This week at the gallery, in the paper, & up coming classes

Karly Michelle Edgar
3 days ago
2 min read

From Karly, Art & Alchemy Gallery Director:

This week I was surprised to find my name in the paper! It was a lovely article about biography writing programs for people who are receiving palliative care. A few years ago I completed a PhD researching this very topic at Eastern Palliative Care, which was mentioned in the article, as was my research which was also linked. It was great to see how this program and others like it are still going strong. I did a short instagram post here reflecting on it.

The timing couldn’t have been better as next Sunday, 30th August, I am teaching a Life Storytelling class which combines what I learnt doing that research with my own creative practice which is highly autobiographical. If you are interested there are still a few places left. While not a strictly creative class, we will cover a number of topics, such as the different ways of recording your own, or helping someone else record their life story, creative aspects, technical things, even some ethical considerations to keep in mind.

It also connects with the class I’m then teaching Sunday, 6th Sep, which is an Artists Book Class, using collage and mixed media. This is one way that I do creative life storytelling - I have created small artists books that record things about my life, experiences, memories, and thoughts. I have one book that is about what I think about when I water the garden because it makes me think about my mum and grandmother. I have multiple that I created out of the experience of being unwell. And artists' books are a very ‘forgiving’ art medium as there are so many options of what they can be! They combine well with mixed media and collage as they are also wonderful mediums that can be as complex or as basic as you want them to be (or to align with your skill level!).

If you want a creative day retreat, the Artist Book day could be just what you need! No experience needed, just the willingness to explore an intuitive art making process.

We also still have one more drawing Sunday coming up.

If you are interested in joining a weekly intermediate acrylic/oils class next term on Mondays or Saturday please get in touch so we can begin to see what sort of numbers we might have!

This week we also did quite a bit re-shuffle in the gallery to accommodate some sales and new artworks, so if you haven’t been in for a while, drop by to see some of the new artwork in the gallery.