User:Iantroberts

Ian Roberts

(Bird & Flower Artist at Blyth, South Australia

'Planting the seed'

Ian Roberts was “thrown into” community work as a teenager, but it has since evolved to become his life’s work.

In the beginning

Ian, a farmer-turned-artist, got his first taste of community work at 15. He was invited to the town’s Progress Association and at his first meeting was told: “Roberts, you’re secretary”. Also taking on the role of treasurer, Ian found an organisation that was $22 in debt. So he drew on the experience of his father, treasurer of the Blyth Football Club, and slowly began to realise a profit. For the people of Blyth, Padnaindi Reserve, a public space with a shelter, barbecue area, lawn and kangaroos, was the first taste of Ian’s organisational prowess. Ian says that this early introduction to community work set the scene for what has become a lifelong pursuit. It also provided him with a place to channel his creative energy and endless supply of ideas.

Planting another seed

For Ian, another insomnia-inducing idea was a Community Tree Planting Day. Each year in mid-August, 40 people from Blyth take to the plains with shovels and seedlings and plant up to 7,000 trees. It is this work, while perhaps less newsworthy than the Blyth Cinema, that Ian is most proud of. “While the cinema might not be around in five years time, some of the trees will be here 500 years from now,” he said. Perhaps mistaken as a one-day event by the uninitiated, it is a year long undertaking for Ian, who grows the seedlings, chooses a location and then sprays for weeds. He also continues to plant trees throughout the year. Now sixteen years on, the trees are changing the previously bare landscape of the Blyth Plains, as well as providing a rich environment for native animals and birds.

From ploughing to painting

The only thing that diverts Ian’s attention from his community schemes is painting, and yet even from this, the community benefits. In 1984, when he could no longer ignore his penchant for painting birds, Ian bought Blyth’s original Lutheran Church and turned it into Medika Gallery, a place to sell local art and crafts and a place where he could paint. Many people advised Ian to set up in Mintaro, a quaint and historic haven in the Clare Valley for artists and craft enthusiasts. “I’ve been to Clare, but not to Blyth” was a phrase Ian had heard too often, and so he established Medika Gallery to entice visitors to Blyth. Ian is now recognised as one of Australia’s premier bird painters and Medika Gallery has won several tourism awards. He see's his main task in life is to paint all 950 or so Eucalypt species at the juvenile or seedling stage.Media:Example.ogg

A Life’s Work

Ian’s list of community involvement seems endless – Blyth Development Board, District Council of Blyth, Emergency Fire Service, Blyth Football Club, Progress Association, Blyth Hospital Board – the list goes on and will keep on going on. “I could quite happily retire now and do community work five days a week,” he said. “That’s where I see my life’s work.” And there’s certainly no sign of Ian’s ideas drying up. There’s the Wheat and Barley Museum, the catalogue of historic Blyth photographs, the café addition to the Blyth Cinema…and more sleepless nights ahead.

Ian Roberts is plagued by ideas – three a week on average, in fact. And while they torment him in the middle of the night, some would say they are the saving grace of Blyth, a small farming community in the mid-North of South Australia. Blyth is best described as a quaint country town, set amongst pastoral and grazing land on the flat and expansive Blyth Plains. Once a large rural centre fuelled by the comings and goings of a railway, Blyth is now home to about 300 people, a mixture of farming folk, families, workers and even retirees looking for a peaceful country existence.

A Cinema in the sticks

It was Ian’s idea to turn Blyth’s old Masonic Hall into a city-equivalent cinema, giving people, especially 16 to 30 year-olds, an alternative social activity on Friday and Saturday nights. Too many times, Ian had heard young locals bemoaning the fact that there is nothing to do in the country. So in true, Ian “can do” Roberts-style, he took the seed of an idea, drew his community together and with $150,000 of his own money, made Blyth Cinema a reality. Now in its second year of operation, Blyth Cinema is $10,000 in profit and averages an audience of 70 people per movie. For those expecting a flat floor and blackened windows, walking into Blyth Cinema is guaranteed to surprise. Ian’s idea was to replicate the look, feel and quality of a city cinema and he has achieved that with help from local tradespeople and a retired designer, together with seats and fittings from a cinema chain in Sydney. Even the quality of the curtains – required to absorb the sound - was taken into consideration. Thirty volunteers from Blyth and nearby Clare work together to debate film selections, sell tickets and treats from the Candy Bar and ensure a technically trouble-free screening. Any profit from the venture is saved in the event of equipment breakdowns or upgrades and to support other local events. For Ian, 54, Blyth Cinema represents the pinnacle of his community achievements, as well as the attainment of a personal goal - to bring one of his “big” ideas to fruition. “I needed to do one big thing in my life, to prove to myself that I could do it”, he said. The injection of his own funds into the project meant that Ian didn’t have to “go cap in hand to the government”. He also jokingly rationalises his philanthropy as an alternative vice. “I’ve never smoked, drank or gambled. So it’s my prerogative to do this.”

Community kinship

Blyth is a proud community with a handful of shops in the main street, a 50-student primary school, a post office and a pub. Like many small towns, one of its greatest challenges is to maintain a community connection. Television, DVDs and the Internet encourage more people to stay indoors, while the closure of local shops forces people to do their shopping at larger regional centres, reducing those accidental “down the street” meetings. Ian says Blyth Cinema has helped to entice people out of their homes. “That was one of the surprises when we had our first steering committee – there were all these people that I hadn’t seen on any committee before, that came out of the woodwork.”

Writer unknown(questions refer Ian Roberts email medika@adam.com.au )Ian Roberts 12-12-09 Web address www.medikagallery.com.au