As some of you may know, I’ve been teaching painting to the participants at Community Rehab NQ for two hours per week since October last year. The theme was community and home. The aim was to create a number of paintings on 60 cm x 40 cm plywood that would be used as wall panelling in a ‘beach shack’.

In April, our ‘Beach Shack’ was accepted as an exhibit in Strand Ephemera, Townsville’s major biennial sculpture exhibition.

With install day rapidly approaching, a team of clients, rehab staff, Occupational Therapy students, and volunteers worked hard building and painting the frame and the roof. These were constructed in sections so that they could be bolted together on site. The backs of each of the 53 panels were painted white and each work was varnished twice.

On Install Day 1, a team of volunteers transported the shack and bolted it together. On the second day of installation, all 53 works were inserted into the framework, text and photos were mounted inside, and the building given a final lick of paint. Then everyone stood back and basked in the glow of the praise that members of the public were already heaping on the ‘Beach Shack’.