Like all good ideas, this one was simple and all the more powerful for it. Match an artist with a tradesman or craft worker and make an exhibition of their collaborations. Out of that comes The Wooden Boat Exchange, a project developed by Craftsouth in partnership with Country Arts SA linking wooden boat builders and allied trades based in and around Goolwa with visual artists, craftspeople and designers, leading into the South Australian Wooden Boat Festival that concluded last weekend.
The matched collaborators were printmaker Chris De Rosa and ceramicist James Edwards with Armfield Slip & Boatshed; jeweller Joanne Haifawi with Ben Smith from New Growth Surfboards; ceramicist Gerry Wedd with Nick Brauer from his eponymous Wooden Surfboards; and wood worker Martin Corbin with Randal Cooper from Goolwa Masts and Welding.
