within the Ezidi and wider segments of the Armidale community. It’s been a great success, culminated in a popular exhibition at NERAM (the New England Regional Art Museum). Now a short documentary film has been released showcasing the project. It's rather good.

I have been asked not to embed the video because the Centre wants people to view it on its website. You will find the link here. The Armidale Express story on the launch of the NERAM exhibition is here. 

Art Connections (31 Oct to 4 Nov 2019) - a creative journey through the New England North West

Created by Arts North West, Art Connections (31 Oct to 4 Nov 2019) is a large-scale arts trail experience and coordinated open weekend showcasing the diverse arts and cultural venues of the New England North West.

This event connects communities and highlights the significant contribution made by artists and cultural workers to the region’s economy and community identity.

Nestled in the mountains of the New England and scattered throughout the plains of the North West are numerous hidden gems waiting to be discovered. Creatives busily working away on their kitchen tables, in the garden shed, a shop in the main street, converted shipping containers or a purpose-built studio, drawing inspiration from the landscapes and environments that surround them in the beautiful New England North West to make and produce unique and diverse works.

Art Connections, has been developed to capture the creative venues of the New England North West, from the larger-scale venues such as commercial galleries and volunteer-run museums to the quirky artists run initiatives and studios off the beaten track, compiling a comprehensive database disguised as the North West Arts Trail Directory and Open Weekend.

Art Connections is more than one event – it is, in fact, a series of over 50 destinations across almost 100,000 km2. It will bring visitors into the smaller villages and towns of the New England North West, to explore and experience regional New England. This project connects communities and highlights the significant contribution made by artists and cultural workers to the region’s economy and community identity.

These trails will reveal what locals have known all along, there is something special and unique about our region. The self-drive Open Weekend on the weekend of the 31 October to 4 November provides the perfect opportunity to meander through the picturesque changing landscapes of the New England North West, the environment in which creativity and inspiration is drawn from.

Arts North West covers an enormous part of the New England North West. From bustling regional centres, to rural towns and remote villages, the vast differences between these communities include the obvious; size and location but there is an overarching similarity between them all, individuals and collectives building community identity through the power of creativity.

Artstate Tamworth will be held as part of Art Connections featuring a number of interconnected activities. 

You can download a copy of the Art Connections directory here or pick up a hard copy at one of the many participating venues and tourist centres. 

The changing role of New England's Regional Galleries - a note

Joseph Backler, View of Tenterfield 1861, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW

Robert Heather, former head of the New England Regional Art Museum and now Director Advancement, Communications and Events at the University of New England, kindly sent me links to paintings with New England connections. This is one of them.

The painter himself was something of a journeyman painter. Convicted of forgery and transported to Australia in 1832, Backler travelled widely across regional NSW and Queensland in search of portrait and landscape commissions. When he arrived in a town, Backler would advertise his services in local papers. He visited Tenterfield in 1860 on his way to Brisbane.

Backler's Tenterfield painting is one of those that the State Library Foundation is seeking sponsorship for to help conservation and preservation. Robert thought that it was a sufficiently important one in local terms that the need should be publicised.

Digging through the paintings presented by the State Library for sponsorship, I realised that I had no idea of the depth of their collection nor of the number of paintings with New England connections. I found over 30 artworks with some connection to the broader New England. This is another example.

Major James Nunn, Australian Mounted Infantry c1840, attributed to Joseph Fowles, State Library of NSW

Now James Winniett Nunn of the NSW Mounted Police is quite an important figure in New England history for his role as officer in charge for the massacre of Aboriginal people at Waterloo Creek in 1838. I had never seen an image of him.

Robert's message came as I was reading Antipodean Perspective: Selected writings of Bernard Smith (edited by Rex Butler and Sheridan Palmer, Monash University Publishing, 2018). Smith, one of Australia's famous art historians, has been a favourite of mine for many years. He was the one who really introduced me to the history of Australian art around 1970, although I had had exposure before that.

