By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE’S Mocha and Lime cafe will host Indigenous artists from around the valley next weekend for the launch of a new arts enterprise, with live painting and activities for visitors.
On Saturday 9 July, Healesville Indigenous Community Services Association (HICSA) will be running an arts event at the cafe on Green Street, bringing about five artists for painting and conversations with the community.
From 10am to 3pm, the artists will be painting live, and will be available to talk with visitors and passers-by about their work and creative process.
HICSA’s Merryn Auldist said the event resulted after a successful exhibition at the Yarra Ranges Council’s Reconciliation Week event earlier in the month.
“It was a significant opportunity for the local artists, within this community specifically, to look at maximising on that,” Ms Auldist said.
The event will also be the first with the group’s new arts enterprise, HICSART, which will run a larger arts event in November.
“This is going to be a promotional event for an arts soiree later in the year,” Ms Auldist said.
“In November, we’ll have it out here in this beautiful space (at HICSA), and you’ll just walk along a couple of metres and there’ll be another artist who’ll have their work, and you can engage with the artist and talk about their story and how they came to create the sort of style they work in.”
Ms Auldist said the group were hoping to organise a large canvas outside the cafe, and children and young people would be able to paint on it.
Kelvin Smith will perform on the didgeridoo at the event, and artworks will also be for sale.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/hicsahealesville
