Presented by Buda Historic Home and Garden

Buda’s Secret Garden

Buda Historic Home and Garden have created the Secret Garden, a haven of curiosity for all ages. In recent years, Buda has held a Traditional Arts Fair, and for the festival it will explore the themes of traditional, horticultural and culinary arts. At set times throughout the festival, the Secret Garden will host exhibitions, hands-on workshops, talks and site-specific artworks, as well as a treasure hunt to encourage foragers of all ages to wander around the garden and discover hidden delights.

General entry to Buda’s House and Garden $5–$12 (pay at venue). No bookings required.

Festival duration.
Daily 12pm – 5pm.
42 Hunter Street,
Castlemaine

Susannah Fullerton – The Gardens of Jane Austen – CANCELLED

 

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing COVID19 situation and the uncertainty regarding boarder closures, we have had to cancel this event. please get in touch with the Castlemaine State Festival for any queries.

admin@budacastlemaine.org

Susannah Fullerton – Vita Sackville-West and Sissinghurst

Susannah Fullerton is Sydney’s best-known speaker on well-known authors and their works.

She breathes life into great literature and an author’s life. Her talks are partly to instruct, but also to entertain, so she tells people all the juicy details about the life of the writer and how a particular incident in their lives might have affected what they wrote.

She gives her audience the experience of having known an author personally and her meticulously researched talks vividly describe the life and times of an era and bring her subjects to lives to life. People come along who just want to learn more about great literature.

Including wine and cheese in the fully airconditioned Garden Room at Buda, Susannah will present, via a live-stream address, a captivating insight into Vita-Sackville-West and the Sissinghurst garden.

After the live-streamed event, the audience will be treated to an exclusive behind-the-scenes twilight tour of the Buda grounds, complete with intriguing stories of life after dark in this very special place and the surrounding goldfields.

Sunday 21 March, 5pm

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Lorena Carrington Literary Talk – Fairy Tales and Secret Gardens

Join photographic artist and illustrator Lorena Carrington as she takes you on a tour of her artworks via her books in the Garden Room at Buda, and also on a tour of the landscapes within them.

From the backyards and bush of Castlemaine, to the gardens, forests and windswept shores of France and Ireland, hear how Lorena weaves the natural world into strange and fantastical fairy tale illustrations.
Lorena Carrington is published in Australia with Serenity Press, and internationally with Kane Miller (US) and Wydawnictwo Tadam (Poland). Her books include the Long Lost Fairy Tales Collection with Kate Forsyth and French Fairy Tales with Sophie Masson.

Lorena exhibits regularly in galleries including the Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in Melbourne, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery in Sydney and The Art Vault in Mildura. She presents at literary and arts festivals around Australia, and visits schools and libraries to give talks and hold workshops on illustration, books and story. She is the recipient of the 2020 Australian Fairy Tale Society award, for her “outstanding contribution to the field of Australian Fairy Tales.”

Wednesday 24 & Thursday 25 March, 4pm

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Lorena Carrington – Cyanotype Workshop

Lorena Carrington is a photographic illustrator and artist who has worked with some of Australia’s best-loved authors.

Her cyanotype workshop is much loved by artists and writers, children and adults. Participants explore their local surroundings and use found objects, and the cyanotype process (one of the earliest forms of photographic printing), to create their own montaged creatures and landscapes.

In these workshops, you will explore the Buda garden to find inspiration for your own artworks. Paint your background and make a bird from leaves, a house from sticks, or a secret garden from flowers and feathers.

These are workshops for all ages and abilities, as the montage technique is an opportunity for stress-free creative play, and pleasure in the environment.

Children’s Workshop Sat 20 March, 10am
Teenager’s Workshop Sat 20 March 1pm
Adults Workshop Sat 27 March, 2pm

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Andrea McKey – Felt Garden Workshop

Master of Buda Traditional Arts workshops, Andrea McKey will help you use very simple sewing, cutting and embroidery techniques to make colourful and joyous garden elements similar to those seen in her Buda Secret Garden vignettes, to take home and brighten up your day.

Andrea will provide:

  • Her handmade wool felt in a variety of colours and designs
  • Bits and bobs, beads, buttons, embroidery cottons, wood, sculptural pieces, stuffing, needles and scissors

Andrea is passionate about art, colour, patterns and the joy it brings to her life every day. She believes in the joy of dreams, ideas and materials, the teaching, the learning, the making, the giving and receiving. Art is such a giver of joy, first to the maker, then the buyer and/or the receiver.

Snacks and drinks will be provided as part of the workshop.

Workshop 5pm Tuesday 23rd March

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