Some of the early pieces in the book deal with Smith's views on the role of the art museum. Smith was a bit of an iconoclast, a man of firm views. He was concerned about the way that special exhibitions detracted from the gallery's primary collections. To his mind, a key role of the curator was to document and understand existing collections, to place them in context so that they became more broadly accessible. A policy that combined a focus on a limited number of special pieces with special exhibitions meant that the total collection gathered dust.

While Smith compared the failings of Australian state galleries with some of their London compatriots, he was not blind to the practical difficulties involved. The careful examination of individual works, the establishment of their provenance, their placement in an historical context, all took money which was in sort supply. Galleries had to make judgments, to satisfy funders public and private, people and organisations who did not always see the value of careful long term work.

Frances Cory (Mrs Edward Gostwyck), artist unknown, c1820. State Library of NSW.

The Corys arrived as free settlers in 1823 and, in 1828, were raising cattle and horses on a large holding at Paterson, in the lower Hunter district. This rare early colonial likeness shows Frances ‘Fanny’ Cory at about 28 years of age. She is dressed in the fashions of the late 1820s which saw the addition of fussy Elizabethan-style ornamentation to the previously uncluttered Empire line.

 Smith believed, too, that public galleries should combine exhibitions of work by current artists with displays from the collection. He also had a reasonably broad view of what constitutes art. Finally, he was a great supporter of the broad education role that he believed galleries should play.

While reading Smith, I was thinking about the role of regional galleries across the broader New England. Added force was given to those thoughts by the identification of yet more colonial paintings with New England connections. Before going on, I note that the regional or bigger public galleries are are only part of New England art history and current cultural life. There are smaller local public and private galleries, a multiplicity of artists and a range of private collectors.

While I have traced some of the history of the museum movement across the North, I haven't properly tracked the public galleries themselves. There is a problem here, for most galleries emphasise the date they received their first collection rather than the date the gallery opened for the first time. This was often in temporary premises and could be years after the first donation. Then there could be another long delay until permanent premises were acquired or constructed. The relatively large regional galleries that we know today are all relatively recent in historical terms. Their collections are also quite varied since the core reflects the varying interests of those who donated the collections.

On Smith's measurements, I think they do a pretty good job in terms of presenting the collections, in education services and in their displays by living artists. They do so despite limited resources with funding dependent especially on councils and on sporadic often project based NSW Government grants. There is some sponsorship, but the local pool of funds is relatively smaller than it was in the past and more hotly contested. This places the galleries in competition with each other and with other cultural institutions.

Recognising the constraints as well as just how well many are doing, I would argue that current approaches suffer from two weaknesses. In arguing this, I want to return to Bernard Smith.

Tom Roberts, Edward D S Ogilvie 1894-95, State Library of NSW. Edward Ogilvie commissioned Roberts to paint this accomplished, richly coloured portrait at Ogilvie’s extensive Clarence River property, Yulgilbar, north of Grafton. 

An art historian, Smith argued strongly that Australian painting had to be seen in its European context. To his mind, that provided a richer. deeper understanding of individual works. However, in then writing about Australian art he created an historical and visual framework that became a living entity in its own right. But, with exceptions largely linked to Sydney and Melbourne, he did not discuss regional variations in Australian painting.

This leads me to my two weaknesses as I see them The regional galleries may place certain paintings or artists in a broader context, they may point to certain local links, but they generally do not provide any picture of the total oeuvre of New England related work nor of the ways those paintings fit into New England history. This story remains untold.

Tom Roberts, On the Timbarra - Reek's and Allen's sluicing claim c1894, Art Gallery of  NSW. This painting probably dates from the same trip in which Roberts began the Ogilvie painting.      

The second related weakness, at least as I see it, is that while the galleries show current work, they do not really put that into any context. Of course they say something about the artist and the nature of the work, but it tends to be very one dimensional.

Like Bernard, I am an historian, although I make no claim to be either an art historian or critic. But I am conscious of the way in which I see patterns in art especially linked to area and style.

Julia Griffin, Rain on the Uralla Road

Back in 2009 I tries my hand at a photo essay, The Colours of New England, looking at the way colours changed across the North. In writing, I used a combination of paintings and photos with dashes of poetry. In the nine or so years since then I have added films, more paintings, more photos, more poetry and prose to deepen the picture that I had in my mind.

