Creating

 The Mill Room Gallery is an exciting new venue in Victoria showcasing local artists and contemporary craft makers set in a traditional old mill building. With two spacious exhibition rooms, artists’ studios surrounding a shady roof terrace along with a cafe it is a lovely place to escape the Summer heat.

Faith Vinal Pollina, herself a glass maker, is the founder member of this new venture. With an abundance of artists on the Island she hopes to create a buzzing artists’ cooperative, where the artists and other interested parties can become members. The gallery will exist as a non profit making venture with the cooperative members taking an active part in the running of the gallery.

Workshops, artists in residence, demonstrations and group projects will create constant interest for artists and the public alike. Already an eclectic mix of creative disciplines exist at the gallery including, painting, sculpture, glass making, silversmithing, jewellery making, mosaics and designer clothing.

The gallery will be open this Summer Monday – Saturday 10am – 1pm

A small selection of my work at the fair last weekend. One of the exhibition rooms is now housing more of my work.

Wonderful roof terrace.

Faith had a plan ! Some potential members were to work on a 'piece' as a group, just to see how we all gelled. More of a social experiment rather than an art collaboration !  We brought bags of fabrics, string, glue, paint, organic material etc etc there was a sisal mat to use as a canvas and we had 1 hr in which to do our best. There was a catch....we had to work in silence. Could we work together and not get upset with what someone else may do to our work, or could we get our ideas across without speaking? In essence how would we all work together without being able to speak  ?

Without any prior collaboration none of us knew what everyone else intended to do. The first 10 or 15 minutes we all concentrated on our own little areas, without encroaching on anyone else's area. It didn't take long for us all to realise that we had to somehow connect all our ideas. One person started to use gold paint to join us up, I started to sew red thread through all the works, not only securing them but as a visual link. The end result was messy but we learnt a little about how the others worked and a realisation that we had to pull together to make the Mill Room Gallery function successfully. 

A post mortem on how it went, a couple of glasses of wine, some new found friends and a jolly good and fun evening.
If you want to see the end result pop down to the gallery this weekend.

If you are an artist or contemporary craft maker interested in this project please contact Faith by sending a message her on The Mill Room Gallery facebook  page.