NORTH Stradbroke Island’s leading artists will join with its youngest artists to auction new works on Saturday, September 30, at Dunwich.
The fundraising event for the Stradbroke Early Learning Centre will also feature prizes including five weekend accommodation packages and passes to Australia Zoo.
The young artists will show work done during a six-week art mentoring course with a cultural facilitator eco-environmental art mentor and teacher Craig Tapp.
Craig has exhibited in Queensland’s parliament house and is a well regarded practitioner of sand art and ephemeral works at festivals.
The auction is in support of the community-managed centre that has provided jobs for island residents and quality care and education for 45 years at Dunwich.
It has added facilities since 1993 to meet a need not filled by the expanding corporate childcare sector that returns $1 billion a year in profits to its operators but does not invest in officially rated lower socio-economic communities like North Stradbroke Island.
Parent’s pay as little as $6 a day per child after a range of government subsidies are applied. It cares for the children of 47 families, 40 per cent of whom are indigenous and 30 per cent on Centrelink benefits.
“My two children have been enrolled at centres in other states and this is definitely the best,” SELC president and local vet, Dr Jade Patterson, said.
Works being auctioned include those by Jennie Truman who has had solo and combined exhibitions in Brisbane galleries and on the island, secondary school art teacher and community arts worker Bernadette Mollison and Angie Simms and Stuart Quinn of Stradbroke Island Photography.
Friday’s celebrations begin with a two-hour event from 9am to 11am with a sausage sizzle, an art show and Craig Tapp creating art in the centre’s sand pit.
At 5pm the evening event will have live music, free food provided by parents and local restaurants, a bar and live music.
The art auction starts at 6pm and the event continues until 9pm.
Research shows that early learning about art enhances basic reading and writing skills and language development, as well as the art itself.
“It’s come a long way from finger painting,” said Susan Frey, editor of the US-based education research foundation EdSource.”
