A SEACHANGE and a health pandemic has been the driver behind the establishment of a hub for creative minds at Wauchope.
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Launching on July 10, the Wauchope Creative Hub is the brainchild of Sydney designer Stu Doherty.
Stu describes himself as a "COVID refugee" who packed up his life in Redfern with his dog Ziggy last year, for the good life in Wauchope.
Stu was one of Australia's leading corporate designers with a successful career spanning over three decades designing fashion and ultimately corporate uniforms for huge companies such as KingGee, Bisley, BUPA, Thrifty, NRMA, RACQ, and Kennards Hire to name a few.
Then in 2020, he found himself unemployed overnight due to COVID redundancy.
Creativity runs in the family and is passed down from his mother Marlene who was a sewing and craft teacher for over 40 years.
Stu and his sister Christine are carrying on the creative family tradition.
Stu's sister Christine Pearce, a 35-year Wauchope resident, is a renowned fibre artist specialising in felting Australian Merino wool and also creates a dazzling array of hand knits and crochet items very popular with the local community.
She has been selling goods at the local artist markets for over a decade.
After a few months adjusting to his new country lifestyle and selling his watercolour paintings at the local art market, Stu established a growing network of local arts and crafts people that needed a 'home base'.
This became the foundation for Wauchope Creative Hub (WCH).
Stu and Christine established the not for profit space to bring together the local arts and crafts community under one colourful roof in Wauchope.
Set up as a co-op, it provides a much needed permanent gallery space, creative workshop space and huge showroom for over 20 local arts and crafts people.
"People started coming out of the woodwork once I put WCH on Facebook '' Stu said.
"WCH is about bringing together very talented local artists and forming a collective where they can create, exhibit, collaborate and sell their unique goods."
The hub is supported by Creative Wauchope, an initiative of the Wauchope Chamber of Commerce and has delighted the Port Macquarie-Hastings Council economic development officers who look to Wauchope as the new creative centre of the Mid North Coast.
WCH will open on Saturday, July 10 with an inaugural visual art group show.
The exhibition titled Autumn75 will showcase the works of over 25 established and emerging visual artists from the Port Macquarie-Hastings region.
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