Browsing: Interview

TYABB artist Jeanne Rachelle White has been invited to exhibit at the International Naive Art Festival in Katowice, Poland, next month. She is one of 30 Australian artists exhibiting works at the long-running festival which this year has Australia as the country in focus. The festival brings together about 300 self-taught naïve artists from around the world whose works were viewed by 30,000 visitors last year. The former industrial city has transformed over the past 20 years into an arts destination with one of the world’s largest international festivals of naïve art. Festival organisers praise White’s work for “colourfully celebrating…

A YEAR of intense training paid off earlier this month when Michael Cole and Laura Skvor cooked their way into the final of the Bocuse d’Or, billed as “the most prestigious gastronomic competition in the world”. Cole, head chef and Skvor commis chef at the Flinders Hotel, were members of the Australian team which came fourth out of 11 countries in the Asia Pacific division of Bocuse d’Or in China. Skvor won Best Commis Chef (food preparation and basic cooking under the supervision of a head chef) in the Asia Pacific division. The final of the Bocuse d’Or is being…

LONG-TIME Mornington resident Su-Rose McIntyre lost her only child when he was 26 almost a decade ago, after he suffered a long period of mental illness. Now the bereaved mother and qualified grief counsellor is a newly published author of a grief self-help book: The Grief Kaleidoscope: Metaphors for Grief. “Deep grief was a new experience for me as I tried to ride the grief waves as they came rolling in,” she said last week. “I became interested in learning more about what I was going through and the grief process itself.” After gaining a Masters in Counselling university degree…

WRITER and actor Kate Mulvany has written a play based on a book that takes its readers out of this world. Mulvany attributes the award-winning Masquerade by Kit Williams with helping her recover from a bout of childhood sickness. “Within a few words my mind exploded, my imagination went crazy be-cause I was on that adventure with Jack on his way across the universe, and I think that book helped me get better,” Mulvany says. “I always kept the book Masquerade by my side, my entire life. Then a few years ago I decided I wanted to turn that book…

RON Gilbert was a bit of a joker. He saw the bright side of things. He wasn’t afraid to poke fun at society’s sacred cows and was irreverent to the end. Mr Gilbert, 94, died on 28 October last year, just on eight years after posing for photographs at Mornington cemetery next to a headstone that bore his name. “I’ve got one foot in a grave,” he said at the time, with a twinkle in his eye. He now has two. Mr Gilbert was practical and gave a stonemason instructions to include his name on a headstone that was being…

WHEN Maria Peters looks back on a 30-year career at Chisholm TAFE Institute she says it is the camaraderie between staff she will miss most of all in retirement. The CEO decided last year to step down at Chisholm Institute on 31 December and hand over the chief executive officer reins of the vocational education college’s campuses to successor Dr Richard Ede. “I know I’ll miss the people and I’ll miss the intellectual stimulation but I’m just looking to have some time to re-energise and I’ll always have my eye on Chisholm and I’m sure it’ll go on to bigger…

A FORMER bush walker turned bush poet will have her poetry preserved in print in a project that proves it is never too late to have written work published. Mary Lyons, 87, a former Mt Martha resident and keen walker in the Peninsula Bushwalking Club in the 1980s and 1990s is now mostly confined to a wheelchair at Somercare in Somerville but her love of life living amongst nature is vividly described in her poetry. She worked as a tobacco picker, hop picker and dairy hand. Husband Norm passed on after 54 years of marriage. Family friend Kev Cooper, whose…

JEWELLERY artist Katrina Newman, of McCrae, has returned from a Canadian Wilderness Artists Residency saying it was “an experience like no other”. “I was surrounded by creative people and the voyage on the Yukon River was inspiring,” she said. “I felt I had found my place and came to feel at home among 11 Canadian artists as we explored the Yukon Territory in a canoe.” Arriving at Whitehorse, capital of the northwest Yukon territory, Newman met up with her trip coordinator, guides, and other artists in the group of two men and 10 women. They spent a week preparing for…

AUTHOR Fran Henke realised the need for a book outlining the latest expert advice for polio survivors after attending a conference in Sydney last year. “Experts from around the world were speaking on the main areas of concern for us and I wanted to get that new information to the often isolated people who need it most,” Mrs Henke said. “The exchange of ideas on management for polio survivors in the second round of the fight with the polio virus has proved vital in the absence of wide understanding of post-polio syndrome in the medical profession.” Mrs Henke, of Hastings,…

By Tony Nicholl THE Mornington Peninsula has many retirees with a story or even a book, and Eric Brewer is one of those. A few months ago he moved to Rosebud from Benalla, which had been his home for a good part of his life. Brewer now thinks the retirement in Rosebud is utopia redolent of A B Facey’s bestseller A Fortunate Life, especially in view of the fact that he has made his luck without expectation or entitlement. Brewer has lived in many places and always conducted a life well lived on account of having had a sound childhood…

A MT MARTHA doctor has for 30 years been able to combine her twin loves: scuba diving and medicine. In that time, Dr Vanessa Haller has made more than 2500 dives in idyllic locations while photographing marine life – including large sharks – and contributing to the knowledge of the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society. It’s a perfect fit for a diving doctor: the society studies, promotes and communicates with members on all aspects of underwater and hyperbaric medicine, holds scientific conferences at exotic South Pacific locations and fosters fellowship and friendship among members. What could be more exciting than…

ROSEBUD’S Mark Krieger has spent three years working on his latest book: High Spain Drifter, based around cycling in Europe. In the story, the keen cyclist sets off on another of his fascinating journeys – this time around Spain and Portugal’s Iberian Peninsula with Roz and daughter Emma in tow. The former teacher taught English and History at Mornington Secondary College for 22 years from 1992, after arriving in Rosebud the year before. “Of our five children, four have followed in our footsteps. Each has taught or is currently teaching on the Mornington Peninsula,” Krieger said. “Cycling-wise, I have spent…