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Canberra Today 16°/19° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

A taste of Classic Yass

WE’VE already given you a taste of what’s coming up on the Bigger-Than-Ben Hur “Classic Yass” weekend is coming up in the next few days. 

Yass sculptor Al Phemister at work
As reported in a recent edition of “CityNews”,  Yass sculptor Al Phemister and painter-curator Kim Nelson are calling themselves “the Odd Couple,” and no wonder. Together they’re organising the now-famous Yass Arts Trail.

Phemister sees himself as an “artist by accident,” who was a jack of all trades until he started welding bits of farm machinery together and the art buyers started taking notice. Nowadays his large “Pears” sculptures, created by welding together horse shoes, fetch $4,000 each.

According to Nelson, who runs a gallery in the 1880’s building, The Oddfellows Hall, it was Phemister encouraged him to stage the annual Yass Arts Trail in 2009 and somehow the broader “Classic Yass” festival developed along with it so, as he puts it, “I have him to blame for the fact that I now have no life and get no sleep.”

Kim Nelson in a quiet moment at the Oddfellows’ Hall
This year, Nelson says, the trail is enormous and has many feature events including concerts and performances. “Without a hint of hype, the thing has gone ballistic.”

Yass Arts has a permanent feature display at Yass Tourism and on the website, www.yassarts.org

Arts events include:

Friday & Saturday, Nov 2-3, Yass Repertory Society’s “Calendar Girls.”

Saturday November 3 at 3pm, opening of “Homeland,” Kim Nelson’s 2012 solo exhibition, at the Oddfellows’ Hall

Saturday Nov 3, 8pm, Yass Soldiers Club Dance with the Band “The Hips”

Sunday, November 4, at 2pm, “Storyteller,” a tribute to the 19th century poet “John O’Brien (a pseudonym of Father Patrick Hartigan) and to the tradition of storytelling in general, in the Patrick Hartigan Centre at Mount Carmel Convent in Yass.

Sunday, November, 4, 6.30pm at the Oddfellows’ Hall, cellist David Pereira and award winning visual artists Judi Power Thomson and Kerry McInnis play and paint together in “Synaesthesia.” $10 (children free)

A tiny sampling of the weekend– Yarrh Winery in Murrumbateman has Anne Hind (Painting) & Ivor Hind (Automata & mechanical toys), AnthonyRose Gallery, Yass has Ray McJannet (Photography), The Yass Memorial Hall has the Yass Photographic Club annual exhibition and Jugiong Wine Cellars have the Jugiong Artists’ Group Exhibition.

For dozens (and dozens) of other arts activities, visit www.classicyass.com/yassarts.html and open the PDFs in the left hand margin. Classic Yass , including the “Arts Trail.” Saturday and  Sunday November 3-4.

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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