Acting President's Message February 2009

In the week following Saturday, February 15, Jenny Rickards on her own initiative extracted a list of 11 members living in areas likely to be affected by bushfires, and circulated it. I have made calls to all, plus one other, to ascertain if they have been directly affected, and whether they needed any help. In 11 cases I was able to speak to the members or a near relative. Three reported that they were not at risk. Eight reported fires had been close by, and in some cases they had been saved by a wind change. Five had to leave their houses for a day, and one had been unable to leave. No one had lost their house. All were safe and are prepared for further bad fire days, and have alternative accommodation possibilities. Several quoted the generous help available, and all appreciated the support.

The Herring Island exhibition has been successful in displaying our work to an appreciative audience as well as returning an estimated surplus for the ASV with six items sold. The exhibition had to be closed on the final Saturday due to closure of Victorian national parks.

Michael Meszaros gave a fascinating review of the development of his work over time at the first monthly meeting of members of the year on 13 February. What I particularly enjoyed were the explanations of the background and underlying concepts for his work. It is all very well to say “Let the viewer put his own interpretation on my work”, but the result may be a total lack of understanding, which is a shame if effort has been put into a key idea or concept. Michael’s explanations enable the viewer to share his concepts, ideas, and humour. Subsequent discussion with him disclosed how everything is carefully planned, including checks with the foundry and basic critical path techniques on larger works. He has deliberately targeted reliability, and asserts he has never exceeded an agreed budget or missed an agreed deadline.

Members are reminded of the forthcoming Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, coordinated this year by Patrick Culshaw, and asked to contribute their works to this exciting outdoor exhibition.

Geoff Williams, Acting President

We do know that Bruno Torfs' Sculpture Garden in Marysville was pretty much destroyed in the fire – a great loss amongst losses. Ed.

ASV Diary Dates

Meetings are held in the Boroondara Community Arts Room, rear 360 Burwood Road, Hawthorn and start at 7:30pm.

Monthly Meeting 11^th March

Robert Lee will speak about installations.

1^st to 5^th April

Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

No monthly meeting in April

Monthly Meeting 13^th May

talk by Graeme Wilkie about Qdos Gallery, Lorne and his big, wood fired kiln.

Annual Exhibition 2009

This year the annual exhibition will be held at Manningham Gallery, 699 Doncaster Road, Doncaster from 15^th to the 31^st July. Entries close on 5^th June – stand by for further details.

CONSTITUTION

At the end of last year a number of changes were made to the constitution in a major overhaul aimed at correcting some anomalies, simplifying the document and the administration of the association.

Concern has been expressed by some members about the new Membership clause. In particular who can and cannot be a full member. The committee has been asked to investigate options with a view to putting alternatives to the Membership.

A number of submissions have been received, some were thought too difficult to administer, and others were withdrawn after discussion with the proposer.

The Committee believes that two options are viable and wish to have an indication from members as to which they prefer. A formal notice will be sent out shortly detailing the options and the voting procedure.

When this is done a detailed “change of Constitution” motion will be prepared for voting on at a Special General meeting in May.

It may be that you are happy with the new constitution, in which case you would need to vote against the motion at the Special Meeting.

Patrick Culshaw

Herring Island Exhibition Report

The ASV exhibition on Herring Island benefits enormously from being part of the Summer Arts Festival –

• there is the clear advantage of being part of a continuous program so that people know that there are art exhibitions on the island for the whole of the summer.

• We share the effort and expenses of printing invitations, paying for advertising and distributing the flyers.

• The festival is so successful that negotiations with Parks Victoria become easier every year as they realise the value that the festival gives them and the state.

This year the sculpture exhibition included the Australia Day weekend. The Australia Day council publicises the program on Herring Island over the weekend and we did receive visits from people who found out about the festival from their website and other publicity. However numbers were down on previous years when the sitters lost track after 250 visitors. To some extent this is a good thing because in previous years there have been queues for the punt and overcrowding in the gallery. It is likely that there was so much else on over the weekend that Herring Island missed being part of the main buzz. Usually all the participating groups run demonstration events in the courtyard for Australia Day – however this year there were three groups represented: Janet Matthews and Vida Pearson for the Wildlife Art Society of Australasia, Charlie Solomon for the Koorie Heritage Trust and Jenny Rickards for the ASV.
The Preview Cruise did not go ahead – advertising was late, it was much too expensive to get many artists along and Melbourne River Cruises failed to attract outside patrons. I'll have discussions with MRC later to see if we can revive this pleasant event.
The opening was on the Saturday afternoon and we sold four works then and a further two on Sunday. Unfortunately this was the total of our sales. Selling artists were: Bronwyn Culshaw, Magdalena Dmowska, Gillian Govan, Jan Indrans and Lise Toft. Visitors were deterred by hot weather – neither of the two subsequent Saturdays gave us visitors and indeed the park was closed on the 7th February due to the extreme conditions. The last two Sundays brought reasonable numbers of appreciative and interested visitors.
21 sculptors entered the show – 20 finally contributing a great exhibition of 43 works. Particular thanks to Michael for working magic with the set up, for Patrick for administrative and treasury support, to Gillian for not only sourcing the wine and soft drinks but being the tower of strength in hospitality coordination, to all the sculptors for sitting, contributing and supporting – it was a great show. The bush fires did have an impact with one sculptor unable to collect work, and one sitting in spite of her son losing home and property.
Images will be on the ASV website – soon.

HISAF Coordinator Jenny Rickards

works shown here are: Michael Meszaros's"Bushfire" and Mark Cowie's "Blood of Eden"

Opportunities for Sculptors

The City of Hobart is inviting artists to enter for an acquisitive prize for sculpture of $15,000. There is another prize for drawing of the same amount and there is a non acquisitive prize of $7500 as well. Info can be got at www.hobartcity.com.au/artprize . Entries have to be in by 27th Feb

Deakin University is also offering an acquisitive prize for sculpture - more details next newsletter