Donna Saunders

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Illustration

Artist, Illustrator and Author, Donna Saunders lives and works from her home studio in Central Victoria, here she shares her home with her husband, two children and adorable pet guinea pigs. Freedom, self-expression through art, family, work and travel are important elements of Donna’s life and work practice. Donna's stories and illustrations are a mix of the imaginary world with everyday life. Paintings and drawings are a combination of painting mediums, painting surfaces and digital art.

Diana Coverdale

2021 Mentoring Program
2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Mixed Media Collage

Diana works with paper, thread, prose, poetry, fabric, paint and found objects to create layered pieces that tell stories of beauty and belonging, joy and whimsy. Her pieces speak of our personal and universal stories that connect and hold us all in ways that are nourishing and sustaining.

Craig Frankland (Final Edition)

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Sculpture

Final Edition is the creative practice of Craig Frankland, a teacher, designer & artist based in Dja Dja Wurrung land in Daylesford, Victoria. His current small sculptural works are fuelled by his passion for music, how we interact with it and how we listen to it.

Christine Lethlean

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Textile Arts

Christine Lethlean has been a practicing textile artist for 35 years and is known for her unique use of preloved textiles and rudimentary stitch as an art form. Christine’s work is diverse and is driven by her interest in the confluence of artistic disciplines, techniques, and ideas. Motivated by the impacts of living in a throw-away society, her art practice is underpinned by a ‘recycling philosophy’, consistently testing her ability to reclaim and incorporate discarded fabrics and fibres into her work. Christine is both tutor and mentor and manages a working studio, open to the public from her home base in Clunes. She facilitates classes and workshops across Victoria and interstate. She is also the regional coordinator of the annual Textile Palette Exhibition.

 www.christinelethleanartist.org

 www.textilepaletteexhibition.org

Carly Milroy

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Improvised Performance

Carly Milroy is a comic performer and playwright, with an obsession for telling Australian womens' stories. Since 2009 she has performed at theatres and festivals across Melbourne and Chicago. Carly receives daily training in acting the fool from her four kids, who are much funnier than her.

Camilla Watson

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Sculpture

Camilla has a B.A in Ceramic Design and a Dip Ed in Primary Teaching. She makes large mosaic functional pieces. She is resourceful and finds quirky porcelain pieces, whether it is a 3D figurine or an old cup and saucer that is gathering dust in an antique shop. Camilla then breaks it up and up-cycles it into a wonderful pattern, therefore breathing new life into it and creating a new masterpiece. She also runs Mosaic classes and takes Commissions.

 www.madebymill.com.au

Ben Howe

2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Painting & Sculpture

Ben Howe is a contemporary Australian painter and sculptor.  He holds a Masters of fine art degree with distinction from RMIT University. Known for his scientifically-surreal aesthetic, Howe has developed a method of image making that is at once hyper-realistic yet deeply concerned with the poetics of form and symbolism. Using elements of documentation and a great emphasis on process, Howe's ambiguous paintings are mostly derived from preliminary explorations in other media such as sculpture or film. His works frequently examine ideas relating to inconsistencies of memory, personal history and the nature of consciousness. Howe’s artwork is exhibited globally. He has had 21 solo exhibitions, including 2 retrospectives, and his work has been included in more than 60 group shows.

Amanda Western

2023 Mentoring Program
2022 Small Equipment Grant
Genre: Printmaking

Amanda Western has recently established a professional art practice and has created an independent body of work, focusing on linocut printmaking and watercolour paintings. Having a dedicated studio in Mt Helen, Ballarat, along with a handcrafted press with a substantial bed size, allows Amanda to produce large-scale prints. This setup provides her with the space and equipment necessary to fully explore her artistic vision and create impactful and detailed linocut prints.