It would be nice to think that over the next decade our larger galleries might broaden their focus to make part of this story more accessible to New England audiences. There is a considerable story to be told. 

The Glen Innes tartan

Did you know Glen Innes has its very own tartan? I did not until the Glen Innes Highlands Facebook page told me so.

The five colours represent:

• Light blue, the clear day time skies of the New England.
• Royal blue, for our famous sapphires.
• Dark blue, our clear night skies.
• Red, the Celtic blood links to Glen Innes people. 
• White, fidelity with Celtic pasts and traditions. 

Glen Innes is very proud of its Scottish heritage and has been turning it into a considerable attraction.

The tartan is available to buy in many forms at the Visitor Information Centre.

Cultural Tourism: telling the story of New England's Aboriginal past

I have long been frustrated about what I see as neglect of the opportunities offered by Aboriginal cultural tourism in Northern NSW, the broader New England that I write about. 

A number of things contributed to that sense of frustration. One was the absence of material and supporting infrastructure to attract, interest and hold visitors, A second was the way that Aboriginal cultural and historical tourism in the broader New England was fragmented and submerged by tourism promotion that focused on the Sydney basin. Essentially, you had Sydney and a then series of small dot points scattered across the rest of the state. A third frustration lay in the way that disputes and disagreements in and between Aboriginal communities made it difficult to tell stories and to take action.

I accept that there has been great improvement since I first looked at the matter when I was chair of Tourism Armidale in the mid nineties. Historical research has provided more information. Aboriginal communities have begun to organise, collecting material and making that and their stories accessible to a broader audience. However, problems of fragmentation remain. 

Against this background, I was pleased to see a story by Steve Evans in the Glen Innes Examiner ( Tourists want to see Aboriginal cultural sites so more skilled people needed) that TAFE colleges in Armidale, Glen Innes and Inverell have launched a course on Aboriginal cultural tourism to upskill local Aboriginal people. I was also pleased to read this quote from Tom Briggs, CEO Armidale Local Aboriginal Land Council:  “There are many spectacular tourism sites and traditional walking trails across the Northern Tablelands that we as Aboriginals want to explore and make available for our Members and the broader community.”  

Problems of fragmentation remain. The remarkable story of Aboriginal New England is not just localities or even language groups, but of a complex pattern of cultural, economic and political interactions over space and time. This story has still to be properly told and integrated into tourism. Once this is done, both locals and visitors will then be able to properly appreciate and enjoy the story of Aboriginal New England. In the meantime, the new course is a small step forward.  

Video tells some of the story of the Hinton Collection

While this YouTube video was published in February 2018, I hadn't seen it before. It tells something of the story of the Hinton Collection at the New England Regional Art Museum and in so doing showcases some the paintings themselves. Enjoy.

BEYOND ART: True Stories from the desert by senior Aboriginal men at the Tamworth Regional Gallery

NEW LIGHT: Tamworth gallery director Bridget Guthrie with a new exhibition highlighting contemporary Indigenous art. Photo: Peter Hardin 300418PHE043

I am often frustrated that I simply cannot get in the car and drive to visit new New England exhibitions or celebrations. A case in point is the new display at the Tamworth Regional Galley highlighted in the Northern Daily Leader story  Tamworth gallery highlighting contemporary Aboriginal art.

The exhibition, BEYOND ART: True Stories from the desert by senior Aboriginal men, highlights the streak in contemporary Indigenous art that combines innovation with deep connection to country.The exhibition is open until 10 June. I would encourage you to visit if you can.

While I greatly support the exhibition and the work done by Ms Guthrie, I must admit to a feeling of pique, I would like to see, I would really like to see, a greater focus on current Aboriginal cultural activities across Northern NSW, my broader New England. It seems to me that because we don't exist in a formal legal sense, we get ignored. .

NERAM's Robert Heather to join UNE: he will be missed

On 3 May  Andrew Murray, the Chair of the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) announced that NERAM's Director Robert Heather would be leaving NERAM on 22 June to take up a position of Director, Advancement, Communications and Events at the University of New England.

