Guest Speaker Helen Reynolds - teacher, artist, wife, mother, grandmother, tutor, community member.
Introduced by Grant Woodhams. "Helen was born in Pingelly in the wheat belt, the second daughter and fifth child of farming parents. She is one ofeight children, four boys and four girls. It was post World War Two and times were tough. The hardships endured growing up then are what moulded and influenced her life and attitudes and work ethics on many levels.Helen was educated at Pingelly District High to year ten, then her parents semi-retired to Dunsborough where shecompleted high school at Busselton Senior with Leaving Levels that allowed her to pursue her desire to become a teacher. Her teaching degree was completed at Claremont Teacher’s College, and she was posted out bush to a little town called Northampton to begin her life-long love of educating in 1972. Now retired from teaching she is the current President of Northampton Creative Obsessions Incorporated."
Helen Reynolds:
A fantastic ART initiative is happening in Northampton right now, that is growing in interest every day. And YES, we are very excited. ART IS EVERYWHERE, and our world would be a dull place, if art didn’t exist. In our small community, we hope to give art the platform it needs to lift the spirits of all involved. Art is important for the mental well-being of us all. And mental health is currently at the forefront in today’s world of Covid, cyclones, floods, wars, high cost of living expenses ……these are all impacting on the stress levels of our people, and it is a proven fact that art alleviates stress. This visual art, for the pleasure it produces, the networking it creates, and the impact it has is the kind of the art that our group in Northampton leads. And we have so much fun in the process.
Our group is called Northampton Creative Obsessions Incorporated. It encompasses the art/craft collective in Northampton and is managed by a committee of eight. This committee oversees the coordination of several creative groups. It is very active in providing a place for the arts to thrive. We have members with an enormous and varied skill set who are willing to share their knowledge and passion to educate adults and children in many art forms. Amongst this membership we boast two international award- winning artists. As recently as last year our textile art group participated in the Indian Ocean Triennial, another international art event. This group of artists submitted a powerfully emotive entry which was an installation based on the devastation and destruction caused by Cyclone Seroja on the Midwest.
In it the group explored the concept of shelter and the fact that many in Northampton lost their shelters during Seroja and are now homeless. And yes, some are still homeless. This installation was exhibited at the Geraldton Regional Gallery as part of that international event and has since been visited by the West Australian minister for the arts, political figures, and the Western Australian Museum, all interested in the story behind it. Yes, we are serious about our art and communicating it to the wider community. And it is the uniqueness of what Creative Obs has to offer that is drawing attention from outside Northampton. We now include members from Chapman Valley, Geraldton and even one prepared to travel every week from Dongara.
Where are we situated? Well, we recently seized the opportunity to purchase the property that was the Northampton Freemasons Lodge. The freemasons membership had declined to the point where they no longer wanted to keep their building operating. This meant we could vacate our previously rented premises which had physical parameters that prevented us from growing. There were no kitchen facilities and we only had access to an outside toilet.
YEP - one had to negotiate third world conditions crossing drains and obstacles to trek outside and up the back to a thunderbox on the hill. Any of you who are of my vintage will remember thunderboxes from your childhood. You’ll especially remember those times, in the dark of night, when you were busting for a pee and you just couldn’t put it off any longer, you had to go – BUT, that fear of both the dark and the monster that might jump out at you as you made your mad dash down the back yard was every kid’s worst nightmare. And then when you made it, you had to be so quick doing your business because the thunderbox was also where the redbacks were lurking. It’s a wonder so many of us survived with those daily dangers we had to face.
So, the Freemasons Lodge looked very promising as a new home for us, but how would we fund it. We had no money. However, it was a proposition that needed exploring, an opportunity too good to miss as they say. Through consultation, and negotiations with the freemasons’ members, we finally bit the proverbial bullet and bravely committed to purchasing the property.
We are extremely grateful for the freemasons’ financial generosity as they could have sold it privately for much more. But more importantly, I believe their philosophy of service to the community resonated with our group as it does with yours at Rotary too. They wanted their building to serve the community and that is what we are doing with it now, serving our community. Our new acquisition comprises two parts joined as one, an old stone heritage section, the original freemasons lodge, which is over 100 years old, and a more recent section added in around the 1960’s which incorporates a good size hall, a kitchen and inside toilet facilities. I can assure you, that the privilege of that indoor loo sold it to a lot of members. The old stone section with its high walls and windows which give allow great light to enter, has become our gallery space and it is perfect for that purpose.
