NOV 2021 – FEB 2022
Blue Mountains City Art Gallery, Into the Blue, InSight Membership, What’s On, Gallery Café and Shop.
Welcome The City of the Blue Mountains is located within the Country of the Darug and Gundungurra peoples. Blue Mountains Cultural Centre pays respect to Elders past and present while recognising the strength, capacity and resilience of past and present Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Blue Mountains region.
CONTENTS
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Just Below the Clouds
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A Place for Artists and Art Lovers
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InSight Membership
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Into the Blue
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Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
14 What’s On 18 Gallery Café 20 Gallery Shop 22 Braemar House & Gallery
Cover image: Blue Mountains Portraits Peoples’ Choice Winner 2021, BEN PEARSE Interconnection – portrait of Becky Chatfield, digital print, courtesy the artist
Just Below the Clouds
Paul Brinkman – Manager, Arts & Cultural Services Welcome to this online version of our ever popular InSight Magazine. The trials and tribulations of COVID have resulted in this edition’s digital format, however we look forward to resuming with a printed copy from our next edition. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the challenges faced by artists and arts workers during the COVID lockdowns and hope that the ongoing services and support provided by the Cultural Centre to the arts community has been of some solace. We reopened our doors in October, motivated to restart where we left off, bringing the best art of the Blue Mountains to local and visiting audiences. Our current major exhibition, Claire Healey and Sean Cordeiro’s Poste-Haste, is an exhibition of installations based on the themes of obsolescence and consumption. Don’t miss this fantastic show and the opportunity to see a full sized aeroplane hung in the gallery. Tracey Ponich’s poignant photographic exhibition Business Not Usual, featuring local business owners at the start of the pandemic, ironically had to be cancelled when the Cultural Centre had to close its doors, however this exhibition was too good to miss and will be re-hanging the show in the foyer lounge between 22 January and 20 March 2022. Alongside our exhibition program is a raft of other events and activities to experience, including our ever popular Wollemi Artisan Market to be held on Friday 10 December from 5:30pm. This is a great chance to do your Christmas shopping while at the same time supporting local artisans. Here at the Cultural Centre we are excited to launch in to 2022, our 10 year Birthday year! Join us to celebrate all that the Arts have to offer.
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A Place for Artists and Art Lovers
Laneways Come Alive Laneways in Katoomba are being transformed by new contemporary art installations created by local artists for Living Lanes; the new visual arts project dedicated to strengthening the liveability and vibrancy of our towns. The five artworks respond to and celebrate the theme of ‘sustainability,’ each presenting a creative perspective on this theme.
MARK SURTEES The Click 2021
Two artworks have now been installed. Experience Freedom Wilson and Georgina Donovan’s Mushroom Matrix in Penny Lane and Mark Surtees’ interactive installation The Click on the façade of the Cultural Centre building in College Lane. The remaining artworks by Andrew Belletty, Mark Leacy & Bianca Hayden, and Heidi Axelsen & Hugo Moline will be installed in the coming months. Living Lanes is a community visual arts initiative developed in partnership between Blue Mountains City Council and Toolo, the Blue Mountains Tool Library.
Sarah Emerson Joins the Cultural Centre Team The Cultural Centre is excited to welcome Sarah Emerson to the role of Public Programs Coordinator. Sarah’s journey to working in the visual arts sector began with her initial training in Graphic Design. Most recently Sarah has been working as a Gallery Educator at Penrith Regional Gallery where she immensely enjoyed programming and teaching holiday workshops and term classes. Her arts practice is based in drawing, and illustration, working with both traditional media and digitally. Sarah’s arts training has resulted in a love of craftsmanship. Sarah says, “I am looking forward to working in this role as Public Programs Coordinator. I feel that much of my previous path has been directing me to this point.”
