July 16, 2025

PAINT ME A SONG…..and help Barracudas reach Karratha.

Well that rather unlikely sentence will actually make sense once you have read this article. However, first of all The Art Chatter Gallery artists would like to congratulate Mitchel House Art Centre and the Art Shed/Cheeky Parrot Gallery on their very successful fundraising events and thank the public in general who greatly supported their worthy causes. Many of our artists donated works to both events, because together we are stronger and our community more vibrant.

As you likely know, Art Chatter Gallery is located within Strike Me Pink and both entities are very much community minded. So when the idea of using the upcoming opening event as a fundraiser to support a local cause was proposed, it was enthusiastically endorsed. We might be inland, but Mount Barker has a thriving amateur swimming club, snappily known as the Barracudas. The Country Pennants has become the pinnacle of swimming competitions in WA’s country regions. Clubs fundraise for, train and compete at different locations each year with Karratha hosting the event in early 2026, which is a fairly long trip wouldn’t you agree? Art Chatter would like to help these dedicated and hard-working youngsters, their parents and coaches with this goal. We do of course need you, the community to come and support our event by donating and buying raffle-tickets.

All the Art Chatters have been busy creating art works to the theme of Paint Me a Song, which for many of us has challenged us, nudged us out of our comfort zone and inspired new processes and directions and have overall been a really satisfying theme to embrace. The exhibition opens on Monday July 28th at 5pm and goes to seven-ish. It will be fully catered with trays of delicious treats, wine and juice on offer. Apart from your generosity to help the Barracudas, it is completely free.

We really try to make art part of the everyday, so please, there is no need to dress up, in fact, our promotional poster encourage ‘come as you are’. Be it in your work gear, in your gym outfit or in your hi-vis and steel capped boots, you are welcome just as you are - so please come!

We hope you enjoy the theme as much as we have enjoyed painting for it. Spend some time matching the songs to the art works, humming the lyrics, show off some dance moves if you wish or just let the art and music theme and transport you, as it has the power to do.

Please spread the word, grab a bunch of friends, your family members and instead of burrowing down at home, get out of the dark, wet and woolly weather and step into Art Chatter Gallery for a bright and fun-filled evening with the community spirit high. Whilst the exhibition will hang until September, the fundraiser is for the opening night only – so come and support the Barracudas on the 28th just as you are, at 5pm!

June, 2025

HEATHER ROBERTS, A CRAFTY CHARACTER INDEED…

Heather is a true local, born in Mount Barker post-WWII, raised in the Porongurup and educated in town. After finishing school she commenced her training in nursing. She didn’t complete the training straight away, but took time out to have a family, three children in fact, but later returned and finished her qualification. She worked in the Albany and Plantagenet hospitals for a total of twenty-two years.

As a young child she enjoyed drawing and painting, but for Heather (as for so many) this simple pleasure gave way to more pressing matters of growing up such as schoolwork, chores and other interests and then of course by the time-juggling of being a working mother. Heather makes the distinction saying that she wasn’t arty, but she was always crafty. Yes, I can see those of you who know Heather smiling now. She goes on to say she always did lots of different craft activities with the children and made everyday-clothes as well as dress-up costumes for them. She is so clever with a sewing machine that she even got the great privilege to create both bridal gowns and bridesmaids’ dresses for those near and dear.

Sometime in the mid 90’s Heather expressed a desire to do something arty within earshot of her husband and this resulted in a Christmas present collaboration between him and Heather’s daughter, where they bought pencils, art paper, pastels, acrylic paints, oil paints, canvasses, an easel, brushes, basically everything you could possibly want, which essentially set Heather up ready for anything art in 1996, and that year represented a big shift in Heather’s path.

Mitchell House was then the venue for Art courses delivered by TAFE and Heather immersed herself in art and went on to complete certificates to level III in Drawing, Design and Ceramics. She also attended Summer School every year and also did courses with Heather Fergie and became an active member of Mitchell House and is now a mentor there to other artists.

Most artists who get invited to exhibit at Art Chatter with Barry come from his classes, Heather is one of very few exceptions. They first met via the Red Cross shop, where both Heather and Barry’s partner volunteered, and this encounter led to Barry inviting Heather to exhibit with the Great Southern Oil Artists. Being aware of Heather’s talent this was followed years later by an invite to join Mountain County Art and from there to Art Chatter Gallery. Heather is a prolific artist so come and view her creations, along with works my other artists at Art Chatter.

When asked what art means for her, she says, “It’s an obsession, I see something and I NEED to paint it”. She works in multiple mediums, such as pastels, water colour, acrylics and oils. She’s inspired by nature and travelling and with oil paints she likes to work with both brushes and palette knife to create thick texture teamed with bold, rich colours… Yum!

