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As part of the celebration of Pepper Street's 25th anniversary we profile some artists.

When Pepper Street Arts Centre opened 25 years ago Wilma Bajka-Van Velze was one of the first artists to exhibit. “A friend had an exhibition in Burnside Library and I was asked to join her, then they started Pepper Street 25 years ago. I became a volunteer and I have been here since,” Wilma says.

Wilma, 80, weaves wool and then uses a loom to create scarves, wraps, shawls and wall hangings.

She demonstrates her skills at Pepper Street every Friday, travelling from her Bridgewater home. “Spinning and weaving make me feel peaceful,” she says. “It is very satisfactory to start with a bag of wool and you finish up with a scarf or a jacket.”

Wilma does not teach as she explains. “English is my second language and as I get older I go back to my native language (Dutch) and I do not feel very secure to give lessons.”

She says Pepper Street has grown a lot over 25 years. “The quality of the art is a lot better now. I like the quietness and the friendliness of the staff. You come in and you feel already at peace.”

“I have to use my hands to feel good,” Wilma says. “Some days I don’t feel like weaving so I go out to the garden and use my hands there.”

“I love the atmosphere at Pepper Street – you come in and you feel alright, I hear this from a lot of people. It is just a beautiful place to be. And it is Sally and Ingrid and Alex, especially Sally,that make it so beautiful.”

As part of the celebration of Pepper Street's 25th anniversary we profile some artists.

Kensington Gardens artist Gishka Van Ree has been teaching general and botanical drawing at Pepper Street for 14 years. Before that he taught at Adelaide Central School of Art for 18 years. “I had just left there and saw a call out in the local paper for a teacher of drawing. I applied and started two weeks later,” he says. He had to change his style of teaching to suit a different type of student. “I was teaching 20 – 30 year olds who had a degree but never really learnt to draw. Here (at Pepper Street) it is an older student base, many retired people. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing them slowly get involved. I tell my students ‘you have to find your own language of art, your own mediums’.”

Gishka has always worked with organic matter and has two themes in his drawing – fruit and shells. “I am very connected to the environment and nature,” he says. “I tell a story of how seed and kernels flower and then the fruit falls to pieces but the seed is always there.”

“I do a lot of landscape gardening so that is incorporated in my art. I did a series based on gumnuts which sold out. One of them won the 2006 Victor Harbor art prize.”

As classes commence after COVID-19, students are bringing in drawings that they did during lockdown.

Gishka says Pepper Street is a fantastic community based gallery, one of the best in Adelaide.

“I feel very comfortable here. I have five degrees in art but art is not an easy path to be on – you are often flat broke but art means everything to me. It has always been a part of my life.”

He also writes a lot and has had two books published.

“I will never retire from art, I will keep doing it until the day I drop.”

As part of the celebration of Pepper Street's 25th anniversary we profile some artists.

As Pepper Street Arts Centre celebrates its 25th birthday, one longtime volunteer reflects on her passion. Anne Martin was born into an arty family. “Both my parents were artists,” Anne says. “I studied fashion and worked as a knitwear designer and then craft editor of Woman’s Day magazine.”

When Anne moved to Adelaide from interstate 20 years ago, she and her husband Ben lived in a large house on Glynburn Road at Kensington Gardens. In checking out the local area Anne discovered Pepper Street Arts Centre, an arts and cultural initiative of the City of Burnside. Anne says the Centre brings local creative people together and gives them a creative space. “I love the networking with other artists, swapping ideas and sharing events or craft fairs.”

Anne’s craft talents include knitting, sewing, beading, embroidery and crocheting. But her great love is mosaics. “I hand paint and glaze my own tiles,” she says. “That way I can get bright colours, crystal glazes and blended colours.” Anne has adorned her house and garden with stunning mosaics, many of them as large as 6 m x 2 m. There are two strong themes to her work – birds and marine life.

