Arts & Culture

A Coolac woman’s year of journaling after the shock loss of her husband has resulted in her story being chronicled in a book released last month. Julie Willersdorf said when she sat down to write about the grief and anguish she experienced after her husband of 34 years suddenly collapsed and died, the process took her just one month. It...

Less than a month before the 2021 event, organisers have been forced to pull the pin on the popular Sculpture for Clyde nine-day art festival on the NSW South Coast. Initially run by the Batemans Bay Tourism and Business Chamber in partnership with Willinga Park, Sculpture for Clyde features creations from famous and local sculptors and usually attracts thousands of...

Not all suitcases are gathering dust due to COVID-19 - the National Gallery of Australia's Art Cases is re-packing, revamping and ready to roll through regional Australia. The idea behind the suitcases is that they're filled with works of art that can be held and touched by people of all ages and get into the community through schools, libraries, community...

A community theatre in Tumut that once served as the centre of cultural life for the townspeople is just one of the recipients of funding under Snowy Valleys Council’s Recovery and Resilience grants program. More than $62,000 has been allocated to 16 projects covering the local government area’s vast footprint including Tumut, Tooma, Tumbarumba, Talbingo, Adelong, Khancoban, Welaregang and Batlow....

Musicians, dancers, poets, performance artists and collectors everywhere - the National Folk Festival is calling you. Applications for the 2022 National Folk Fellowship Program, run in partnership with the National Library of Australia, have been extended until August 16, supporting folk practitioners to develop a project based on the National Library's extensive folklore collections. The Folk Festival's artistic director Katie Noonan...

While many art galleries have been forced to close during the pandemic there is one defying the odds. Crookwell artist Margaret Wonson is proposing to open a new gallery in the town's main street in the NSW Southern Tablelands as a place to paint and support other artists. She was involved in opening the Wall Candy studio and gallery on...

A group of dedicated locals on the NSW Far South Coast are encouraging residents to let out their inner Wordsworth, Plath or Yeats. Their efforts have seen several workshops, poetry groups and poetry reading sessions spring up in the past few years, and local poets have performed on stages big and small. According to local editor and poet Kai Jensen,...

The Hume Conservatorium (HumeCon) in Goulburn has announced the appointment of Jacqui Smith as chief executive officer following Paul Scott-Williams's departure in early July 2021. Ms Smith has worked at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music within the University of Sydney for the past seven years in strategic relations, international partnerships, marketing and communications. She was responsible for developing the conservatorium's engagement...

In what's being described as one of the most significant regional music development efforts undertaken in the state's history, NSW recently appointed seven Regional Music Officers (RMOs) to develop and foster young talent and develop events and opportunities. Each of these locals is tasked with acting on behalf of MusicNSW to host networking events, conduct surveys and censuses and facilitate...

For the past 11 years, Hume Conservatorium (HumeCon) CEO/artistic director Paul Scott-Williams has been leading music education in the NSW Southern Tablelands and Southern Highlands. The singer, pianist and teacher has transitioned the conservatorium from a Goulburn-based college to an institution that offers home and school-based tuition across the region. He also secured the conservatorium's future by negotiating ownership of...

The latest step in the massive Bay Pavilions project in Batemans Bay has been announced, with the forecourts to be graced with large public art in the form of two sculptures. Two large-scale pieces, Cathy Drew's Rockpool and Fenella Richards's Emergence will soon be positioned in the western and theatre forecourts of Bay Pavilion, respectively. Describing Ms Drew's Rockpool, Eurobodalla Shire Council planning and sustainability...

One of the South Coast's most prestigious art competitions is going national next year, with a $25,000 prize purse that's likely to attract artists from around Australia. The Basil Sellers Art Prize was founded in 2004 by businessman, philanthropist and art collector Basil Sellers AM. Through a chance connection to Moruya, Mr Sellers has developed a long and fruitful partnership...

Batemans Bay's iconic old bridge continues to be dismantled bit by bit, but its spirit and memory will live on in a new artwork being commissioned for the NSW South Coast town's foreshore. As far back as 2017, the Batemans Bay community told Transport for NSW it wanted to see a tribute to the old bridge once it was removed...

He has sung about Yass' brown, smelly water; the old Commercial Hotel, which has stood empty on the town's main street since 2005, and the controversial removal of the popular spiral slide from Coronation Park. If there's an issue or story to be told in his hometown of Yass, in regional NSW, Daniel Kelly will write a song about it....

Australian arts organisation The Wired Lab was founded with a simple mission: to ensure people living in rural and regional communities don't miss out on cultural experiences their metropolitan counterparts get to enjoy. Now, 13 years later, artistic director and CEO Sarah Last says that as an artist herself, it's always been important to maintain a space for her practice...

It’s little wonder that talented women such as Margot Shannon and Kate Lenehan, of Yass, created spaces that have moved well beyond their brief as shops. Their businesses - one a cornerstone of the town’s main street that recently moved into larger premises and the other something completely new - are brimming with well-travelled homewares and gifts that each tell...