April 9, 2025

Meet Michelle

Michelle Stanley was born in Perth and was interested in the performing Arts from a young age. In her early 20s she joined a street theatre group in Fremantle called Desperate Measures. This led Michelle to pursue acting and she was fortunate to work as a professional actress for 20 years, performing at the Play-House and the Hole-in–the-Wall Theatre in Perth, before moving to Adelaide, which at the time had and a thriving Arts sector, the legacy of its former Premier Donald Dunstan. Michelle says there were lots of theatre work, a strong local film industry and fantastic galleries. The early 90’s economic slow-down led to significant funding cuts and it was getting harder for her to find sufficient acting work, so Michelle used her photographic qualifications, working as a newspaper-photographer for about a decade. Then as her parents were getting older, she decided to move back to WA, working for the Subiaco independent weekly newspaper, The Post.

During this time in Perth, Michelle met her partner. In 2000 they decided that it was time for a tree change and they moved to Porongurup and immediately got actively involved in the community, especially with Friends of the Porongurup and its many projects. Down here Michelle first worked at Mt Romance and she was the person who initiated their gonging sessions, later she was a school bus driver on the Cranbrook route and finally worked for the Shire at the Porongurup tip for13 years.

Michelle joined the Porongurup Art Group early on and started painting with acrylics, but was always curious about oil painting. After visiting Barry Mackie’s home studio during an Art Trail and seeing a pamphlet about his Oil Painting for Beginners, she signed up to his classes and hasn’t stopped painting since. You will find Michelle at Art Chatter Gallery on Mondays and Wednesdays and she loves being there, painting there, having a coffee and chatting to people who come in to browse and also seeing the inspiration and creative journeys reflected in the art of her fellow Chatter-artists. Her own lovely artworks are bright, joyful and saturated with colour; often based on encounters or events, resulting in plenty of portraits or storytelling with a bit of a quirky Michelle-touch.

Porongurup hold a very special place in her heart and she loves its community spirit. One of their annual event is coming up at Easter; Art in Porongurup (formerly Art in the Park) and Michelle encourages you all to go and look at the sculpture trail and the Art in the Hall and to enjoy all the natural splendour that the range provide. She also invites you all to Art Chatter to come in and have a chat with her and especially to their free and fully catered Easter Arts Festival exhibition opening on April 12th at 11:00am. Lots of amazing art is being prepared. Be sure to come and have a look, maybe there’s a special arty Easter treat for you there…

March 2025

MEET THE RAWLUK’S

Colin and Joan Rawluk both grew up in coal-mining villages, Nottingham Shire, England. Colin says the mining-pit was on the just other side of his backyard fence growing up. Coming from a large family, there was an expectation that he, like his father and brothers would become a miner too, but he says that he broke the mould. He became an apprentice shed builder before embracing the holiday industry, working himself up to becoming the club manager at a leisure holiday park resort. Though Colin and Joan had met in their teens, is wasn’t until they reconnected at this workplace, that sparks flew.

They married and had a daughter and wishes to give her more opportunities and a better life, led them to migrate to Western Australia, where Joan had relatives. They sponsored the Rawluk’s migration, secured them a house and cabinet-making work for Colin, so when they arrived in 1985 they just stepped into a new life. They stayed in Perth for five years, but the heat and city-living didn’t agree with them, so in they bought a block and built a house in Kendenup. Colin started working in the vineyards and then worked at a piggery until retirement.

When asked about their creative journey, Colin says that he always had a passion for art, but as a boy, he was strongly discouraged to engage in art, not being a ‘manly’ thing to do and guided towards honing his natural skills with soccer instead. Joan too, was always into art and craft and had flair for and interest in tech drawing, but yet again, she was not allowed, being female, and was in turn guided into home-crafts, where she excelled and won the Wolsey Award for Textiles.

So both having been thwarted by the system, much too busy in those middle years, retirement has finally enabled them to fully embrace their creative passions. Colin took oil painting lessons with Barry and this eventually led to the Art Chatter Gallery. Colin likes to paint florals with a palette knife, being loose and expressive, edging towards abstraction in bold colours and with high tonal contrasts. Essentially though, he paints whatever inspires him, seeking to constantly challenge himself in order to grow. Painting allows him to be in the creative ‘flow-zone’, which is relaxing, yet keeps his mind active. Joan will pretty much give anything a go that sparks her interest, with beading her main outlet for the last few years. You may remember her beaded peacock from the 2023 Plantagenet Art Prize and her 2025-entry was Frog on a Log, which incorporates a new direction - stained glass. Both love photography and have won prizes at Albany Show and always participate in the local annual Wildflower exhibitions. You can freely view their art at Plantagenet Wines, the Grocery Store, Coastal Creations in Albany and of course at Art Chatter Gallery. This highly intra-competitive couple spur each other on to let their creativity flow, grow and soar – Well done!