Mr Murray made the announcement with considerable regret, noting that the appointment was an affirmation of Robert’s talents.

"Robert has been leading our Art Museum for just short of three years", Mr Murray said. He ":has made a significant impact in this time, with renovations to the building, new LED lighting, solar panels and the wonderful HINTON permanent exhibition development. He and his team have provided us all with engaging exhibitions, stimulating lectures and vibrant events. Robert has also developed many friendships for NERAM both locally and within the national art community."

"The Board wishes Robert every success in his new career and we thank him sincerely for the contribution he has made to our gallery and our region since moving here from Melbourne. The Board has commenced a search for a worthy replacement as Art Museum Director at NERAM and we expect there to be considerable interest in the role."

"During the likely period between Robert’s departure and the commencement of a new Director, our Manager Curatorial and Exhibitions, Ms Rachael Parsons will become Acting Director."

As I write, I'm listening to the ABC program on the opening of the permanent Hinton collection at NERAM.  It's worth listening too, a very good program. .

NERAM has had some good Directors. Robert has been one of the best with his constant attention to the promotion of NERAM as a cultural icon not just for Armidale but for the broader North. I know that Robert will give good service to UNE, but we will miss him.

New England Travels seminar paper

I have now posted to my history blog the paper I delivered  in the University of New England’s Humanities seminar series on 13 April 2018: New England Travels: journeys through space and time. The paper is a personal ramble through elements in New England's history.

Creating the Parthenon on the Hill; establishment and early life of the Armidale Teachers’ College

On 17 February 2018 I gave a public lecture to mark the opening of the permanent exhibition at the New England Regional Art Museum of the Hinton Collection. I described this briefly in First reflections on the opening of NERAM's permanent exhibition of the Hinton collection.

I have now brought the talk on line on my history blog: Creating the Parthenon on the Hill; establishment and early life of the Armidale Teachers’ College

NERAM's Centenary of Beersheba exhibition

This Friday, 29 September 2017, three new exhibitions open at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM)..

The first is the opening of a Centenary of Beersheba exhibition. This post focuses on the first.

A century ago young men from the New England region found themselves on the other side of the world fighting against the Ottoman Turkish army from Egypt to Lebanon.

The new exhibition, Horse Power: Light Horse in Palestine – to Beersheba and beyond, provides an opportunity  o look at the day to day life of these soldiers through their own words. The exhibition will be opened by Max Tavener, President of the Armidale RSL Sub Branch at NERAM at 6pm on Friday 29 September 2017.

“After the Great War commenced in August 1914 there was a rush of enthusiastic volunteers who joined up from communities around our region,” said Robert Heather, Art Museum Director. “Young men from towns like Armidale, Tamworth, Tenterfield, Walcha and Glen Innes were fighting a determined enemy in the rugged, biblical landscape of Jericho, Jerusalem, Megiddo and of course Beersheba. We can only imagine the impact that these experiences had on them at the time and for the rest of their lives.”

“One hundred years later these are locations straight out of today’s headlines as well,” he said. “In 1918 Australian troops were the first to enter the ancient Syrian city of Damascus and were welcomed by the inhabitants of Aleppo as liberators.”

The New England Regional Art Museum has been working with Guest Curator Bill Oates, University Archivist at the University of New England who has been researching and curating the exhibition which will launch the program for the commemorations of the Centenary of the Battle for Beersheba in the New England region, where many of the soldiers in the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade came from.

“Most Australians would have heard about the Battle of Beersheba in October 1917 and the historic charge of the Australian Light Horse one evening to capture the water so desperately needed by the horses and men,” said Bill Oates, exhibition curator. “Fewer people know about the long preparation leading to that moment and the additional year of successful campaigning that followed that day.”

“Many New Englanders served in this campaign and their recollections and collections provide us with detail of the logistics and effort required to reshape the region as the Ottoman Empire was defeated.”

Horse Power draws upon historical collections including the UNE Archive, the 12/16 Hunter River Lancers History Room and loans from the Australian War Memorial, including a painted portrait of Australia leader General Sir Henry Chauvel and a sketchbook by war artist George Lambert, whose painting The Charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba, 1917, became an iconic image of World War One.