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InSight Membership O New O Renewal O Gift Membership O I would like to receive notifications by email only O I would like to receive InSight Magazine in the post O I prefer to access InSight Magazine online via the website MEMBER DETAILS:
Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss/Dr First name: Surname: (family memberships only) Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss/Dr First name: Surname: Postal address: Suburb: Postcode: State: Phone: Mobile: Email: MEMBERSHIP PLAN:
O Individual Adult: $45 O Family (2 adults + children under 16): $60 O Concession: $35 O Individual Patron: $200 O Business (up to 7 membership cards): $250
Get to know your Cultural Centre with annual InSight Membership BENEFITS:
• UNLIMITED FREE entry to Blue Mountains City Art Gallery and Into the Blue • DISCOUNTS on Cultural Centre public programs • 10% DISCOUNT at the Gallery Shop and Gallery Café • INVITATIONS to Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition openings and InSight events
• SUBSCRIPTION to InSight Magazine, delivered three O Cash times a year O Cheque (payable to Blue Mountains City Council) O Credit card • SUBSCRIPTION to the We accept Visa and Mastercard. A merchant fee of 0.78% Cultural Centre’s monthly applies to credit card transactions. e-newsletter Card number: • ACCESS to InSight Name: Members Lounge Expiry: / CCV: (Wednesday – Friday, subject to availability) PAYMENT:
Signature: Completed applications can be brought to the Cultural Centre reception or posted to: Blue Mountains Cultural Centre InSight Membership Application Locked Bag 1005, Katoomba NSW 2780 4
• DISCOUNTS on selected Blue Mountains Theatre shows • NO BOOKING FEE for tickets purchased at Blue Mountains Theatre
Into the Blue In 2000, the Greater Blue Mountains area was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in recognition of the exceptional diversity and integrity of its eucalypt forest communities.
The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre features Into the Blue (the Blue Mountains World Heritage Interpretive Centre), a hightech, interactive exhibition which explores the natural and social landscapes of this unique area. Audiences are invited to navigate their way through these stories in an immersive exhibition experience, introducing them to the richness and wonders of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area.
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Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro: Post-haste
Curator and Artist Talk
The exhibition Post-haste showcases the past decade of works by creative duo Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, exploring themes of obsolescence, collective endeavour, and the place of the individual within complex systems. The artists are concerned with Paul Virilio’s concept of Dromology: investigating how the speed at which something happens may change its essential nature, and that which moves with great speed quickly comes to dominate that which is slower. Please note the Par Avion installation concludes on Sunday 9 January 2022.
Join artists Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro and Curator Rilka Oakley for a gallery floor talk to find out more about the exhibition Post-haste.
30 Oct – 16 Jan
A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition curated by Rilka Oakley 6
Saturday 30 Oct 11am – 12pm
$5 / Members free. Limited capacities, social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented. Bookings essential via our website or call 02 4780 5410.
CLAIRE HEALY & SEAN CORDEIRO MAYDAY 2021, Piper Aircraft wing, stickers, acrylic, 166 x 552 x 58 cm
WISH FOR THE SKIES Collaborative Kite Installation 17 Nov – 16 Jan
Inspired by their experiences in Sapporo at Tenjinyama artists’ studios in 2018, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro conducted workshops with children to give them the opportunity to create a large community kite. The artists now invite children and families from the Blue Mountains community to join them in the making of a giant tetrahedral kite, a replica of a massive Alexander Graham Bell design. The kite will be decorated with pictures and writing similar to Ema, the wooden wishing plaques of Japan. What is your wish? Will it fly? Gambate!
Epicormic growth: high school engagement project 30 Oct – 9 Jan
Artists Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro ran extensive workshops with senior students from five Blue Mountains high schools to create two collaborative works that will be exhibited alongside the artists’ 2011 work Par Avion. Exploring popular materials such as Lego and smart phones the artists encourage the students to reflect on the obsolescence of technology.
Free activity. Suitable for kids with adult supervision.
CLAIRE HEALY & SEAN CORDEIRO Par Avion 2011, 70 cut pieces from a Cessna 172 airplane, gaffa tape, postage paraphenalia, Museum of Contemporary Art, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artists, 2013, in recognition of Andrew and Cathy Cameron, image courtesy the artists and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia © the artists
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Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
Tohby Riddle: Silent Light 15 Jan – 27 Feb
Silent Light presents small, simply stated paintings depicting commonplace scenes that often pass unnoticed. The subjects are largely derived from the artist’s long-term observations, day and night, of locations in Katoomba on foot and from a car. The works examine how light – natural or artificial and from singular or multiple sources – can silently illuminate such moments, to reveal more than the mundane. Reflecting on this, Riddle see his paintings as a ‘visual haiku’. A Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Exposé Program exhibition
TOHBY RIDDLE Afternoon Light Waratah Street 2018, acrylic on board, 30 x 40 cm, courtesy the artist
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Artist Talk
Saturday 22 Jan 11am – 12pm Join artist Tohby Riddle for a gallery floor talk to find out more about his exhibition Silent Light. $5 / Members free. Limited capacities, social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented. Bookings essential via our website or call 02 4780 5410.
