Arty Crafty Day

I had never been to the art and craft markets at Kalamunda, held on the first Saturday of the month, though I had heard good reports and had admired things that friends had bought there.

Today I persuaded Kevin that we needed to look at them. It's miles from where we live and we had no idea where they were held so we drove around the town a while, noting that available parking seemed full and that SOMETHING had to be going on. We asked an elderly local lady. She couldn't help: "now I don't drive any more, I can't give directions and the markets are only on the first Saturday anyway". It didn't seem polite to tell her that it WAS the first Saturday, so we drove on. The next local (she had to be, she was walking her dog) we accosted also said "the markets are only on the first Saturday". However, she was quick to recover and gave good directions.

Next problem was parking, but we eventually found a spot under a tree - good thing because it was sunny and the temperature was in the high 20s.


The markets themselves were OK. We didn't buy much: just a jar of pickled onions. I'm not sorry we went, but I won't be marking the date on the calendar either.

Kevin had someone coming to pick up a refurbished computer so we went home for lunch. After they had gone we decided to go into Fremantle to visit a couple of art exhibitions. We went first to the Old George Gallery in East Fremantle. This was originally a pub, but was revamped as an community arts centre in the late 1980s. Since then little money has been spent on it by the local council, and the heritage building needs restoration. The council has apparently done a deal with a developer which will mean the loss to artists of the building and the gallery space in favour of a boutique hotel. The current exhibition is a fund raiser for the group that wishes to retain the building for local artists.

I sympathise with the artists who will no longer have studios, but there is no doubt that something needs to be done to revive the building. I am unhappy at the loss of yet another exhibition space (Designing Women held their exhibition there in 2006) and I wonder whether all avenues have been explored by the council. Certainly a quality bar or restaurant would add to the ambience.

We then went to the Fremantle Arts Centre. One of Kevin's ex-students, Rebecca Baumann, was exhibiting and we went to look at that and the other exhibitions. The exhibition by Simon Pericich was very confronting. The most disturbing part was the two walls festooned with "weapons made from household detritus and bling (comes with hooks)".

We needed a coffee after that. The cafe courtyard is a lovely spot and I found a great bit of wall texture right next to our table.


We finished the afternoon with a visit to the museum (in the same building). The Light and Sound exhibit is really excellent. And the Dockers won the Derby - yay for Fremantle!