The exhibition will include never before exhibited photographs, diaries and memorabilia from local private and family collections which will help tell the story of the deployment to Palestine, the campaign and the historic Battle of Beersheba from a number of perspectives.

The exhibition has been developed as a partnership project between the New England Regional Art Museum and the University of New England and will be on display from 29 September 2017 until Sunday 11 February 2018.

Postscipt

NERAM's Robert Heather has kindly provided the fuller program for the Centenary of Battle of Beersheba public events starting in Armidale this weekend.

Official Centenary of Battle of Beersheba public events in the New England region include:

• 6.00pm Friday 29 September 2017

Exhibition opening Horse Power: Light Horse in Palestine – to Beersheba and beyond , To be opened by Max Tavener, President, Armidale RSL Sub Branch. New England Regional Art Museum, Kentucky Street, Armidale

• 10.30am Saturday 7 October 2017

Exhibition tour with curator Bill Oates in Horse Power: Light Horse in Palestine – to Beersheba and beyond, New England Regional Art Museum, Kentucky Street, Armidale

• 7.00pm Tuesday 31 October 2017

Commemoration Ceremony, A Squadron 12/16 Hunter River Lancers (open to public)

Gaza Training Depot, Allingham Street, Armidale

• 12.00pm Saturday 4 November 2017

12/16 Hunter River Lancers Church Service

St Peter’s Cathedral, 122 Rusden Street, Armidale

• 2.00pm Saturday 4 November 2017

Free Public Lecture by UNE Archivist Bill Oates “The road to Beersheba and Damascus”

University of New England and Regional Archives, CB Newling Campus, Kentucky Street, Armidale

Image Provided:

Artist unknown,  Member of the 2nd Remount Unit AIF, training a new horse for Light Horse Units,

Postcard HRL Light Horse Museum Collection

Media enquiries:

Robert Heather, Art Museum Director, New England Regional Art Museum

Tel: 02 6772 5255      Email: director@neram.com.au

Centenary of Beersheba program enquiries:

WO1 Doug Lennox OAM (RTD), History Room Manager, 12/16 Hunter River Lancers

Mob: 0413 492 572   Email: champbe@aapt.net.au

New natural history museum adds to Armidale's attractions and diversity - but can we fix Beardy Street?

The University of New England's new natural history museum is about to open.

Announced back in June 2015, the museum is intended to be a showcase of a new $27 million Integrated Agriculture Education Project precinct. The museum features the skeleton of a carnivorous dinosaur, and a diverse collection of animals, plants, and meteorites, building on the collection previously held by the Zoology Museum.

Armidale has two main museum/cultural precincts. The first centres on Kentucky Street in the south of this city and includes the New England Regional Art Museum (photo), the Armidale and Region Aboriginal Centre and Keeping Place and the Heritage Centre. The second covers the museums and displays at UNE to the north-east of the city.

These are not Armidale's only museums and cultural centres. The Armidale Folk Museum in the centre of the city is one of the oldest and best folk museums in the country.

I still live in hope that Armidale Regional Council can revitalise the centre of the business district with its bookshops, cafes and galleries. Poor planning decisions over a long period have fragmented the small CBD, turning it from a vibrant centre to something of a desolate pedestrian absent zone dominated by relatively small shopping malls at each end.

Beardy Street is the heart of the old Victorian city that constitutes one of Armidale's architectural gems. It should be the heart of the city, providing a central point for visitors and locals alike, a starting point for all the other attractions.

The work of New England photographer Joshua Smith

Resuming posting after the new year, New England photographer Joshua (Josh) Smith comes from Narrabri on the Liverpool Plains. He describes his work in this way:

"My goal is to tell the story of Australian farmers, who are the best and most sustainable in the world. Through my photography, showing the scale and beauty of what they do with our land."

As you will see from this example, his work is quite striking.

I hadn't seen any of his work until Canon Australia ran a special feature on it. The colour and composition struck an immediate chord, further illustrating the colours of New England.  This second photo is called Inbound to Wee Waa. I'm sure that you will see why I like him.