Spencer Harrison

2022 Haymes Family Foundation Award
2022 Small Equipment Grant
2023 Mentoring Program
Genre: Digital Visual Art

Spencer is a visual artist establishing a practice in digital and video arts. BAF’s support will enable Spencer to acquire a high-performance computer with the capabilities necessary to support Spencer’s development in this rapidly evolving field.

https://spencerharrison.art/

Megan Riedl

2020 Jack Anderson Award for Filmmaking
2021 Mentoring Program
Genre: Spoken Word

A powerful spoken word performer, Megan was awarded Queensland Poetry’s 2021 XYZ Innovation in Spoken Word Prize and was a 2022 Finalist in the international online Your Place poetry Slam, an Australian Poetry Slam Victorian State Finalist for past three years, and a finalist for the 2019 Melbourne Spoken Word Prize. She has been commissioned as part of City of Ballarat’s creative COVID response, and by CresFEST, and created poetic calls to action for the Ballarat Greens and Let’s Talk Peace, Ballarat. She has featured at poetry events around Victoria including Mother Tongue, Melbourne Spoken Word, Wordcraft, Girls on Key, Brimbank Writers & Readers Festival and Chisholm Street. Megan’s written poetry has been featured in BabyTeeth journal and the Melbourne Writer’s Group’s Lockdown anthology and Ship Street Poetry’s Rise Up Rabid Souls anthology. She has exhibited writing in Ballarat-based literary projects Minerva Speaks, Weathering the Future and They Are Us, as well as the Immigration Museum’s Becoming You exhibition.  Megan’s plays and monologues have been produced by Tripwire Theatre Inc, Bendigo Theatre Company, Baggage Productions, Skin Of Our Teeth Productions, Theatre 3Triple2 and Wyndham Theatre Company. Her directing credits include Hysterica (Skin of Our Teeth), The Sum of Us (Creswick Theatre Company), Medea and Mr Bennet’s Bride (Ballarat National Theatre), Penance (Independent), The Carer (Hobo Playhouse) and five original self-produced plays with Tripwire Theatre Inc. In 2020, Megan participated in Melbourne Writers’ Theatre’s In One Act script development program. An active member of Ballarat’s arts scene, Megan is a member of the 13 Moons Collective, and an artist at Femxle Experience Art Rebellion. An alumni of Leadership Ballarat’s Leaders Program 2017, Megan has held board positions with Ballarat Writers and Spark Theatre and is currently the Executive Assistant for Ballarat Arts Foundation.

Megan lives on stolen Wadawurrung land in Ballarat with her two children and can be found at www.meganjriedl.com.

Jorde Heys

2012 Rotary Club of Ballarat South Award

Genre: Music

Contact: Yes

Jorden Hey's work:  https://jordeheys.com/home

Jorde Heys is an award-winning, Sydney-based composer whose output traverses a range of mediums, from concert works to music for stage and screen. His work seeks to create unifying and collaborative musical moments that meet at the intersection of distinct artistic disciplines.

With a background in classical performance, Jorde was awarded the Music Faculty and Os Nelson Scholarships to attend Queen’s College whilst undertaking his Bachelor of Music at The Conservatorium of Music at The University of Melbourne in 2013, studying piano under Mrs. Elizabeth Mitchell and Dr. Donna Coleman. Having had a passion for writing music from an early age, he subsequently majored in composition under composers A/Prof. Elliott Gyger and Dr. Katy Abbott. In 2016, he completed his Honours year in composition at the same institution under Prof. Stuart Greenbaum, winning the Melbourne Recital Centre and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Composition Prize for a commission of a piece, ego folium, which was premiered in April 2018 by early music specialists Latitude 37.

Whilst studying, he discovered a love for composing to narrative in a theatrical setting and received four commissions for dramatic underscoring by 2017. From here, Jorde began to branch into the world of film music, believing it to be an integral emotional facet of the art's collaborative psyche. Feeding into the umbrella idea of the ‘collaborative artistic whole’, and distilling this notion further within his discipline, he completed a Master of Arts Screen (Screen Composition) at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in 2019. Films featuring his work have screened widely both nationally and internationally, garnering several awards and many nominations. Jorde was awarded the Avid Award for Best Original Music in an Australian Short Film at Flickerfest 2021, and most recently, his music is currently exhibiting in commissioned work for both Sydney Opera House and University of Queensland Art Museum in collaboration with new media artist Xanthe Dobbie.

Jorde is a full member of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers and his profile can be viewed here.

Kaine Hansen

2021 Out of Round Grant
2019 Nicholson Award for Contemporary Performance

Genre: Music

Receiving a grant in 2019 enabled Kaine Hansen’s band Saint Ivory (now known as Apex Bloom) to work in a professional studio and make a recording of their latest songs.

An update from the band (March 2020):
Here are some of the photos from the studio! All in all the whole week was an incredible experience, we all learnt so much individually but even more together as a band. We’re so excited to share the music to the world and expect that the first single will be out in early June.