Art returns spirituality to South Street space

A DECADE ago, visual artist and art therapist Linda Franklin decided to relocate from Gisborne, but she knew her next base needed to be in a specific community.

“I wanted a regional population that has a university with fine arts training, because that means there is a vibrant arts community,” she said.

Exploring Bendigo, Geelong, Hobart, her homeland of New Zealand, and Ballarat she expected to end up in a tiny cottage with a shed she could convert into a studio.

Her favourite property in Ballarat south was the complete opposite.

“I happened upon this old Wesleyan Methodist church on South Street, and I thought, I can survive here.

“The ambience was so sweet, it felt like I’d had 100 years of little old ladies from the church just doing their good deeds here, and it had both residential and commercial zoning, so I knew I could run a business,” she said.

Moving into the “empty shell,” which was built in 1890 and had also been a Salvation Army centre, Franklin lived life simply.

She gradually installed a kitchen and bathroom, and launched her creative space.

“I set up the South Street Art Studio and started running community art classes; drawing and painting, and creative mindfulness,” she said.

In her 25 years as an art therapist – 10 of those on South Street – Franklin has facilitated community-based engagement with the arts for people of all ages and from all walks of life, sometimes through welfare and caring agencies that want a short-term program to engage their clients.

“Art-making connects us to deeply-felt emotions and insights into ourselves which can be easily overlooked. Guiding others into the richness of art-making is wonderful,” she said.

As a practicing artist currently focusing on her own work in the COVID era, or “the great pause” as Franklin calls it, she works across a varying range of visual genres.

Interested in having a handle on diverse techniques and themes, she finds “a narrative that is relevant to the contemporary society.”

“I love mixed media content and techniques within an image, pulling from different genres… and that’s a functional, post-modernist way of making social commentary,” she said.

“I’ll happily combine references to pop-art and cartoons with something that has a historical reference.”

Taking this year to reset, one of Franklin’s recent initiatives is inspired by last summer’s unprecedented Australian bushfires.

“I made a commitment to convert to a toxic-free art practice. Globally, visual arts practitioners have become normalised to using a wide range of chemical-based, environmentally hazardous art materials,” she said.

“I have always been an advocate for the sustainable lifestyle, so detoxing my own practice has been an insightful procedure.

“I’m currently working on recipes for my own natural, earth pigments and I’m looking forward to teaching classes surrounding them.”

Visit lindafranklin.com.au, and @southstreetartstudio on Instagram and Facebook.