Home is where the heart is for artists

With their easels set up and brushes ready to be dipped in paint pallets, Rockingham Visual Arts Society members have reunited at their original meeting place.

The society was able to move back into its old pioneers’ school building site, where the group has painted since 1978, this month after almost two years of using a temporary site in Settlers Hills.

The pioneer building, located at the corner of Fifty Road and Baldivis Road, was deemed unfit for use by the City of Rockingham.

Society vice-president Joyce Bywood, who joined the group in 2000, said redevelopment works were recently completed.

“It just feels like coming home, it is beautiful,” she said.

Mrs Bywood said she joined the group 13 years ago to gain confidence in her skills and had since developed her oil painting, acrylic, pastel drawing and water colour technique.

“In painting you just lose yourself in what you are working on at the time and it is such an achievement when you finish a painting, you think ‘wow, I can’t believe I’ve done that’.”

Society historian Mary Spencer said being able to work from a permanent base, in beautiful surrounds, motivated the society to move forward and encompass other art forms and crafts, as well as painting.