Sculptures Land at Thursday Plantation

MEDIA RELEASE:

“Joy Flight, Forced Landing” is welcomed to Thursday Plantation by Don King (in tree), senior partner at WHK Rutherfords, Christopher Dean, founder of TP Health, (front), and Dev Lengiel (rear). The work is by Geoffrey Farquhar Still of Canberra.

Photo courtesy Thursday Plantation East Coast Sculpture Show

The countdown is on to the 10th Anniversary Thursday Plantation East Coast Sculpture Show, opening on Saturday, 17 September. For the next two weeks, the Thursday Plantation sculpture park at TP Health’s headquarters, just north of Ballina on the Pacific Highway, will be alive with activity as scores of artworks are installed throughout the park’s rainforest groves.

Among the first to land, from Canberra, was Geoffrey Farquhar Still’s steel replica of a paper aeroplane. Don King, of WHK Rutherfords, the show’s lead sponsor, was there to lend a hand alongside TP Health’s founder Christopher Dean. Entitled “Joy Flight, Forced Landing”, Farquhar Still’s piece is suspended up a tree to imply that life’s journey can be unpredictable, and that paper can be a vehicle for joy or destruction, depending on how we use it.

To celebrate its first decade, this year’s Thursday Plantation show is a special event featuring 43 new works by the show’s previous winners. Since it began, the show has hosted over 700 works by 400 artists, many of them from the Northern Rivers. “Our venture has succeeded beyond expectations,” says Christopher Dean. “We have seen artists grow with the show, and a flowering of appreciation for sculpture.”

The show’s opening day runs from 12 noon to 5pm, with entertainment from 1pm by the Willow Neilson Quartet and guest singer Gyan. The awards ceremony is at 2pm. Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic or else lunch at the Verandah Café. Entrance costs $5 with a free catalogue and includes a chance to win season tickets to the Woodford Folk Festival.

The sculpture show continues every day from 9am to 5pm until January 31, 2006.