Ayob in Moorabool Shire: Singapore/Moorabool Diary #1

A quick bit of background...
On Saturday May 30th Ayob bin Ismail traveled from Singapore to Ballan, which is a small regional town in Moorabool Shire in Victoria, Australia. He is visiting the Shire to participate in a four-week residency and internship with Velislav Georgiev and Tor Roxburgh's public sculpture and design business Zabelski Han and their gallery studio complex Omnibus Art Gallery.

The residency and internship are part of the Wombat Regional Arts Network International Artist/Designer-in-Residence program. Ayob's visit is being generously supported by Nanyang Polytechnic (School of Design) where he is a lecturer in Industrial Design and by Wombat Regional Arts Network, Omnibus Art Gallery and Zabelski Han.

Sunday 31st May...
Today Ayob had two important exhibition openings to attend.

The first opening was at Gordon Edgerton Galleries 11km west of Ballan. The gallery was established in 1975 by Maree Heffernan and the late Edward Heffernan OAM. Edward Heffernan was a life member and president of the Victorian Artists Society, his work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia and he is the subject of several books. Ayob had the pleasure of meeting Maree and seeing a range of artworks on exhibition.

The second opening was at Australian Galleries and featured sculpture by Peter Blizzard OAM, who is a internationally renowned Moorabool-based artist. Peter's work was of particular interest as his most recent public sculpture is located in the main street of Ballan, just across the road from Omnibus Art Gallery where Ayob is staying.

A crowd gathers as Peter Blizzard installs Moorabool Earth Totem just weeks before Ayob's visit

The day didn't end with the exhibition visits as there was some planning to do. Ayob was keen to make a start on Meow... Purr, a cat carry case for the fashion conscious pet owner. Velislav and Ayob began discussing the fabrication of some storage seats. These storage seats will be installed in Ballan adjacent to the new sculpture by Peter Blizzard and will house some new street chess pieces. The work must be completed before Ayob leaves.

Ayob began thinking about making a piece of windart as a gift to the Shire and as a contribution to the 1000 Weathervanes in Ballan initiative.

At the end of the evening we realised that someone needed to head down to Melbourne to source some clay and some glaze. And we also discovered that it was impossible to find rattan in Melbourne and that we would need to have it flown down from Queensland so that Meow... Purr could become a reality.

Monday 1st June...
Ayob and Velislav spent the day in the studio working on the new storage seats and designing windart. Ayob still found time to make a scale model of Meow... Purr.

It was my job to drive to Melbourne where I visited Northcote Pottery with a shopping list that included clay and glaze. The staff were very interested in Ayob. The are keen to establish a new link with Singapore. We spoke about Ayob visiting the business next week.

I secured a supply of rattan with the promise of a photograph of Meow... Purr. The rattan supplier in Queensland was fascinated by the project and asked many questions about Ayob's visit to Australia.

I then drove back to Ballan in time for an important event...

Ayob, Velislav and I attended a grant presentation ceremony at the Council Chambers in the Moorabool Shire offices. I was there to receive a Community Arts grant of $3,000 to develop and website and logo for 1000 Weathervanes in Ballan in collaboration with Patrick Bonello of Genesis FX. Ayob was there to meet community members, Shire officers and the Michael Tudball who is the Mayor of Moorabool. We were honoured that the Mayor included a welcome to Ayob in his official speech and asked Ayob to participate in the photograph commemorating the award ceremony.