East End Gallery

“Heavenly Beverley” was born in July 2014. The title for my blog was taken from a close friend, Meredith, an expression which she used to describe this quaint little Wheatbelt town.

After settling into the House that Rocks in January 2011, we were inundated by carloads of escapees from the Big Smoke. Although the stream of visitors has slowed, we have a dedicated guest room for the purpose of receiving runaways.

I kept a diary of our first year in Beverley, which culminated in our wedding. Then I turned to Facebook to record the stories of our everyday life. My son, Callum, complained I was using Facebook as a blog. Whatever a blog was.

Callum’s lovely lady, Bronwyn, set up my blog with its backdrop of a glass of vino. My initial posts were pretty basic. Then, as I learnt, I became more adventurous. I downloaded photos, I shared my blog on Facebook and gingerly explored the blog’s settings. My knowledge and manipulation of the blog are still somewhat limited, but I am reasonably happy with my efforts.

I write about our home, our animals, our neighbours, our friends, our trips and our building. I record triumphs and tragedies, miracles and mishaps and everything in between.

I enjoy the blog as a break from my more sustained writing. Although I hope to be a published author, I am not holding my breath. I think the “Heavenly Beverley” will be around for quite some time. It is far too much fun!

In November 2010, Kate and Michael drove up to Beverley to buy the House that Rocks. We signed all the required paperwork, which then had to be photocopied. Our real estate agent’s “office”, which contained her photocopier, was in a group of four decrepit shops on Vincent Street (the main drag of Beverley) with an attached “residence” out the back. And so we met the Forbes Building.

Michael was smitten on the spot. With a torch to navigate, he plunged his way into its innards. 390 square metres of building, two parcels of land with separate titles and more work needed to salvage the place than we ever could have imagined…

The Forbes building had been around for generations of families living and working in Beverley. The original wooden shops, evident from before 1914, gave way for a new brick building, photographed in 1919 at the dedication of the War Memorial across the road. Then in 1929, DH Forbes bought the building, extended and renovated it. He also changed the facade to the one present to this day. Tenants had included a rural supplies shop, tea rooms, hairdresser, bakery, deli, dressmaker, drum depot and most recently, a second-hand business.

The building was nominally for sale. The owners in 2010 had thought they could buy it, renovate it quickly and turn a quick buck. The amount they wanted for the shops was beyond our financial capabilities, so we had to walk away…

But the building kept drawing us in. Over 18 months, Michael visited the building, explored it, dreamed about it, drew it, and longed for it. I thought the Forbes Building was a disaster. The amount of time, effort and money seemed insurmountable.

The Forbes Building was under offer in early 2012. Then the sale fell through. Michael was elated and terrified. He convinced me to take another look through the building. I walked through it again, trying to imagine what Michael could see.

Then, much to my amazement, I saw past the piles of rubble, the disintegrating walls, doors that led nowhere, the rising damp, the smell and the cavernous cracks. The soaring pressed tin ceilings were beautiful, the wooden floorboards were salvageable and there was enough space under the main roof to hopefully renovate without the need for an extension.

The so-called “residence” – a one bedroom solo unit – could have minimal improvements in order to rent it out. At last, I could glimpse its potential

We put in an offer. Somehow the miracle happened. The Forbes Building became ours in July 2012. We had an indoor BBQ to celebrate! Most of our friends thought we were quite mad.

Then the work started. Power connection. Dave the Brave, our electrician, found ancient wiring, a burnt out meter box and the remains of a long departed cat in the ceiling. The job was mammoth and expensive. But gradually, all our extension cords disappeared, each shop had its own meter and electricity became a reality. Until the roof leaked and fried the new meter in Shop 4!

Michael’s trips to the roof were frequent. He cleaned and hosed and repaired and sealed. Gradually, the leaks were stopping. The building was drying out at last.

Filling, bogging, plastering and painting the internal walls never ceased. Once one crack was repaired, a new one appeared without warning. The cracks also opened or contracted depending on the season. The back door of Shop 1 jammed due to the movement of the building on multiple occasions. Michael planed that door again and again and had to move the handle and the lock because they just wouldn’t line up anymore.

Some of the cracks were so wide I could put my arm inside the wall. We repaired the first two shops, painted them, polished the magnificent jarrah floorboards in one and installed a floating laminate floor in the other. A window was resurrected from behind plaster in Shop 2 and the fireplace restored. The change was jaw-dropping. Both these shops were rented out by the end of 2012.

Michael was itching to begin work on Shops 3 and 4, which was to become his metal art gallery. Fate and the building had other ideas. The external wall had to be reinforced before it collapsed. Michael and Dan the Man, our brickie, spent three days in the December heat, replacing broken bricks, mortaring and then rendering the wall to secure that end of the building.

