Report of the Alice Springs Beanie Festival 2010.
In 2010, the Alice Springs Beanie Festival celebrated its fourteenth event. Over 9000 visitors came through the doors to participate and enjoy the 4 days of activities.

Lead Up to the Festival
The lead up to the festival involved workshops to develop beanie making skills for the residents of Ernabella, Titjikala, Ti Tree, Willuna, Irrkerlentye Arts Centre, Alice Springs Aboriginal Hostels, the Healing Centre and many local schools of Alice Springs. These workshops were funded by an NT Arts Arts Grant and the Beanie Festival. The workshops were well attended and allowed for the active participation of Indigenous beanie makers and children in the festival.
The women created works of beanie art for the exhibition, and beanies to sell in the market place. The women were also invited to participate in the festival, some being paid to demonstrate traditional spinning, some teaching basket weaving and beanie making, and some visiting and experiencing the festival for the first time. The women also cooked kangaroo tail in fire pits for visitors, providing a fantastic cultural experience as women sat by a fire, talking and singing in language, spinning, crocheting and attending the cooking. For the first time the women from the Healing Centre ran a stall to sell bush medicines and to demonstrate how to make them.
On the Friday evening family fun night, Peta Appleyard (Gallery owner) opened the festivities, which continued with entertainment highlighted by several local bands and entertainers, a parade of the winning beanies and stalls selling home-made tucker.

2010 Competition
The exhibition was held in Gallery One of the Araluen Galleries. It comprised over 400 beanies from 380 beanie makers from around Australia and the world and highlighting works produced by the remote workshops.

2010 Festival Weekend was a Huge Success
Over 5000 visitors from the NT and from interstate visited the exhibition, and it was featured on television news nationally through Imparja, ABC, and National Indigenous Television, Stories also featured in various newspapers and radio interviews around Australia and internationally.
In Beanie Central over 5000 beanies were received and visitors purchased some 4000 of them. Visitors also participated in many textile workshops, enjoyed home-grown cooking at the teashop, went on bush beanie dinners, and as tradition will have it were invited to have a go at the Beanie Olympics or learn to crochet their very first beanie.

A Head Full Of Love

Written by: Alana Valentine, Directed by: Wesley Enoch
Co-commissioned by Darwin Festival, Red Dust Theatre and 32' - Browns Mart Producing Hub.

Australian playwright Alana Valentine has researched and written a stage play set at the Alice Springs Beanie Festival.
Head Full of Love draws a portrait of the relationships which develop and are enhanced by this visual art and community-building event. The play vocalizes the understanding and cultural exchange that happens between Arrernte and non-indigenous women. Telling the story of two women;
one an Indigenous regular and the other a Beanie Festival first-timer, stories emerge of the women’s lives, of hardship and suffering, of joy and survival.
A highlight of this year’s festival was the play reading of Alana Valentine’s “A Head Full of Love” held in the Araluen theatre. The play was developed further to open at the Darwin Festival in August 2010.
Jo Nixon was hired as costume designer and beanie consultant and worked with the cast to develop the play. At the Darwin Festival Jo Nixon and Adi Dunlop ran beanie making workshops prior to each of the 8 shows. Over 20 people learnt to make beanies each night and the true spirit of the beanie festival was alive in the Darwin heat! The play was sold out for every show and received many accolades both locally and nationally (see attachments), thus spreading the beanie story far and wide. The play then went to Cairns for 3 nights at the Cairns Festival, then back to Alice Springs for 4 shows at the Alice Desert Festival. Plans are underway for more regional touring throughout Australia in 2012.

Thankyou to Our Volunteers
Managing the large number of volunteers willing to help during the festival has become a challenge. Over 150 people helped out over 8 days. We had a volunteer’s dinner with thanks to the Gillen Club and the Centralian Advocate for subsiding the food and many other sponsors who donated prizes for the evening.

Thankyou to Our Sponsors
In 2010 our major sponsor Cleckheaton was able to get back on board and support us with prizes and donations of yarns for our workshops. Due to the great response from 2009 supporters we also went to the local community to value add to our prizes. Sponsors were invited to a pre exhibition opening to view the Exhibition Beanies, hear some of their stories and enjoy some morning tea. Our sponsors included:
MacDonnell Range Caravan Park,
Felt Magazine,
Yarn Magazine,
Ashfords Australia,
Red Kangaroo Books
Lisa Waller
Polkadot,
Leaping Lizard Gallery
Stuart Caravan Park
Hon Paul Henderson, Chief Minister
Adam Giles MLA
Community Enterprises Australia
Centralian Advocate,
Textile Fibre Forum,
Mayor Damien Ryan,
TourismNT,
Araluen Arts Centre,
Hon Warren Snowdon MP,
Lasseter’s Casino
Dymocks Bookstore,
The Gillen Club,
Grace Removals,
Brushcraft,
XLCOM.

Colours of the Country II
2010 also saw the National Beanie Tour “Colours of the Country II” commence with new beanies added to the collection and the exhibition opening in Benalla Art Gallery in June. The tour is booked until 2013.

Office Space
Our other big news is our first official office space at Red Hot Arts, with many thanks to ArtsNT for providing this for us; we look forward to being out there in the community more and forming closer ties with the other Alice Springs Arts Orgs.

Tourism Central Australia Award
Finally, in September 2010, the Beanie Festival won the Tourism Central Australia Award for the best festival/community event.
The 2010 festival was an enormous success and we thank the Remote Festival Fund for their assistance allowing us to enhance and develop the festival.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Workshops

Marg Lanne & Maryanne Noonan facilitated the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Workshops, working towards The Melbourne Satellite Reef as part of The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project


They worked on the Recycled Materials Reef to highlight the amount of plastic waste we generate
The Bleached Reef highlighting the effects of global warming on the ecology of coral reef systems
The Main Hyperbolic Reef a healthy reef in all it's splendour

All donated crochet coral pieces were included in the Exhibition at Burrinja Gallery, Spring 2010 and
kept for future showings of The Melbourne Reef.

Blue Denim Travelling Exhibition

Fibrecrafters FNQ Cairns made their way to the Alice Springs Beanie Festival.
Their work included contemporary and traditional bobbin lace, quilting,
weaving, paintings, knitting and crochet.
June Marriott Gallery, Central Craft