Botanical background for Inverleigh artist’s sculpture

CERAMISIST Ade Loe is opening her Art Rocks Gallery in Inverleigh for the upcoming Golden Plains Community Art Trail.

Set high in the Inverleigh hills her whimsical garden wanders across the property’s landscape enveloping the gallery and studio.

Cacti, cordylines, aloe vera, grapevines and a fig tree are intermingled with her sculpture and her glasswork.

Ms Loe said visitors to her gallery can take their time exploring the garden, have coffee and cake amongst the flowers and watch people working in the studio.

Her studio has a kiln almost the size of a shipping container for firing her pottery and another smaller kiln is used for creating her glassware.

Down the hill near the pond is a grapevine covered folly, built by her two sons, with a very weatherworn grand piano inside.

“I intend to cover the piano in mirror mosaics one day,” Ms Loe said.

The gallery attracts about 300 people across the two days. Ms Loe said she has no expectation of visitors purchasing her works during the Art Trail.

“You don’t go in the Arts Trails anticipating you are going to make lots of money, it’s really about exposure,” she said.

“It is good for your soul, to share your art and have someone admire it.”

She sees the weekend event as an interaction with art lovers and a boon for local artists.

“A lot of them are not professional artists so it is a great opportunity to have people appreciate their work,” she said.

Ms Loe is a retired secondary school teacher who belongs to the Geelong Sculptors group and the Bannockburn Artists Society.

Art Rocks Gallery, 199 Teesdale-Inverleigh Road, Inverleigh will be open for the Golden Plains Community Arts Trail from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, 4 and Sunday, 5 May.

Go to the GP Arts Inc. Facebook page to download a digital flyer with information on artists and a trail map on where to find them.