Local artist Robyn Jackson won the Doreen Cameron Memorial Award and first prize in the Open Section at this year’s Cowra Show and there’s one person in particular she would like to thank.
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Mrs Jackson has dedicated her win to her Cowra High School art teacher, Mrs Anne Stanley, formerly Anne Slattery.
Mrs Jackson says it was Mrs Slattery’s dedication to her students that inspired her to further pursue art.
“I went to school in Cowra High School from 1964 till 1968,” Mrs Jackson said.
“For those four years, she totally inspired me, not just in my art but I wanted to become an art teacher of her, and I did.”
Mrs Jackson went on to study at an Art School in Sydney.
Remarkably, three members of her high school art class taught by Mrs Slattery, were in the same class.
“An amazing achievement for a little town like Cowra and an amazing Art Teacher,” Mrs Jackson said.
Her work, a mixed media piece, was inspired by her travels in the Australian outback with her husband Greg.
“My husband and I spent four months travelling around the Northern Territory and Western Australia,” Mrs Jackson said.
“We fell in love with the Kimberly region, loved all of the colours of the rocks and especially the way they reflected the light at twilight.”
Mrs Jackson used corrugated cardboard to create a sense of depth in the work and capture the atmosphere.
The work was on display in the Pavilion at the Cowra Show.
But it’s not just Mrs Jackson that has developed a passion for art, it seems to run in the family too with her son now an art teacher and her daughter a professional artist exhibiting in London and Berlin.
“The cycle continues,” Mrs Jackson said.
She hopes that teachers both past and present will feel proud about their efforts in teaching local students.
“I really want to encourage teacher in the vital role they have in influencing their students,” she said.
“Teachers get too many knocks and not enough congratulations.”
