When North East Artisans confirmed that Wednesday, August 31 would be its last day of trading the Ensign popped along to mark the sad occasion.
However, upon entering its soon to be former home there were a lot more smiles than expected.
Benalla’s deSales Turner, while confirming she would be the last president of NEA, which, as of September 1, no longer exists, had just left a meeting with Maggie Fanning, principal of EdSpace.
“When one door closes, another opens,” Ms Turner said.
“When we realised that we had to close here (28 B & C, Carrier St) we started a search to find new premises.
“We looked at all kinds of commercial properties.
“We spoke with council, who have been incredibly supportive, and put the word out via public advertising, through articles in the Ensign and through social media.
"But as hard as we looked and as hard as we tried we couldn’t find anything affordable.
“We came to the sad realisation we would have to close.”
Ms Turner then called a general meeting with all members and outlined a plan to continue as North East Artisans, but without a shop.
“That motion was rejected,” she said.
“A lot of members decided that due to the circumstances it was time to call it a day.”
At the conclusion of that meeting NEA was no more.
However, Ms Turner said that while preparing to move out and wrap things up she received a visit from Ms Fanning.
“That came out of the blue,” she said.
Ms Fanning asked Ms Turner what she thought about the idea of moving NEA into the EdSpace coffee shop at 22a Carrier St.
While NEA was already defunct, Ms Turner and a group of former members decided to keep an art collective going, albeit under a new name, and take up Ms Fanning’s offer.
The new collective is tentatively named Locally Made Art — the Heart of Art in Benalla.
However, Ms Turner still needs to confirm this with members.
“So this is two community organisations providing an opportunity for local artists to continue to display, and sell, their work,” she said.
“And both are focused on supporting the community, particularly young people.
“From EdSpace’s perspective we have agreed to run a series of workshops with students as part of the partnership.
“Those will be primarily determined by what the students want. We know they are keen to learn how to do metal work.
“We’ve spoken to (one of our members) Tony Levy about that, and he is keen to run some workshops.
“And I’m keen to run one showing how to create art from pieces of fabric.”
These workshops will be run exclusively for students, although Ms Turner said the plan was for the new art collective to also run community workshops, much as NEA did.
Ms Fanning said EdSpace was an independently registered specialist school focused on capability building.
“We are a public benevolent institution,” Ms Fanning said.
“We started the school as parents with kids who are neurodiverse or have other disabilities that impact their success in mainstream schooling.”
The café was opened around two years ago with the aim of developing real world skills to assist students into work after graduating.
“For us this is not about making money. It’s about training our students,” Ms Fanning said.
“The key thing about this collaboration for us is to have our students involved.
“This allows us to have local artists sharing their expertise and also allows our students to get more involved with community participation.
“And, of course, having the art in the café looks beautiful and it creates an attractive place for people to want to come and have a coffee.”
The EdSpace coffee shop is open from 9.30am to 12.30pm weekdays.
Ms Fanning said she would be talking with Ms Turner and the other artists involved to see if they wanted to have a volunteer in the shop to allow it to open on afternoons as well.
On top of offering a valuable educational experience, the café sells a range of food including cakes, sausage rolls, pies, muffins and much more.
Ms Turner and other art collective members were busy moving their final bits and pieces into the café on Thursday, September 1.
If you’re looking for a place to view locally produced art and enjoy some food and drink while doing your bit to support two fantastic community organisations there is no better place than the EdSpace café on Carrier St.
Find out more about Ed Space on Facebook @EdSpace I.T. Café.