The grandmother of five teaches craft at her home on Wednesday nights. “I help my students make whatever they want to - whether embroidery, knitting or crochet.” Anne’s class is so popular it is full and she is thinking of starting another one. She also gives talks at Pepper Street on creative knitting and crochet. But one art she does not teach is mosaics. “It is difficult to take all my tiles and equipment to Pepper Street and I don’t have room here for classes. The pretty bit of mosaics is the easy part, it is the preparation and the problem-solving that is hard.”

One of the projects Anne is proud of is her coordination of the four mosaics in the underground walkway at the George Bolton Swimming Centre Burnside. Students from three local primary schools designed the mosaics. “The style they came up with actually reflected them as students and I think that image will stay with me forever,” Anne says.

If you like Anne’s work she will do commissions but she says, “I have to like the client and I have to like the subject. It’s very important otherwise it just becomes tedious.” In addition the client has to like Anne’s style. “I love decorative, colourful, and whimsical. If you want geometric and stylised I am not your artist.”

Anne has plans for more mosaic design and has identified places in the garden where she will display them. “I’ve always made things,” Anne says. “I am sure art keeps me young and sane. I totally lose myself and it feeds my soul. If I don’t get studio time I get a bit edgy.”

At 64, Anne says she now paces herself. “I knit or crochet every night unless I have had a big day on mosaics then I rest my hands.”

City of Burnside is undertaking a 12 month trial of e-bikes for staff to get to and from:

- Site meetings

- Home visits

- Building inspections etc.!

The e-bikes are part of our pledge to reduce our impact on the environment by encouraging cycling over car use where possible, and make up one small part of our environmental sustainability and climate mitigation work and pathway.

You can read more about our advocacy for Climate Action here!

The Braithwaite children of Dulwich are keen photographers so they all decided to enter the recent Mayor’s Photography Awards – and all of them won something! Mum Sarah Cook says there was a bit of competition between her five children but they all enjoyed the experience. “The children were very excited to have been awarded places in the competition and receive the wonderfully generous vouchers,” she said. Due to COVID restrictions the usual award ceremony has been postponed but that did not deter them from celebrating. “We have decided to recreate the awards ceremony at our house this year with lots of cakes, cups of tea and sausage rolls,” said Sarah.

And the Braithwaite winners are:

Alice, 13, first place – Aboriginal Beauty in Burnside

“Thank you for having the competition. It was very exciting.”

Matilda, 17, second place – High School Category

“Thank you!”

Daisy, 13, commendation – High School Category

“Thanks so much for making this competition possible! I can’t wait for next year?”

Archie, 12, first place – Junior Category

“Thanks for a great competition! Hope to participate next year!”

Flora, 7, second place – Primary Category

"Thank you for doing the competition and making it possible."

See all the winners here.

Wow! What a first week at Newland Park!

Mayor Monceaux put a challenge to the Community. Beat the current record of 62,313. And in just the first week, you have amassed a staggering 22,000+ laps! What a fantastic effort, already over a third of the total in just one week!

If you haven't already, be sure to head along and check out the new configuration. You can check out a snippet of the set-up here: #rideburnside Newland Park

Where? #rideburnside is relocated at Newland Park on Hallett Road/Newland Road in Erindale.

In 2019 Burnside secured $3 million in Federal funding, and over $200k from the National Resource Management Board (NRM) for this exciting project that will deliver enormous environmental and recreational benefits to Kensington Gardens Reserve and the surrounding creek ecosystem.

The Council has now secured a further $850k through the State Government’s Open Spaces and Places for People.

City of Burnside CEO, Chris Cowley, said that the grant has allowed Council to broaden the scope of the original project. “At no extra cost to the community, we are adding in a raft of features that will provide much needed unstructured passive and active recreational activities around the park,” Mr Cowley said.

The new features include:

• Installation of a 1.7 km shared walking/running track, providing recreational walking/fitness opportunities for the community at all times.
• Two additional bridges to enable the walking track to be installed (currently no track exists).
• Installation of disability accessible board walk over the wetlands.
• Installation of fitness stations, around the parkrun/walking circuit.
• Expansion of the biodiversity zone, to showcase native indigenous plantings at the reserve, complementing the remnant SA Blue Gum forest currently in-situ.
• Establishment of a Kaurna ‘place of reflection’ in the south-eastern corner of the reserve (possible site of cultural significance and respect).
• Establish a ‘cultural walk’ with interpretive Kaurna signage and
• Installation of Kaurna art to be incorporated with the nature play space, wetland and surrounds.

