Goombungee - creative workshops

2024 has kicked off with a bang, with 2 big weeks in the rural town of Goombungee about 45minutes of Toowoomba. I know the town well, I've down community activations and held an exhibtion. It's all a frequent stop of our family drives around the region. The town just has such beauitful personality and energy. The Goombungee Public Hall has been lucky enough to secure funding through Flying Arts Alliance and with local Scott Aldadice dutifully overseeing the logistics it has been a dream for me as an artist. 

Working with communities is so high up on my list, I always sink back into my own childhood living in Outback QLD understanding the duality of lack of arts opportunities and how much of an impact it had on individuals and communities as a whole when they were available. 

Having a community of all ages coming together in a stress-free environment to learn, create and connect is electrifying, seriously there is a real buzz you get from the atmosphere. 

It is also a truly beautiful thing to witness people just jumping in and having a go. Creativity can be such an uncomfortable activity for so many. We all seem to carry an amount of self imposed pressure to be perfect, or a hidden shame of failure, or even a memory where someone made you feel like your art isn't good enough.  And then for whatever reason so many of us stop, and we tell ourselves 'I'm not very artistic', or we hold ourselves to someone else 'my sister is the creative one'. 
As an artist I know that's not true, what we really should be saying is 'I'd love to practice more' because like learning to read or understanding math we all know that we didn't just wake up knowing that information, we learnt it through persistance, dedication, help and error.  Also known as the process of learning. 
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Now I am not saying that everyone wants to be an artist, just like I understand the basics of something that I am about to turn it into my career but I know enough. I also know that if I really wanted to I could learn more and advance my skills. The arts is the same! 
Attending community arts events like this is watching people feel 'not artistic' start to have a go, because it's not as scary and then the joy of accomplishment that they did that. Boy, that really is something beautiful to be a part of. 
I am such an advocate for community arts, I honestly believe every single community should have one free to the public event for me to gather, create and connect. It is an essential step in building stronger communities and connections. 
I still have two more sessions to go at Goombungee and I am honestly lookign forward to them. 
Art for everyone I say.