The growth of art in the West Gippsland area.

Introduction

I was initially inspired to write this piece by reading 2 books. The first was Simon Gregg’s Spirits in the Bush, a history of Australian art seen through the window of Gippsland.

The other book was called On Bunurong country, art and design in Frankston by Jane Eckett and Lisa Byrne.

The first gave me lots of information about artists who had visited or worked Gippsland in general and some who had worked in my local area in West Gippsland and also some very interesting concepts and ideas that had not occurred to me previously.

The second book inspired me by not being overly comprehensive of the whole region that they lived in but by being limited in their view and focusing on a smallish area. ( Frankston.)

They had incorporated chapters written specifically by other writers who were knowledgeable about their speciality, and this format made the idea of writing about my area as something that could be managed.

I noted when reading Simon’s book that he was not as comprehensive about aspects of “my” area as he was about things closer to Sale and Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education. The book itself is an amazing gathering together of knowledge about the professional Gippsland art scene and the breadth of the study is really quite extensive so I am not criticizing it for what could be seen as minor oversights of one form or another.

It did spur my interest in what I could see over my relatively short time here, is a developing of art practice in one form or another. The comment on the front of the Baw Baw Arts Alliance newsletter that the group now has over 300 members also was an indicator of this growing interest in the arts. Simon comments that” a study conducted in 1995 found well over 3000 active artists in Gippsland” and that study is over 20 years old!

I have taken as my area of interest the areas around Warragul and Drouin including Neerim South, Poowong and Yarragon in the main but also touching on other areas in the Baw Baw Shire such as Trafalgar and Walhalla. I taught at Drouin Secondary College for around 25 years , my wife worked at West Gippsland Hospital for about the same time and my living was in both Warragul and Jindivick so the area is very familiar to me.

As I am a former art and technology teacher, I decided that teaching also should be a focus as it is very much overlooked in different studies, yet as a teacher as well as an artist, I felt that this aspect of education surely had some role in stimulating interest in the arts.

I should mention that really I am focusing on art as such and not performing arts, as my knowledge of that field is relatively limited and really that area would deserve its own history and study.

However, there are minor overlaps along the way and as someone who has been involved in creativity in Art, Design and Wood and Metal technology I have not limited myself to painting alone.

I have run a small gallery which has had exhibitions from drawing, painting, photography, textiles and sculpture. As well as my own sculpture and woodcraft practice .

In looking at how art developed in the area I am taking a slightly wider view of art than some people. As an ex-art teacher I am aware that everyone has some sort of artistic aspect to their life. I often have people visit the gallery and say that they “haven’t an artistic bone in their body” but I point out art appears in all sorts of ways, the clothes you choose, how you plant your garden, if you do some sort of craft, clay wood, metal, textiles etc. All these are part of the way people approach aspects of their lives but art involves much more than painting and drawing.

Most primary school kids have a positive art experience but some kids on reaching secondary school have teachers who focus more on the things they can assess rather than encouraging confidence in their own ideas.

There are certainly things that can be specifically taught such as line strength, shading, using colour but sometimes the exploration gets lost and exercises that promote imagination miss out.

My approach to how art developed in the area (mostly Baw Baw Shire) will include professional artists, hobby artists, art teachers, students and different aspects of art practice including glass, wood and metal as well as photography.

It is interesting when you do research by using old newspapers that whole years can go by with very little mention of any sort of art practice. I guess that shows that at different times it has not been valued or visible in the community as it is today.

I also have found very little about early art practice by aboriginals in the area. Some people have commented that aboriginals didn’t actually live in the area and that seems odd to me as the area would have been very fertile and a great source of food and water. I have no answer for this other than noting that in the present day there is quite a bit of aboriginal art practice flourishing.