HAS Spring Salon Exhibition

5 - 7 September,
Chandelier Room, Hawthorn Arts Centre.

Thank you Melbourne

It takes a village

The HAS Spring Salon 2025 was a resounding success. The beautiful Chandelier Room in the Hawthorn Town Hall transformed into a vibrant gallery showcasing 250 artworks by our talented members. It was a celebration of the diversity of art and incredible sense of community we enjoy in our Society. We had hundreds of visitors over the 3 days of the exhibition and sold over $10,000 worth of artwork. This event showcases HAS to the wider community with many queries about joining our classes and sessions. A huge thank you to all who exhibited, attended, purchased and generously volunteered their time.

Thanks also to the City of Boroondara and Rotary Balwyn, for the grant that enabled us to hold the event in the Chandelier Room, to Eckersley’s Art Store and Studio Craft Picture Framing for sponsoring the People’s Choice prize. Thanks also to Dr Monique Ryan MP, for kindly agreeing to open the exhibition. A shout out to Mim’s café who kept us caffeinated with a generous 20% off our coffees.

The exhibition wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of a dedicated band of volunteers. Many have volunteered at the previous exhibitions and we also welcomed some new faces this year. One of the delightful things about putting on the exhibition is seeing the artists from different sessions come together and form friendships across the different groups. Our volunteers are a truly exceptional group of people who cheerfully put in a huge effort and extra hours as the move upstairs brought up unexpected challenges.

My thanks, as always, to the HAS committee who quietly put in so much effort to support HAS, to David MacLeod and Nic Kirkman who worked tirelessly on the virtual hanging plans, Rita Sleep for IT support and Madeleine Willshire, Lily Tarry-Smith and Nic for the catalogue, Tony Ericson who keeps me on schedule and makes all the HAS communications look so good. Ken Wight for organising the panel hire and fittings. Also the teams that helped on artwork delivery day, installation day, manning the exhibition, assistance on opening night and de-install day - you’re phenomenal.

Apologies if I leave anyone out – it’s been a long week! Kath Leong, Irene Henning, Amanda Lazar, Paula Reade, Devyani Sadalkar, Susan Fairley, Penny Darling, Christine Sender, Jim Moody, Eric WH Chin, Bill Wood, Ria and Peter Tims, Warwick Manderson, Anna Cooke, Terry Griffin, Mark Poulier, Anita Matthews, Eliza Cottonwood, John Hurley, Jane-Frances Tannock, David Bailey, Asha Chetty and Graham Hubbard.

We are a little light on for volunteers for the de-installation Monday 8 th September – especially in the morning. If you are available from 10am onwards, we’d be very happy to see you in the Chandelier room. From there we will be transporting the artwork downstairs for collection from the studio. There’s no need to let me know – just turn up. If we’re not upstairs, we’ll be back downstairs.

Kind Regards,

Kirsten Tarry-Smith

Collect artwork 12 - 5pm Monday 8 September.

All artwork not sold, must be collected by the artist or representative, the day after the exhibition closes. Alternatively, collect your artwork at your weekly session, until Sunday 14 September. To make an alternative arrangement, contact vice-president@hawthornartistsociety.org

Artwork not collected by this time may be disposed of or given to the abstract painters to paint over.

Sold work will be packaged and the buyers will be contacted for collection from the studio.