Biennial arts fest is back

STRATHFIELDSAYE Primary School’s anticipated biennial Community Arts Festival gets underway today.

The two-day festival, based wholly at the school’s Uxbridge Street property, starts with an official opening event in the library from 5.30pm to 8.30pm, with the opening ceremony scheduled for 7pm.

Student and community art exhibitions will be open for viewing, while various entertainment and activities will occur.

The festival hits top gear tomorrow, with a family fun day to run from 10am to 3pm.

Features include a school and community art show, craft market stalls on the school grounds, art sessions, artist-in-residence displays, music, children’s entertainment and food.

The exhibition of student art created for the festival during the leadup will be in the specialist wing, with the community exhibition in the library.

The top prize in the competitive section of the student exhibition will be a series of art classes with Sarah the Painter, valued at more than $150.

Hands-on art sessions will be held in nominated classrooms and will include painting a vase, floral painting, floral acrylic on canvas, and paste-ups.

This year’s theme is Dancing with Dragons in keeping with the Chinese Year of the Dragon, and students have helped create the festival mascot, Daphne, who is on display at the main office.

Principal Cindi Bruechert said the festival was held annually for many years before undergoing a revamp and moving to a biennial schedule in 2022.

She said moving the event from October to the start of term three was a better fit for the school’s schedule.

“Being the first weekend of this term, it enabled us to use the downtime in the holidays to prepare,” Ms Bruechert said.

While the festival is the school’s major event of the year which attracts hundreds of people, it’s also one of its biggest fundraisers.

Money raised from the weekend’s activities will be used to upgrade playground equipment.