MARY–ROSE Riley was born and spent her childhood in Traralgon, south of this area across the Great Dividing Range. She has lived in Stanley for close to nine years.
What's your job?
I'm a visual artist and educator.
What brought you to this role?
When I was nineteen, at teacher's college in Melbourne, the art teacher told me I should be at Art School. I said, "What?" There's a school where you just do art every day? That was a turning point. But I was enamoured of the beauty of the natural world from a very young age. And I had discovered that drawing was a way to understand whatever I saw.
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What do you love about your job?
The ideas mostly, and playing with various materials. The process of making something deepens my understanding of whatever ideas I'm exploring, be it through drawing or painting or sculpture. It becomes a dialogue, firstly between me and the work, and then between the work and anyone who views it once it's out in the world. This is what I love about teaching too, the spark that jumps between two or more minds. I love the moment when a light turns on in a student's eyes when they recognise some wonder in their own or someone else's work.
What do you do in the community?
I'm part of a small group of artists in Stanley. We meet once a month. Earlier this year we put on an exhibition to encourage each other and to share what we do with the community and beyond. I help out the Stanley Hall committee if needed, and am in the process of training as a volunteer for the locally run post office.
What is the most important current community issue for you?
The lack of a thriving centre in Stanley since the close of the school and the general store, where people naturally gather.
What would you do to solve, change or improve that situation?
I would like to see Stanley reinstated as a township so that small businesses can open in the centre of town. It would be good to have a thriving hub that runs on more than the hard work of volunteers who are trying to keep all of the public facilities afloat.
What's the most important current world issue for you?
Waste, environmental concerns, and poverty. It seems to me they're all linked by a culture of excess at one end and severely limited access to resources and education at the other. The good work being done by many people, especially on a community level is beginning to change this.
If the person you would most like to meet came to Indigo, or was already here, who would that be and what would you show them?
I would like to have met my Dutch grandmother. I would take her for a walk up in the Dingle, the forest behind us here, and have a picnic at Murmungee Lookout.
Why would you show her that?
To give her a sense of her daughter and grand–daughter's life here on the other side of the world. Mum and I both love a beautiful long view.
What book are you reading?
I always have a couple on the go. Wolf Kahn's America: An Artist's Travels. He's a landscape painter who also writes stories of his travels. And 'Grown Ups' – a novel by Irish author Marian Keyes.
