"As a practising artist/craftrsperson with an interest in education, teaching and learning, the potential of studio based training greatly appealed to me."
The Premier of Victoria may claim that his government has opened Victoria for business, but it is the important role of local government and the Federal Government in developing arts training and facilities that is really making the running. Artists are no longer in their garrets but in front of pcs in their offices.
Every State has one - a local council that is outstanding in its commitment to the arts and in Western Australia, the credit for innovation and energy goes to the City of Gosnells, who have arguably led the pack for the last 5 years in interesting community arts projects...
"If you are real lucky you got CDEP or your are making it selling your art and then you got a good art centre too, maybe. If you are real lucky just when you turn up with a couple of week's art production, maybe yours, maybe the families, the centre's got cash, no one's a bastard, everyone's happy, the store has even got some decent food, even new bikes, toy guns, tape decks and a few tins of Log Cabin. Shit, life's good - sometimes anyway." A personal view of art making in indigenous communities.
Written with Shiralee Saul and Susan Fereday. How does an art object differ from a manufactured 'designer' commodity? Is the traditional status of the work of art undermined by repetition, reproduction and affordability? Are the qualities of fetish, uniqueness and authorial presence removed from or reinstated in the art multiple.
The time is post-recession, the economic climate is uncertain, Australian designers and consumers inhabit the suburbs but are cut off from each other, and someone decided to do something about it in the City of Caulfield, Victoria.
As an organisation, Arts + Industry is fundamentally concerned with economics and income generation. Assisting artists and designers to either find employment with industry or create opportunities as self-employed designer/makers is integral to their goals.