S PR ING/S U MME R 2021― 22
Art About Town A snapshot of arts activity happening around the Maitland community.
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Artist Collective
previous business, The Old George and Dragon Restaurant, put the building up for sale and started a Diploma of Visual Arts at Newcastle Art School in mid2017. Some months later, inspired by conversations with fellow art students (and with the building still not sold), Jenni decided to launch an art collective gallery “to give up and coming artists their first step on the ladder.”
The Hunter Artisan Gallery & Café in East Maitland was awarded the MRAGM Artist Bursary (for an artist collective) in mid-2021 in support of its ongoing contribution to the local creative community. The hard worker at the helm of the collective is Jenni Nichols, self-described “Owner, Curator, Artist, Chief Cook & Bottlewasher”, who launched the Gallery in late 2017.
She established a program of solo exhibitions with 3-week runs, group exhibitions, regular art classes, and workshops run by collective artists, giving them the opportunity to gain confidence and experience as tutors. Jenni takes a small commission if a work sells but realised early on that she would
The story behind the Hunter Artisan, which has grown over four years to a collective of some 60 primarily local artists, is that it was very much an “unexpected venture”. After “a few dreadful years of personal loss and despair,” Jenni says, she closed her 32
