Seamstress and spruiker launch Billboard Soapbox

SEAMSTRESS Heather Horrocks, otherwise known as an artist and one half of the Pike- Lettes, is a dab hand with the needle and thread knocking up eureka flag dresses faster than raising the flag.

Spruiker extraordinaire Marg Dobson, the other artistic half of the Pike-Lettes, held forth on the benefits of their Billboard Soapbox artwork adorning the wall of Ballarat’s Police Lane.

Dobson used the megaphone, when it wasn’t doubling up as Horrocks’ chapeau, to spark a conversation in the community about the Creative City Strategy featured in their public art display.

Dobson and Horrocks see this as a unique way to encourage community action, look up from the computer, read the message on the wall, and have your say.

Grab a highlighter and comment on the parts that grab your attention, paste a post-it-note on the section you like, rock up to the regular reading performances by the Pike-Lettes to engage in discussion, discourse and debate within the community.

Horrocks and Dobson want their fun way of delivering inspiration to be infectious.

“We are inspired by the concept of the strategy because it means our artistic colony here in Ballarat is only going to improve,” Dobson said.

“Putting the strategy document up on the wall as a paste-up piece of artwork divorces it from what we usually look at.”

They put a different spin on the council’s call to action.

Instead of reading a pdf on a screen or a printed handout of implacable pages, Horrocks, who specialises in paste-ups, suggested they put it up on the wall to encourage the community to look at it from left of centre.

Within five hours of the Billboard Soapbox being live there was a post of four photos of different statements – four elements of the strategy that for them was important – on Facebook.

Horrocks and Dobson will read all the comments on the paste-up and include in a submission to council.

Billboard Soapbox is up until Friday, 1 February in Police Lane, which runs between Lydiard Street and North and Alfred Deakin Place alongside the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

The draft Creative City Strategy and accompanying master plan are also currently available to download and review from mysay.ballarat.vic.gov.au.