We’ve got a big weekend coming up at ACC with the Christmas Makers Market on Saturday from 10am-1pm, and the Alphington Open Studios event also on.

If you’d like to pop past on Friday night between 5-7pm you can help us celebrate the opening of the salon exhibition at ACC that is part of the Alphington Open Studios weekends. Our salon exhibition includes works from all the artists with their studios open over the next two weekends plus works by other local artists. It should give you a lovely snapshot of what’s on offer … Share a drink with us, admire the art, collect a map (if you haven’t got one in your letterbox already) and then plan to take a neighbourhood walk and visit local artists in their studios over the next two weekends. Find out more here.

Then come back on Saturday morning for our Christmas Makers Market. We have 25 stallholders who have been busy making lovely things. This is a great opportunity for you to buy local and support your neighbours creative endeavours this year for Christmas presents.

We hope you can make it!

We are delighted to feature the whimsical drawings of Marianna Marx on the fence at ACC as part of the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery.

Marianna runs Gloworm Studios down in Fairfield (on the south side of Fairfield train station) and it is wonderful to be able to showcase and support her artistic endeavours in our local community.

You can find further information about her and the works in the ANG exhibition here. And then … take a walk past ACC and check them out on our fence!

I saw this video being shared this week on the Alphington Facebook page, and I thought I’d also share it, because the Be You T Fool street art on the Chandler Bridge is just so wonderful … and it is so interesting to learn the story behind it.

I hope you enjoy it too.

Some nice pics from our garden beds today.

We’re hoping to build up our gardening program over the coming year and make the most of our garden space.

If you enjoy gardening you might like to think about joining us on a Friday morning? We’d love to see you when we reopen.

In the face of big issues we all naturally feel a little lost and helpless. But here are some practical things you can do to change the filter and/or make a difference:

• Sign up and petition for regular arts industry stories on the news! How great would it be to see one story a night about creative people doing their amazing things. This is a movement to make the arts more visible and to tell more good news stories.

Image from local Northcote artist @taisnaith.

• Speaking of which, choose to read Good News on the ABC news app. For example this week you can read about Zarna Carter, a non-Indigenous landholder, who freely gave the Nukunu Wapma Thura (NWT) Aboriginal Corporation her 12.1-hectare (30-acre) property in the Flinders Ranges here. Or check out some hilarious videos from a prep teacher called Mr Jackson in NSW (they call it kinder there) who is well and truly keeping his class and the parents entertained during lockdown here.

• Contribute to Australian artist Ben Quilty’s fund to raise money for the UNHCR efforts in Afghanistan. He leveraged some big donors to match small donations, and $1 million donated became $4 million. His campaign is still going.

• Donate food like rice and pasta, tinned tomatoes, lentils and honey along with essential everyday items like toothpaste, shampoo and deodorant to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and support refugee families here in Australia. We’re a collection point. Andy is here on Thursday mornings from 10am to 12pm to receive your donations, before driving them over to Footscray. Note you can leave your donations in the dark grey roller shed just inside the side gate anytime if no one is here!