South Coast Register

January, 2004.

By Mark Brandon

Teaching art is very different from making it. And with the “all work and little play” focus in today’s society, a refreshing new residency program from The Bundanon Trust is giving teachers the opportunity to pursue their own arts desire.

The program offers teachers a residency at Riversdale, on the banks of the Shoalhaven River, during school holidays.

The teachers can use this time to work on their own art’s practice, according to Bundanon trust education manager Gailyn Cooper.

“This new program is like a little retreat for teachers, a retreat that is only available in the school holiday break,” Ms Cooper said.

“We have been running teachers’ retreat weekends for a while where a group of teachers stay at Riversdale and take part in workshops and tours. But these retreats were more to introduce teachers to the education centre and program, in the hope they’d bring their classes back at some stage.

“The Trust then realised that teachers themselves don’t have much time to follow their own arts practice and so the new residency was born.”

The second, and most recent, teacher in residence was Sydney-based Nathan Kelly.

Mr Kelly juggles work as art teacher at St Patrick’s College at Strathfield as well as a career in professional photography.

He has worked as a professional photographer since 1993, having his worked published in many major magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas.

The residency has been beneficial, Mr Kelly said, because it allowed him to further his own arts career outside of school.

“I am an art Teacher, but also an artist in my own right,” he said.

“However it’s very difficult to be both, because when you’re a teacher a lot of other stuff comes with that, things that take up a lot of time on the weekend.

“Just to get three weeks away from family and friends and all my other commitments and come down to a place like this is fantastic.

“This residency has given me a clean head to return for term one next week.”

Lighting up The Sky (Insert)

Lighting up The Sky (Insert)

Nathan Kelly spent his days at Bundanon swimming and enjoying the sunshine. By Night he went to work photographing trees and lighting up big sections of the bush.

“Arthur Boyd did a lot of tree scenes, but being a painter he could choose what colour the trees could be,” Mr Kelly said.

“A photographer can’t really do that, but then I thought if I photographed the trees at night I could light them with whatever colours I liked.”

Mr Kelly is planning to exhibit his night scene photography in Sydney in June or July. He also hopes to bring his work back to Nowra later in the year to be exhibited in the Shoalhaven's new arts centre.

Site designed and built by Nathan David Kelly, 2005

All images and text © Nathan David Kelly, 2005

For all enquiries

nathan@nathandavidkelly.com