My youthful days of wallowing in an afternoon at the art gallery, enjoying twilight opera in the park performances and immersing myself in the indie music scene, are so long gone I can't even remember them.
But for a short while in Hay last week, I was able to recapture that feeling – with a slight difference. One of the two local primary schools held an art exhibition, so in we trooped, the whole family in attendance.
As we sipped on champagne and grazed hórdeouvres, (and tried to make small talk above the din of surely all the school's small inhabitants charging around the wooden-floored hall, which has great acoustics for that sort of thing), we perused artworks and were able to spot a few budding Picassos.
The school's 80-odd children had painted an artwork depicting their favourite place, and then painted and decorated a Shaffer, the wooden blocks often found at the base of an armchair leg.
The school also invited celebrities to contribute painted shaffers, some, like the ABC’s “The Movie Show's” Margaret and David decorating their own, while others, simply signed shaffers school community members had decorated for them. Among the more sought after shaffers were those signed by the loved/loathed Collingwood premiership team, Margaret and David's shaffers, Lisa and Karl from the Today morning show and one by former St Mary's student and renowned Australian landscape artist, Broken Hill's Eric McCormick.
The celebrity shaffers and some donated by school and community members were auctioned off, with fast-talking local stock agent Ed Lilburne managing to extract $4000 from a small crowd.
Profits from the night will go to the school, with a donation to the Close the Gap organisation.
This week we are backing up for another high glamour affair, with a wine tasting night hosted by Hay's School of the Air. The enterprising – and very resilient - mothers – and dads – from north and west of Hay held their first wine tasting night last year and after a thorough success are back again