TOHBY RIDDLE Street Corner Still Life 2021, acrylic on board, 40 x 40 cm, courtesy the artist
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Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
Tracy Ponich Business Not Usual: a photographic study of an unimaginable time
22 Jan – 20 Mar Free exhibition in Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Lounge Area In 2020 the business community of the Blue Mountains was hit with one catastrophe after another: devastating bushfires, floods, and then the pandemic. Business Not Usual is a photographic study of 34 businesses, portraits of the proprietors faced with an unimaginable sequence of events. The year was unrelenting for them. The only certainty was that beyond autumn this community along with the rest of the world would be different. The faces in this collection tell the story of the early days of the pandemic with a new set of rules governing every interaction, and every decision. Some businesses closed shop during the shutdown; others managed to adapt quickly enough to keep going. Photographer Tracy Ponich has captured that particular moment in time. The exhibition was initially scheduled and installed at Blue Mountains City Art Gallery in late June 2021 but had to close, due to the NSW Covid lock down, which lasted three months. The exhibition has been re-designed as a free pop up show in conjunction with the 2022 Blue Mountains Portraits exhibition. A Blue Mountians City Art Gallery Exposé Program exhibition
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ABOVE: TRACY PONICH Sian & Dwayne, Aunty Ed’s Restaurant and Bar, Katoomba 2020, digital photograph on 100% cotton fibre paper, 48 x 72 cm, courtesy the artist LEFT: TRACY PONICH Nina, Stacee & Floyd, Katoomba Veterinary Hospital, Katoomba 2020, digital photograph printed on 100% cotton fibre paper, 66 x 53 cm, courtesy the artist
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Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
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Blue Mountains Portraits 2022 22 January – 20 March
Celebrating its 5th anniversary, Blue Mountains Portraits is the Cultural Centre’s annual celebration of the local community and its diverse members. The exhibiting artists portray the unique people that make up the cultural fabric of the Blue Mountains and tell the stories behind the person. Fifty artworks in a broad range of styles and media such as painting, photography, drawing, collage and mixed media will be exhibited together with a selection of local students’ work. A Blue Mountains City Art Gallery exhibition OPPOSITE: Blue Mountains Portraits Peoples’ Choice Winner 2021, BEN PEARSE Interconnection – portrait of Becky Chatfield, digital print, courtesy the artist
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What’s On Due to ongoing changes to restrictions, please check our website for more programs as they are added and up-to-date information on all programs.
Wollemi Christmas Twilight Market Friday 10 Dec 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Join us for a special Christmas Wollemi Market featuring live music and a range of products from talented Blue Mountains artists, designers and food producers. Showcasing art, jewellery, homewares, accessories and more, the market is the perfect opportunity to shop local and find unique, artisanal gifts this Christmas. Free Event
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Creative Lino Printing with Jan Melville
Inspired by Art with Clare Delaney
Printmaker Jan Melville will introduce you to the joys of carving and printing images by hand. Participants will learn how to transfer their drawings to lino, the carving process and how it impacts on positive and negative spaces within the print. Participants will also receive information about different kinds of inks and will be taught how to ink up for the most effective results.
Inspired by Art is an inclusive, accessible visual arts class, open to people of all abilities. Each term students explore the suite of exhibitions at the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery and engage in a series of mixed media art workshops inspired by their visit.
Saturday 13 Nov 10:30am – 3:30pm
This woprkshop is suitable for beginners, intermediates and anyone wanting to experiment with the lino printing process to make their own unique works.
Term 4: 9 Nov – 14 Dec Tuesdays 10:30am – 12:30pm
Working together, students will discover and build upon new skills to create their own expressive artworks. Inspired by Art is a place for encouragement and experimentation. Find and share your creative abilities in a group of people united by a love of art and expression. Students should have an attention span of 2hrs.
Students should bring their own set of carving tools. All other materials are provided.
Materials included.
$130 / Members $120 Bookings essential via our website or call 02 4780 5410. Limited capacities, social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented.
$80 / Members $70 Bookings essential via our website or call 02 4780 5410. Limited capacities, social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented.
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What’s On Bus Stop Films: Accessible Film Studies Program FREE Taster Workshops: Monday 10 Jan 10am – 12pm Monday 17 Jan 10am – 12pm Thursday 20 Jan 10am – 12pm Bus Stop Films is heading to the Blue Mountains to deliver its award-winning Accessible Film Studies Program for people living with disability in partnership with the Blue Mountains City Council. The year long program, which kicks off in full from February 2022, with three-hour weekly classes to be delivered over 40 weeks. To get you in the mood the team is hosting Free Taster Workshops at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.
workplace opportunities are offered through the Program.
