The first bi-monthly Collectif Coffee House of 2024 was a humdinger.

A re-envisioned and refreshed creative hub is how Lourens Joubert, the Priest’s Mill Art Centre’s Executive Director described PMAC to CAGAC members at our get together.

And it’s exciting news! A boutique gallery, with more than 300sqft of hanging space and more than 140 lft of shelves, furnished to gallery standards is something to celebrate. The studio space is also being re-engineered to be flexible. Although the Centre will remain glass-centric, a great deal of attention is being focused on going beyond glass. Good news for even more of our members.

The focus, says Lourens, is on creating a collaborative creative hub where our community can engage in enriching creative experiences — where aspiring and established artists alike can collaborate in a nurturing environment, showcase their work, and thrive.

The preview of work in progress and what’s to come certainly seized attention. And generated questions. Lots of them. The enthusiastic audience peppered Lourens with 20 minutes of hard-hitting queries.

There’s great promise here. The gallery is expected to be open towards the end of February, and the first of several studio configurations shortly thereafter. Lourens did caution though that developing the Centre to its full potential is a multi-year project mapped out to 2030.

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Our next Coffee House will be 18 March, 7 p.m., at the Sandfield Centre