The Creative Palmerston Art Journal Project

On view 12 September – 29 September 2020

When COVID-19 broke out earlier this year, City of Palmerston looked for a unique, imaginative project to engage with our creative community, and ways to build resilience and encourage communication and friendships between people remaining apart. Inspired by the New York sketchbook project and other art journal projects around the world, Council invited our community to develop and display their creative skills by taking up the challenge of producing, documenting and just simply playing with ideas and thoughts in their own art journal.  

More than 70 blank art journals were sent out to community artists and creatives around the Palmerston region; encouraging them to cut, paint, ink and fill their journals with designs, stories, thoughts, photos and drawings. 
The project encouraged artists to express themselves, capture their thoughts or simply just doodle as a way to staying creative during this unusual and challenging time.
Over a four- month period, artists embraced their own creative style, resulting in the unique and diverse collection of journals on exhibition here today.  

Each of these journals captures a small insight into the thoughts and creative processes of each participant and provides a snapshot of their artistic practice. Some are filled with written thoughts and feelings, others tell a story and some just capture a simple moment of quiet contemplation and reflection. Overall the diversity of these journals is a reflection on the unique, resilient and creative community that we live within here in Palmerston.
We would like to acknowledge and thank all participants in the project, in particular, the support from Tactile Arts.

A City of Palmerston Community Exhibition
2020 Featured Artists
Alison Worsnop                                           Aloma Claessen
Cameron Rowston                                      Cathy Chapple
Clare Smith                                                 Doreen Dyer
Jan Schneider                                             Jinx Smith
Joanna del Nido                                          Kajal Patel
Karen Gooch                                               Margie Muirhead
Marian Graham                                           Marie Kudo
Nadira Yasmin Neela                                  Nicole Lee
Paige Horrigan                                            Penny Hart
Prasha Sooful                                             Sabine Gonelli
Sharon Young                                             Shayne Lehmann
Tania Ballestrin                                           Tess Riches
Veronica Hodges

(Image Credits: Garry Chapple)