Classes are aimed at older teens and young adults living with a mild to moderate intellectual disability. The Program offers a film school experience as well as literacy, social and work ready skills, and is a fantastic post school option. Additional screen industry excursions, masterclasses and professional
Registrations to the workshops are essential. For more information and to register visit: www.busstopfilms.com.au/programs/
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Mentored by passionate professional filmmakers, students create amazing films of the highest artistic quality, many which have won multiple awards and screened in festivals all over the world. The program fees can be funded through a participant’s NDIS funding.
Bus Stop’s expansion to the Blue Mountains is supported by a Blue Mountains City of the Arts Grant.
The Art of Composition: the foundation of a painting With Tohby Riddle Saturday 5 Feb 10:30am – 3:30pm
Composition is the foundation of a good painting. In fact, no amount of skilled painting can rescue a poor composition. Join Tohby Riddle as he takes you through the process of setting up a painting from a photo, through careful attention to subject matter and its composition – and its subsequent transcription to canvas or board. The workshop includes; learning how to see and noticing your environment; achieving optimal composition through framing and cropping of photos; and transcribing the composition to your painting surface so that you are ready to paint. Please note, this workshop does not include finishing the painting – you will be doing that at home. $130 / Members $120 Includes primed board (please bring a photo, pencil and eraser). Bookings essential via our website or call 02 4780 5410. Limited capacities, social distancing and hygiene measures will be implemented.
TOHBY RIDDLE process images for Street Corner Still Life 2021, acrylic on board, 40 x 40 cm, courtesy the artist
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Gallery Café The Gallery Café offers a garden to table-style experience showcasing some of our house-made delights featuring ingredients sourced from local businesses as well as the Cultural Centre roof top garden
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COOKIE SLICE F I L L I NG
½ packet muesli biscuits or biscuit of your choice 1/3 cup of honey Small pinch of salt (or to taste) Raisins or dried mixed fruit of your choice (optional) Dark chocolate (buttons or whole block)
METHOD
Lightly blend the biscuits in a food processor until it forms a course crumb mixture. Gently fold in the honey, dried fruit (if using) and pinch of salt until lightly combined. Transfer mixture to a small baking tray and bake at 170 degrees, until cooked in the middle (roughly 25-30mins) Once the slice has completely cooled, melt the dark chocolate and drizzle over the top of the slice. When the chocolate has set, portion slice and serve.
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Gallery Shop Offering a unique retail experience, the Gallery Shop stocks a wide variety of quality Australian made gifts, books and homewares, with a focus on artisan products designed and made in the Blue Mountains. InSight Members receive a 10% discount on items in the Shop and invitations to exclusive member sales throughout the year.
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Christmas Inspiration from the Gallery Shop The shop is stocked with lots of new exciting products for you to spoil your loved ones with this Christmas. Follow us on Instagram @bluemountainsculturalcentre for more gift guides this holiday season. Introducing two new stockists to the Gallery shop range:
Monsterthreads An Australian-owned company that features Australian artists and designers on quirky and fun homewares, stationery and gifts. Their ethos is Art for Everyday - Making masterpieces of mainstream apparel, bringing monster status to the world’s finest young illustrators.
Blue Mountains Lavender Based in Little Hartley, Blue Mountains Lavender is an artisan producer of organically grown lavender flowers, distiller of lavender essential oil, and maker of quality body care and lifestyle products. They practice low impact, sustainable and regenerative cultivation of our lavender and other botanicals that become ingredients in their products.
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Braemar House & Gallery Braemar House is home to the treasured Braemar Gallery, a Council operated community exhibition space for visual artists. 104 Macquarie Rd, Springwood Thu – Sun, 10am – 4pm Free admission See the Cultural Centre website for the latest on Braemar Gallery exhibitions.
Jo Langley: Field of Reference 4 Nov – 5 Dec
Jo Langley’s Field of Reference is the result of two years studio practice. She has developed a body of work in which gouache and acrylic paintings inform one another. The viewer is invited to observe an evolution of composition, structure, paint application and colour choice within three painting genres. Langley’s main focus in this exhibition is the abstract. Organic shapes playfully draw on memory of landscape and subconsciousness of archetype. These artworks are a journey in self-trust and discovery involving decisions about what can stay and what should go – a balance or battle between control and capriciousness, finesse and freshness.
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Gina Harrowell: Of Love and Monsters 4 Nov – 5 Dec
The artworks in this exhibition are part biography, part psychological exploration and part pure imagination. Artist Gina Harrowell enjoys expressing the inner journey of a person (or monster!) which is represented by figures in a landscape or place. Often painting children
and young women, as a personal link to the idea of growth and change, Harrowell tells a story, as if illustrating a picture book without words. Evident is the play of light in the darkness: the Paradox of Love and Monsters.
