Malinda and I have recently paid several visits to Strathalbyn, a quaint little town on South Australia’s beautiful Fleurieu Peninsula. So charmed were we by the town and it’s friendly population on our first visit, that we started thinking it might be a nice place to buy a house and eventually settle.

On the other hand, although I knew there is a locally-organised “Art-Trail” in Strathalbyn, I was wondering whether such an out-of-the-way place would provide me with enough creative stimulation to push me on in my artistic journey. Quaint may not be what my art needs.

In the course of our first excursion there, we’d popped in to a delightful little gallery run by Helen Stacey, a very accomplished but at the same time quite humble Strathalbyn artist. We had got chatting, and yesterday went back to stay at her Bed’n’Breakfast. A lovely friendship seems now to be developing.

We have discovered that Helen is full of knowledge, not only about Strathalbyn, but also about the local art scene, and indeed about art in general.

I mentioned to her I am doing a course in life drawing and have to think of a couple of essay topics. When I mentioned that I am a criminal defense lawyer working in one of the most a socio-economically disadvantaged areas in the State, her eyes lit up and she immediately put everything together for my essay topics and my artistic future.

She thought I could write one essay about several influential figurative artists with an interest in social justice. She thought of Noel Counihan, an Australian artist who came to prominence in the post-war era and used his art to further his communist views, and George Gittoes, who uses his art to communicate the reality of human suffering, and, like a journalist, goes where the suffering is. I don’t know much about these artists, but was most inspired and will definitely follow them up.

The other essay topic she thought of is about the use of art as therapy for prisoners, and she rattled off two or three people she knows who are right into this, and who I might like to interview.

This is the sort of inspiration I need. I have been trying to give form to some very vague thoughts about the next direction my artistic pursuits might take. With my professional background placing me in amongst the most under-privileged in our society, an obvious opportunity arises to use my artistic abilities somehow in connection with this.

If this degree of stimulation is any sort of indicator of whether Strathalbyn will be a good place for my artistic pursuits to grow in, I am even more charmed than I was after my first visit.