Differing Arts in Maclean, Port Macquarie and Kurri Kurri New South Wales

Tartan, Graffiti and the Real Thing?

Can we ever cease to be amazed at the creative ingenuity of artists in communities around the globe?

Last year’s visit to Grafton’s Jacaranda Festival whet the appetite of Prestoungrange and Lady Prestoungrange to see a wee bit more of nearby Maclean, which had just celebrated its 100th Highland Games in 2004 and has the 101st on the immediate horizon. So as work once again brought them to New South Wales they made a stopover to marvel at Maclean’s lamp post messages and the tartan poles across the town. And to acquire a copy of Eleanor [Lin] McSwan's outstanding early history, Maclean- the First Fifty Years 1862-1912, now lodged in the Barons’ Courts Library; and discover therein that the great Australian contemporary artist/ designer Ken Done had spent some of his childhood there and created Lin McSwan's dustjacket illustrated below.

Click on images to enlarge







Next stop was Port Macquarie, Australia’s third oldest city, where the sea defences have been zealously created using massive chunks of inland rock. No less than 300 have become the location for inscriptional graffiti using a brilliant array of colours – and one wag offers the succinct comment: This is not vandalism!



Last but not least was an unannounced visit to Kurri Kurri.

Several of the murals-in-progress have now been completed as exemplified below, and a tour map added in the main square. New post cards are also now on sale. And delegates from Kurri Kurri are pledged to attend in Bowen in September en masse.