The original planned revitalisation work in the Reserve includes:

• replacing the unsafe artificial lake with a functional wetland to treat urban water pollution entering Stonyfell Creek.
• visual, recreational and environmental improvements to Stonyfell Creek and the surrounding environment.
• eight reconfigured tournament standard tennis courts with lighting available for club and public use.
• nature play features and biodiversity education elements.

The overall project will include an extensive revegetation program with 30 trees, 230 shrubs and over 6,500 groundcover species to be planted in the area surrounding a new wetland. A dedicated ‘biozone’ area will feature 2,400m2 of plantings across three distinct areas that will complement the remnant SA Blue Gum ecosystem at the reserve. Native species will be used exclusively for all new plantings, and the ‘biozone’ plantings will be locally sourced and indigenous to the reserve and feature an additional 4,800 new plants. The wetland itself will feature almost 15,000 new plants that will visually improve the landscape and benefit the quality of stormwater that enters Stonyfell Creek.

Council is working closely with Kaurna traditional owners to monitor the construction and to develop opportunities for Kaurna heritage recognition such as public art, cultural sites and signage.

Works are scheduled to commence in September 2020 and the tender will be launched within the coming months.

The Kensington Gardens Reserve Redevelopment project is featured in the winter 2020 Focus newsletter being delivered across the City this week. You can also download Focus

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is the annual celebration to acknowledge the generous contribution of our nation’s volunteers.

The theme for National Volunteer Week 2020 is 'Changing Communities. Changing Lives'.

L - R: Volunteer Coordinator Lisette Bruno, Mayor Anne Monceaux and Group Manager Community Connections Farlie Taylor, show how they miss our volunteers.

City of Burnside has almost 400 volunteers across more than 30 programs. They contribute more than 25,000 hours each year, equivalent to 14 full time equivalent (FTE) staff.

National Volunteer Week 18 – 24 May 2020

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is the annual celebration to acknowledge the generous contribution of our nation’s volunteers.

The theme for National Volunteer Week 2020 is 'Changing Communities. Changing Lives'.

Leonie Brown has clocked up 20 years as a volunteer at Pepper Street Arts Centre. “I have always been interested in art and craft,” she says. “I was on maternity leave after my daughter was born. I saw an advert and I had a bit of time so I applied.”

Leonie says the centre was a lot smaller then and she helped out in the gallery, on reception and in the coffee shop, making coffees. “I did a regular fortnightly shift but it was a bit too much with my work as well. Now I just fill in on a roster as I live just around the corner.”

Leonie’s interest is in card making but she has not displayed anything in Pepper Street. “I am turning 59 in a few weeks and would love to make my card business more profitable but for now I still need to work to pay the mortgage.”

Leonie says the 20 years has flown by and she intends to keep on volunteering when she can.

National Volunteer Week 18 – 24 May 2020

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is the annual celebration to acknowledge the generous contribution of our nation’s volunteers.

The theme for National Volunteer Week 2020 is 'Changing Communities. Changing Lives'.

At 80 years of age, Glenunga resident Jill Bransbury is still volunteering in Burnside Library. “I retired at 60 from being a teacher and I was on my own and looking for things to do,” Jill says. “I was always keen on reading so I applied to volunteer at the Library and was accepted.” Jill started out on the home library service going to nursing homes to deliver books. She then moved onto shelving and putting books and DVDs back on the shelf when they are returned. “I volunteer once a fortnight for about two hours,” she says. “I enjoy seeing the range of books that are returned and I get companionship from it. A few volunteers have become good friends.” Jill says it is fun and relaxing. She is also a member of Probus and started a book club some years ago where members choose books from Burnside Library. “I never knew about book clubs before volunteering at the library.” With 20 years of volunteering under her belt Jill has no intention of stopping. “It is quite unbelievable how quickly the time has passed. It is a very worthwhile thing to do.”