Feb 1 newspaper standard

Walk the chalk

TWELVE artists brought their best creative skills to Yarram for the 2023 Chalk Art Festival. The festival which cost around $15,000 to put on, drew visitors from across Gippsland. While some local businesses thought foot traffic in the main street was down this year, others said it was their best festival yet. “Saturday was the best day, we were very busy all day,” Melanie from Café Aga said. “Sunday was not a busy, but it was con stant,” she said. The artists themselves gave the festival a big thumbs up, saying it was in their opin ion the best one yet. Jimmi Buscombe travelled from Warr nambool to participate in his third chalk art event. “I was invited to Yarram to participate in the first chalk art festival back in 2020 after a story about may chalk art piece the Warr nambool wombat was made into a video by ABC and went viral,’ Jimmi said. This year’s festival theme was Bookspi ration and Jimmi choose his favourite chil dren’s book, The Lorax by Dr Seuss for his inspiration. “The reason for my choice being that I work in 3D style, I wanted to be playful and I know a lot of children come down here with their families for the festival. This is a lot more fun. Here the Lorax, is standing on the Truffu la tree talking about trees,” Jimmi said. Jimmi’s love for the event comes through in his artwork.

“I love this event it is has a great crew be hind it, Yarram is a lovely town and there are a great bunch of artists.” “We all arrive in the Friday afternoon, go out to dinner on the Friday night and then start work on Saturday morning and com plete our works mid afternoon on Sunday,” he said. “As artists you don’t often get to work with other artists. I usually work on my own, so it is lovely to be able to walk around and chat with the 12 other artists and see their work,” he said. “The public are inquisitive about the works we are doing. They love to be able to chat to the artist also.” “This form of Public art like delivers to those who don’t normally go to an art gal lery,” he said. “ People come here to see the art – they go from one end (of street) to the other talking to the artists and enjoying the art works,” he said. “The Yarram people are all coming out and thank us for coming, it is awesome. A lot of people have travelled to see this art it is getting more known and more pop ular now,’ Winner of this year’s chalk art event was Gippsland’s own Tamz Hesz. In second place was Jimmi Buscombe and third place was Ana Armillas. The people’s choice award was taken out by Yarram Lain Phillips. The winning artists all took home a gift voucher sponsored by local book shop Ar tichoke

Yarram’s own Karen Langdon puts the finishing touches to her Chalk Artwork.

Centenary House Support

YARRAM Rotary Club president Marcus McK enzie and member Eric Greenaway travelled to Traralgon recently to present Centenary House chairperson Da vis Swainsbury with a cheque for $8,000

Centenary House is a community owned facility in Traralgon that provides safe, supportive and affordable accommodation to patients and/or families of the Gipps land Cancer Care Centre and specialist medical ser vices at Latrobe Regional Hospital. The House contains 30 motel style guest rooms with full communal facilities including kitchens, dining rooms, lounges, laundries as well as outdoor relaxing areas. Patients and their fami lies come from Yarram and the surrounding region and across Gippsland with many staying up to six weeks during radiotherapy treat ment. Patients using the facility are subsidized during their stay making the cost of ac commodation affordable for everyone. For more information on Centenary House go to www.centenaryhouse. org.au

The cheque is part of the proceeds of the successful Yarram Rotary Charity Golf Day held in November last year. The charity day was made possible due to the support and sponsorship of many of the local business es in Yarram District and the Yarram Rotary team.

Winner of this years Chalk Art Festival, Tamz Hesz from Heyfield beside her com pleted work.

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f Rotarian Marcus McKenzie (president) and Eric Gre enaway present Centenary House chairperson Davis Swainsbury with a cheque for $8,000 which was part of the proceeds of the Yarram Rotary Clubs charity golf day last November.

Crowd favourite and second place getting in the 2023 Chalk Art festival Jimmi Buscombe, admires his finished artwork.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2023 - THE BRIDGE - Page 13