Braemar Gallery Volunteers 2021 9 Dec – 16 Jan
Jane Taverner: Trauma Blankets 4 Nov – 5 Dec
Trauma Blankets wraps the darkness of trauma inside a soft pastel embrace in Jane Taverner’s large-scale, hand-embroidered textile pieces. Exploring themes of infertility, infidelity, domestic abuse, dementia, violence and death on sustainably sourced vintage blankets, each work seeks to transform Taverner’s emotional pain into an object of aesthetic beauty. Challenging and confrontational, Taverner’s work evokes empathy and understanding, whilst emphasising the fundamental human experience of trauma, whether personal or universal and the potent capacity of the creative process in healing wounds.
Braemar Gallery presents the annual exhibition of works by Braemar Gallery volunteers. Bringing over 40 dedicated volunteers together to share their stories as they reflect on their year of 2021 and how it has impacted the artist’s imagination and output. The exhibition always brings a unique gathering of local art and artists from the experimental to the classical artistic genres, from professional to amateur artists. An amazing collection of 2D and 3D artworks, there is something for everyone. An exhibition which fully supports the local art practices and productions, it really is one not to be missed.
This is not The Needle and the Damage Done, rather The Damage Done that the Needle Fixed.
OPPOSITE: GINA HARROWELL Little Yowie 2021, acrylic and Gouache on paper, 59 x 79 cm, courtesy the artist THIS PAGE: NATALIE SHARPE Backyard Beauties, mixed media on canvas, 35 x 35 cm, courstesy the artist
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Braemar House & Gallery
Zoe Fletcher Wingdom and Frogalik’s Star 20 Jan – 13 Feb
This exhibition of Zoe Fletcher’s fabulist Wingdom paintings and Frogalik’s Star book illustrations delight both adults and children alike. The central idea of ‘wings for all’ sets imaginations free. This playful exhibition at Braemar Gallery inspires delight in viewers, encouraging an understanding of and participation in the creative process. This art empowers adults to help children find joy in an unpredictable world.
Janet Andersen Blue Mountains and Inland NSW Landscapes Including Colourful Native Birds 20 Jan – 13 Feb
Blue Mountains artist Janet Andersen explores the diverse landscapes of New South Wales and colourful native birds. From the rugged yet ethereal quality of the Blue Mountains to the vastly different landscapes of the Western Plains, the works reflect these unique natural environments and their changing seasons. Andersen’s oil paintings are inspired by photographs taken during her travels to the Upper Mountains and out west. These photographs inspire her to paint whilst the memories of the landscapes are fresh in her mind.
Annette Coulter Gather, Transform, Depart 20 Jan – 13 Feb
This work is inspired by shell fragments placed in a Blue Mountains context. These broken shapes are reconfigured, to extend our understanding of fragmented form, to inspire transformation, to enhance and influence the viewer’s perception of the original form. As the viewer beholds the work, the intention is to inspire consideration about how art media processes enhance found objects thematically, symbolically and metaphorically. The subject matter inspires comment, exploration and visual outcome. The theme of ‘Gather, Transform and Depart’ also has an embedded psychological comment on life story, the effect of the Covid pandemic and our ongoing recovery journey.
ZOE FLETCHER Compassion 2005, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm, courtesy the artist
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ADMISSION:
OPENING HOURS:
Adults: $5 Australian concession card holders: $3 InSight Members: Free Children under 16: Free
Monday – Friday: 10am – 5pm Saturday + Sunday: 10am – 4pm
Your admission ticket allows entry to our permanent exhibition Into the Blue and the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery
The Gallery Café opens 9.30am weekdays. Please access via café entrance. Check the Cultural Centre website for public holiday opening hours
OUR PEOPLE:
Manager, Arts & Cultural Services: Paul Brinkman Artistic Program Manager: Sabrina Roesner Promotion and Retail Manager: Rose Stibbard Administration Officer: Felicity Hallam Public Programs Coordinator: Sarah Emerson Gallery Technician: Mark Surtees Curator: Rilka Oakley Patron Services Officer: Nicole Roberts Gallery Café Coodinator: Jennifer Chapman-Paton Gallery Café: Vanessa, Wade, Timmy, Claire G, Prudence, Martin, Ruby, Sheena Front of House: Alison, Connie, Kate, Kellie, Nina, Ruby We thank our dedicated volunteers who provide valuable support to staff and visitors InSight Magazine is proudly designed and printed in the Blue Mountains. Original template design by Hannah Surtees, Studio ham.
BLUE MOUNTAINS CULTURAL CENTRE:
Level 1, 30 Parke St Katoomba 02 4780 5410 info@bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au