Then Gary, a long time friend of Michael’s needed somewhere to stay, urgently. They worked nonstop on the residence for 3 months to make it fit for human habitation. The bathroom (Black Hole of Calcutta) was painted, tiled, received a new toilet, a hot water system and a laundry trough. The Hallway to Hell had its demonically dreadful wooden floor re-laid, covered in lino and painted. Doors were fixed. A pot belly stove was installed. The ceiling stopped falling in and received a well-deserved coat of paint. The windows were fitted with new panes. The bedroom window even had a flyscreen! The walls were all painted, the smell more or less disappeared and the residence became Gary’s home.

Ideas kept bombarding Michael’s brain. The gallery was put on the back burner once again. This time, he needed to excavate an underground water storage tank directly behind the wet areas.

This tank was a relic of Beverley’s past, used for water storage prior to the town being connected to the Kalgoorlie water pipeline in 1907. Michael managed to put his camera through a porthole at the top and photographed the interior. We knew it was big, we just didn’t know how big. And he was sure the tank would be lined with bricks, which he wanted to recover for our boundary wall.

We learnt how big when excavation began. The tank was over four metres deep and almost four metres wide. It was lined with two layers of bricks. Michael, Gary and another friend Steve moved the bricks out by hand. It was an insane, monumental task and took all of March. By the end of the excavation, Michael was utterly exhausted and already very sick with “walking pneumonia”.

Michael spent nearly all of April 2014 in hospital. His survival is testament to the fantastic staff at Joondalup Hospital. He tottered home, still on IV antibiotics. A further two days in hospital at the end of May reminded us about the fragility of his recovery. A trip to his beloved Goldfields in June assisted with the renewal of his well being. By July, Michael was feeling alive and enthusiastic once more.

He started work on Shop 3, with the help of Gary, in August. In the space of four weeks, the shop was transformed. We set up a display some of Michael’s sculptures in September to test the water. We realised we needed more art pieces.

The dream for the gallery gained momentum. We met Tim Burns, an internationally renowned artist who became our friend and mentor. At the same time, Michael and Gary were converting the dark, hot and neglected area behind the shops into Michael’s workshop and studio. In the middle of this work, Michael spent over a week in hospital with bronchitis.

A Christmas Exhibition was locked in. Tim and Murray Cook, a ceramic sculptor, convinced fellow artists to display their work in our gallery. Local artists were coming out of the woodwork.

We opened the East End Gallery on 19 December 2014 with over fifty pieces of art. We hosted a BBQ for the artists and their partners in the studio, which had been finished only the day before.

Fast forward four years. We are approaching our December birthday party for the Gallery once more. The Forbes Building has come into her own. From the humble beginnings, we now support and promote seventy artists throughout our one hundred and fifty square metres of space.

We turned a dream into a wondrous and magical reality. And I still pinch myself sometimes

Kate Sofoulis has been writing for most of her life and hopes to publish her first manuscript in the near future. After careers as a door to door salesperson, cleaner, data entry operator, student, receptionist, aged care worker and special needs education assistant, Kate’s life took an unexpected turn in May 2006.

After an unsatisfactory marriage and a disastrous love affair, Kate met Michael. There was instant attraction. Five months later, in October 2009, Michael and Kate embarked on their first Goldfields trip together. Michael was curious to observe Kate’s reaction to sleeping in swags, no toilet facilities (except for the padded toilet seat and the entrenching tool), no showers (except for bucket baths) and very limited contact with any other people. Kate was keen to spend time alone with this quiet, intriguing man and discover more about him.

The trip was a roaring success and coincided with Kate starting to write again in a serious and sustained manner. She kept journals of all their trips, their first year in Beverley and commenced writing a blog named – naturally – “Heavenly Beverley”.

Their marriage and purchasing a hundred year old building in the town have added further inspiration for her writing.  After consulting closely with an editor, Kate now hopes to present her work to a publisher.

Michael Sofoulis has been a metal sculptor for over thirty years. A self taught artist, he lives in Beverley in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. A true believer of “less is more”, his sculptures are uncomplicated, allowing for individual enjoyment and interpretation.

Using found metal objects from the early mining and agricultural industries from the Goldfields as his inspiration, Michael then weaves a story into each piece. Mild steel is his medium of choice as it harmonises with existing materials and in natural or man-made environments. He likes to continually push the boundaries of how mild steel can be used and presented.

Michael is comfortable using both modern (MIG welder, oxy-acetylene torch and grinders) or traditional (charcoal forge) methods. Each of his sculptures are “one of a kind”, challenging him to find the right balance of shape and form.

Photography of the remote places he visits is another of his passions. As “spider52”, he has fifteen hundred photos on Panaramio and Google Earth. Michael’s goal is to photograph as many of the old mining centres as possible before they disappear without trace.

His art is the physical representation of his life’s journey. He can see the connection between his personal and spiritual experiences linking with his thirty six years of professional work in the metal trades. Michael’s sculptures are a culmination of all his skills, coupled with the emotional exhilaration of discovering the metal objects that are the heart of his artwork.