The newer section is our studio area where people meet and work. We have installed a Memorabilia Wall to honour the local Freemasons and their history which links the two spaces.
We have moved mountains in our short time at 189 Hampton Road, now renamed, The Hampton Gallery. Lino and carpet have been removed. The gallery floor has been stripped and sealed to reveal beautiful jarrah floorboards. The building has been painted, a rainwater tank, a shed, air conditioning and power points have been installed and we are open for business. Beautiful new signage graces our front yard. All achieved in twelve months. That shows just how are serious we are about this venture. Where physically possible, the members have done this work themselves and the majority are over 65 years old. We have received sponsorship funding from those wonderful AFL Legends of ours.
These young men willingly gave their time after Northampton was devastated by Cyclone Seroja, to raise funds to give back to the community they spent their childhoods in. Admittedly, they have the public profiles to achieve this, but you never forget your roots and I believe that where you grew up always counts as home. At our request, some of that funding came our way. It was a project that benefitted everyone in the community, which was the AFL Legends’ mantra for their fundraising efforts.
The Northampton Lions Club blessed us with their generosity as well and some smaller entities have also helped to get us this far. We are sincerely grateful for this assistance. The funds provided have been eaten up getting the building up and running. Many more improvements are on the agenda for the future. The kitchen, lighting, garden and fence all need attention but they can wait. We decided our next project needed to be one that directly benefitted the members, who have worked tirelessly on the building and put their faith in this project. They currently sit on hard rigid chairs that are disproportionate to the table height. We want to purchase adjustable chairs that are ergonomically suited to the work we do.
It is our mission to provide a space where groups within the community can meet. It is mainly an arts and crafts focus now, but we have big plans to invite the whole community in. All the individual groups function as their own entity and this currently comprises a textile group, a painters’ group, AND patchwork, spinning and weaving groups. All members pay an annual membership fee plus quarterly fees if they belong to one of the groups. Their membership pays for the general running, the yearly rates and service charges on the property. Then we fundraise. A person can belong to any number of the groups and still only pay one fee structure. This encourages members to participate in as many activities as they wish and that creates healthy minds which fosters a healthy society.
The history of our group reflects how earnest we are and how dynamic we have been in our region for many years. So, we are not “fly by nighters”, here today and gone tomorrow. We have been very active in our community for decades. One of our inaugural members is now eighty and still holds an active position on the committee. Events we have coordinated and those we still do organise, have drawn people from afar. Examples include: The Airing of the Quilts which ran for over twenty years and really put Northampton on the map.
The Ewe Turn Festival – Take a EWE TURN in Northampton and see what this town has to offer. The EWE TURN resulted in numerous sheep sculptures being dotted around the streets of Northampton. Tourists ask for the walk trail map to find them all.
Our textile art group was invited to the prestigious Claremont Craft Fair to display the unique work that they create. This was so successful that the offer was repeated the following two years. This was an eye opener for us as many city visitors to our display site, enquired about our work and asked did we hold workshops that they could attend. Obviously, the tyranny of distance decided that one, as the city folk were not prepared to travel that far.
Exhibitions and artisans’ fairs are regular events.
We offer workshops in many varied arts and crafts. In August we ran a workshop every Saturday with participants travelling from as far as Geraldton and Kalbarri to
partake in what our tutors have to offer. They left totally inspired. Our new premises are suited to holding all sorts of events. We are already on the Mid West Art Trail which had its inaugural trial run this year which was a huge success. They came to see our gallery and our group supplied them with a delicious lunch. The Big Sky Writers’ Festival recently met in Northampton and put The Hampton Gallery on their list to visit, so we gave them an afternoon tea tour. We have visitors constantly coming through our doors and we watch them leave with a little package of our enthusiasm and positive energy.
We are really excited about the enormous potential this building offers not only for Northampton, but for all the communities of the Midwest. Testimony to this is the growing membership who are travelling distances to be a part of it.
BUT, as the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words, so this I’ll share this slide show so you can visualise the exciting progress we have made with The Hampton Gallery and see some of the amazing work being produced there.
I’m happy to take questions and I thank you for listening.
Questions from Di Gilleland, Kevin Green and Grant Woodhams
Laurie Dines did the vote of thanks.