At last Thursday's meeting, members enjoyed a presentation by the Central Goldfields Art Gallery's Curator and Education Officer, Helen Kaptein.
Helen has been at the gallery for the last two years, but spoke about the work being done at the gallery during the recent months of pandemic.Once the gallery was forced to close to the public for the first time, Helen coordinated online displays of the gallery's 280 acquisitions and education programs for school students and other interested groups. Once restrictions were relaxed a little, the Gallery set up a display of art work associated with the children's book series, The 13 Storey Treehouse" written by Andy Griffith and illustrated by Terry Denton. The gallery had a 3 metre mural set up where young children could draw what they would like in a tree-house - children came up with ideas like choc-chip cookie dispensers and a go-kart track.
Helen also ran a Zoom meeting with children sitting in the local library. With the recent Stage 3 restrictions, the gallery had to adjust again, so on Thursday, Helen organized a Zoom meeting with Highview art students and had Terry Denton himself talk to the budding young artists via Zoom.Helen believes it is so important to nurture art aspirations of students, so the gallery plans to still hold the annual VCE Art Show this year, even if it has to be virtual.
Helen revealed that the Gallery has recently received a grant for $500,000 which will be used to replace the old fire station doors with glass, add toilets, set up a new entrance and improve the control of temperature and light to allow really valuable art pieces to be displayed here. Art Galleries are changing with the times, and part of their role is to educate the community about the vital importance of art and culture to the well being of each ane every one of use.
After Helen's enthusiastic presentation, PP Meryl commented that our Gallery is certainly in good hands.
Helen emailed us after Thursday and said, "If members would like to remain connected and receive information about Central Goldfields Art Gallery (if they aren’t receiving any of this information already). For example, we put out an electronic newsletter about once a month and there is link here https://linktr.ee/CGArtGallery that people could sign up to if they are interested."