GELLI PRINTING

I continue my search for a craft form at which I am going to be something more than adequate and I have failed again. The Fremantle Arts Centre offers a range of arts courses and I signed up for one: Gelli printing. It’s a comparatively simple process – a form of monoprinting using a reusable gelatin plate to create unique layered prints using acrylic paint and a variety of items such as leaves and flowers, lace and feathers, stencils and cut outs. It’s easy to learn but not so easy to create great art even with a good teacher. It was an entertaining day and I’m still finding bits and pieces of paint on odd parts of my body but I’m not sure I’m going to be trying again any time soon.



The Fremantle Arts Centre is one of my favourite buildings. Built by convicts from local limestone in the 1860s its original purpose was as a lunatic asylum but somehow, all the art and music that you now find in the place has banished the ghosts. And what ghosts there must have been. People were admitted due to social problems such as alcoholism and prostitution. It’s where the homeless/family-less elderly ended up. As did people suffering from sunstroke and opium smoking during the gold rush of the 1890s. In the early 20th century it was turned into the ‘Women’s Home’. Other roles included barracks for American servicemen and part of Fremantle Technical School. It was threatren with demolition in the 1950s and thank goodness it was saved. It’s a wonderful piece of what’s described as “Australian Gothic”.

 


The Arts Centre now has the Whadjuk Nyoongar name for the Fremantle region included in its title -  Walyalup. I may never return for another arts class but I will keep going back for the visual arts and the music that can found there.

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