New NERAM exhibitions - Views of Landscape and Home

On Friday, the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale opened its latest series of exhibitions.

Views of Landscape looks is a new exhibition looking at the traditional genre of landscape. The painting from the exhibition is Elioth Gruner's Winter afternoon, Bellingen 1937.

Views of Landscape explores a number of themes related to landscape painting including a feature wall of rare paintings of local landscapes dating back to the 1930s including depictions of Bellingen, Coffs Harbour, Uralla and other New England locations .

“In 1921 the artist Elioth Gruner passed through the New England region on his way north, setting up his easel, painting the landscape as he went and reputedly staying with farmers and graziers in return for giving them an artwork to keep,” said curator Robert Heather, Director of the Museum. “Later in the 1930s he returned to the region and obviously travelled along the Waterfall Way because a series of gorgeous landscapes he painted then are now in the Howard Hinton Collection here at NERAM.”

“The Howard Hinton Collection was originally assembled as a teaching collection for Armidale Teachers College and Hinton wanted to make sure that it included all of the key painting themes of his era,” said Mr Heather. “Looking through this collection of over 1000 artworks we have wonderful examples of portraits, still life, nudes, landscapes and seascapes to choose from for our exhibitions.”

“In this exhibition we explore the way in which artist’s views of the landscape have evolved from the traditional English countryside of nineteenth century painter Samuel Palmer through to the contemporary interventions of Christo around Sydney Harbour in the late 1960s and the work of contemporary urban artists today such as George Gittoes.”

“This exhibition includes works by leading Australian artists including Arthur Streeton, Elioth Gruner, Adrian Feint, Margaret Olley, Lloyd Rees and many others that will enable our visitors to experience a range of high quality landscape painting, prints and drawings.”

A second exhibition explores the idea of Home. This is Raphaela Rosella's One day I’ll go home and meet my mother 2016, colour photograph.

This exhibition brings Armidale’s international communities together with the Aboriginal and broader communities by creating connections around the idea of ‘home’ through art, music and stories.

The exhibition opened with a welcome to country by Aunty Barbra and a performance by the HOME drumming group.

It features large scale photographic portraits by award-winning photographer Raphaela Rosella with images, personal stories and creative contributions collected from and created by community members during Beyond Empathy’s HOME project in 2015.

HOME was a multi-arts project that included the creation of a community choir and drumming group, photographic portraits and storytelling, with the choir and drumming group creating a forum for connection by meeting and performing regularly.

“Raphaela Rosella’s powerful photographic portraits form the heart of this exhibition which explores how a number of different communities have made their home in Armidale and the New England region,” said NERAM's Robert Heather.

Beyond Empathy use ar tforms that resonate with participants and aims to disrupt old ways of thinking and empower marginalised people to engage with their communities, create new narratives and shift perceptions.

The HOME project was supported by the Multicultural NSW Unity Grants program and will be on show at NERAM until Sunday 14 August 2016.

Spring Soiree at NERAM (New England Regional Art Museum) 11 September 2015

NERAM has invited all those who would like to attend to come to a Spring Soiree at NERAM
11 September 2015 - 5:30pm.

The Spring Celebration is intended to welcome NERAM's new Director, a new Café and a new Season ahead!

• Meet Robert Heather, incoming Director at NERAM.
• Enjoy finger food from the new café, Studio 52. 
• Buy wine by the glass from the Friends of NERAM.
• Complimentary non-alcoholic drinks available.

If you want to come you must let NERAM know. Just to tempt you this is a piece from the permanent collection

About Robert:

Robert Heather comes to NERAM from the State Library of Victoria where he was manager of events and exhibitions, and before that, director of Artspace in Mackay, and executive director of the Regional Galleries Association of Queensland. He has also worked at Cairns Regional Gallery and the Queensland Art Gallery.

About Studio 52:
David Thomas and Phil Tutt come to NERAM from Trina's in Uralla, where they established a reputation for great food and service. They are looking forward to providing the same quality service and varied menu at NERAM. Studio 52 will be open during NERAM's opening hours, 10am-4pm Tuesday to Sunday.

