Unseen Labour, Lasting Legacy – Women of Castlemaine Art Museum : Panel Event and Tour
Description
Join the Extraordinary/Ordinary podcaster Lisa D'Onofrio and panel for a discussion marking the launch of the Wildflowers sculpture which honours the seven women who founded the Castlemaine Art Gallery and Museum in 1913 (now the Castlemaine Art Museum).
United by a shared passion for women in art and local flora and fauna, these trailblazers created a lasting cultural legacy, though not all of their stories have been equally remembered.
Bringing together contemporary movers, makers and cultural leaders, this panel will reflect on the alchemy required to build something enduring against the odds, foregrounding the fundamentally creative, yet often undervalued process that transforms an idea into reality. The panel will explore the invisible, overlooked labour of women and the similarly unseen “back end” of creative work.
From meetings and minutes to conversation, care, planning, serendipity and constant juggling, these essential efforts are rarely celebrated, yet they make the extraordinary possible.
Join a guided tour after the panel session with Curator Sarah Frazer who developed the exhibition Wildflowers: The First Ladies of Castlemaine Art Museum, which first celebrated the women’s story in 2023.
Image: Elsie Barlow at her solo show at the Castlemaine Mechanics Institute Library in 1912. Adolphus Verey, care of the Adolphus Verey Photographic Collection
Lineup
Laura Woodward
Laura Woodward is an award-winning Castlemaine-based artist and co-owner of local design and fabrication business, Like Butter. She creates large sculptural installations for exhibitions and public space and has been commissioned to create artworks at public destinations in Melbourne, Docklands, Craigieburn, South Yarra, Elwood and Horsham. As a mid-career artist Laura has a PhD in sculptural practice and her work has been recognised at a national level, she is also a lecturer at the School of Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne.
Emma Busowsky
Emma Busowsky is a curator and writer specialising in Australian art, exhibitions and museums. She is Curator at Bendigo Art Gallery on Dja Dja Wurrung Country and has worked across the Australian art museum sector since 2003. Previously Curator at Castlemaine Art Museum, she now serves as a Trustee. Her recent projects include the exhibitions ‘Australiana: Designing a Nation’ and ‘Daughters of the Sun: Christian Waller & Klytie Pate’. Emma has published widely on Australian art and culture and holds a Master of Cultural Heritage and a Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) from Deakin University. Bio Image: Emma Busowsky, Bendigo Art Gallery, 2023. Photo: Leon Schoots.
Gail Reynolds
Gail Reynold's interest in researching Castlemaine’s history began over a decade ago with research into a house Gail and her husband own in Campbell St, a Victorian double fronted which arrived in Castlemaine in 1910 on a carter’s wagon and which has always had a woman’s name on the title. Subsequent renovations provoked more questions… and she was hooked. Gail has a keen interest in the way societal norms of the various eras shape history and how that history evolves to form our present. Understanding the women who founded CAM also implies understanding the privileged social conditions which encouraged and supported the Arts. Like a jigsaw with missing pieces which need to be found, historical “facts” may reshape as understanding is challenged and as patterns fit into clearer pictures. Gail loves to draw, design and embroider, to garden and observe nature. Her art and design values, in many ways, align with the interests of the women who shaped CAM, proving the adage 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.
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