Prologue
Since this is the new blog post on a brand new website, I feel like I should introduce myself, catch you up to where we are at in this journey and point you in the direction of where we are going. I have already written a number of posts about this journey on my personal art page, so I will link those to you as I go through the TL:DR version in the next paragraphs in case you are interested in the longer story. Just clink on the hyperlinked words and they will take you to other pages with more information. But let's start with who I am…
My name is Alison James. I have a long history of working in the arts and entertainment industry, with council, educational institutions and in public settings. I have two undergraduate university degrees, a Bachelor of Education and a Bachelor of Science in Australian Environmental Studies as well as a postgraduate degree, Master of Art in Visual Art.
I have previously built and directed the courses of two successful businesses. One was a for profit business developing and delivering environmentally based workshops and conference presentations to children, young people, their carers and the organisations that supported them. The other was a not for profit business model that examined the ways in which communities could be engaged in environmental issues through positive messaging and interactivity. I worked with councils, community groups, schools and environment centres, developed and led workshops that engaged the public in ways to repurpose and upcycle items from recycling centres into practical items or artworks.
I worked for a year to put together a folio of exhibited works for my application to the Master of Arts program. During my time at the university I learned not only how to think critically about my art work, its influences and how to develop, talk and write about my work, but I learned the practicalities through various opportunities I had of how to put together group and solo exhibitions, how to carry and expect a level of professionalism through the development and showing of an exhibition, how to curate to tell a story of the works being presented as well as the physical aspects of hanging, sound, lighting and sitting with an exhibition.
After I finished my Masters, I put together an exhibition during COVID showcasing the works of 12 artists all talking to a theme. Last year, I showed a solo exhibition called, "She" examining issues of mental health through narrative examination. It was this particular exhibition that was the catalyst for the project of Et Al Gallery and Studio.
And so that brings us to now and how I have ended up in this incredible dream of a project. I want to tell the story for me and for others, the good, the bad, the ugly and the glorious. I want to remember all these moments and draw you into the story of Et Al Gallery and Studio and its movement through all the times. It is my story, but it is also the story of all the others that touch and fill this space. I hope I can tell their stories and do them justice. I hope all of our stories combined are a cacophony of creative expression and thought and action.
I don't know how this story ends, but this is where it begins. Right here in these moments, these paragraphs, these words, these minutes, these thoughts, these actions, these dreams, these hopes.
Now let's find out where this narrative takes us.