Growing up in the North - child and young adulthood memories

Growing up in New England – four stories is a note on four writers who grew up in or spent part of their early life on the Northern tablelands - Maslyn Williams, Judith Wright, Binks Dowling and Judith Wallace

Joe Eisenberg’s portrait

I see from the Newcastle Herald that artist Rachel Milne was painting a portrait of Joe Eisenberg for entry to this year’s Archibald Prize competition.

That story really took me back. Joe is presently Director of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG). However, when I first met him he was Director of the New England Regional Art Museum. 

Joe spent twent years in Armidale, with two children born there as were mine. I mainly knew Joe professionally, but our children were an added link.

Its not all beer and skittles being a director of an Australian cultural institution. Joe did a pretty good job in Armidale  within NERAM’s funding limitations, building the institution’s reach. He has clearly done a good job at Maitland, too.

Searching, I found a really good bio of Joe originally published in the Newcastle Herald in September 2012.  

This is a photo of Joe with Janis Wilton, his wife. An historian, Janis has done a lot of work on New England's Chinese heritage. This is an example of her work.

It’s nice to write a simple uncomplicated post that brings back memories. Mind you, I haven’t visited MRAG yet. Clearly a gap that some of my Hunter friends will, justly, suggest that I should rectify as soon as possible!

Is a NSW cultural policy possible? How would New England fit in?

At the end of 2013, Arts NSW called for responses to a discussion paper on a proposed  NSW cultural policy. It seemed a very Sydney centric document that also tried to stitch together all sorts of other policy objectives and activities. That’s actually a feature of all the NSW mega agency clusters. They want to integrate what they do into an apparently coherent narrative even where things are in fact not, or were not, connected.  

In January 2014 the New England Writers’ Centre responded. We summarised our approach in this way:

As a broad general comment, we found some difficulty in determining the relevance of the paper to the Centre’s role in the promotion of writers and writing in Northern New South Wales and indeed, more broadly, to the development of arts and cultural activities within Northern New South Wales. Similar issues arose in the context of the various action plans referred to in the discussion paper, plans that are meant to be integrated in some way with an arts and cultural policy.

Part of the problem lies in the division within the strategies between Sydney and NSW, combined with a top down approach that seeks to interlink Sydney and the rest of the state in the form of a cobweb with the different strands centered on Sydney. One consequence is insufficient recognition of diversity within NSW and the way this affects the on-ground patterns of life, including interactions between areas outside Sydney. To pursue the cobweb analogy, there are many smaller overlapping webs within NSW that exist independently of any interconnection with Sydney and may indeed be in competition with Sydney.

The brief comments that follow amplify this point. We have tried to structure them to be helpful to the general intent of the strategy, while also pointing to the deficiencies as we see them in the current approach.

In response to a comment on another blog, I promised to put the paper on line. I have now posted it to Scribd. It’s not a very long submission, a bit over ten pages. I think that its quite good.

If you can find the time, have a browse and give me your reactions.

Munificence – the Story of the Howard Hinton Collection

In today’s short post on my personal blog, How to browse the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) collection, I provided a link to a new way to explore at least some of NERAM’s large collection. In this post, I want to look at one current exhibition, The story of munificence. This painting from the exhibition is Rupert Bunny’s  1922 work, A Sunny Day.

The new exhibition is being held to mark the launch of Munificence: the Story of the Howard Hinton Collection. This fascinating book includes essays by Barry Pearce and Caroline Downer, reproductions of over one hundred of the key works from the collection, including paintings, prints and drawings, and a complete catalogue listing of the collection.

A proper book on the Hinton Collection is long overdue. There was one earlier, a somewhat sumptuous piece, but its been out of print for many decades. 

The book is available from NERAM for $39.95.  (Friends of NERAM $34.95). It’s not quite clear how you should buy the book if, like me, you are outside Armidale. I think that the best bet is to contact NERAM via their web site.

As an aside to NERAM and indeed all New England institutions, remember that the New England diaspora is actually far larger than you immediate local audience. Please make it as easy as you can for us to interact with you (and buy!).