After 27 years of celebrating Collie’s huge mine of artistic talent as the Griffin Festival, the big event took on its new name of FESTIV ARTY with the opening night kicking off the festival at Collie Art Gallery on Friday, 8 September.
More than a hundred invited guests came along to enjoy the art, food, wine and live music. Our local member of State Parliament and great supporter Mick Murray attended along with major sponsors Griffin Coal representatives Steve Pitts and Brant Edwards, and Jeff Riley from the Collie Community Bank branch of the Bendigo Bank.
Earlier on the day of the opening, ABC South West’s broadcaster Peter Barr delivered an outside broadcast to the whole South West region from the Gallery’s forecourt interviewing Sarah Stanley and Cynthia Dix, street artist Andrew Frazer, art competition organiser Fran Dorozenko, writers’ festival organiser Alison Kidman and FESTIV ARTY coordinator Lisa Gillespie.
Fran Dorozenko and her team did a magnificent job coordinating the hundreds of entries in the art competition that spread from the fabulous display in the gallery to the Collie PCYC.
Congratulations to all the award-winning artists and everyone who put their art on show. A big thank you to all the volunteers who helped out during a very busy time where we broke our record of up to 300 visitors a day to the gallery.
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