The Yallingup Gallery Crawl: A Self-Drive Route

Yallingup has more working artists per square kilometre than almost anywhere in Western Australia. Most people driving through on their way to a cave tour never know.

That's not a complaint. It's just an observation from someone who's spent forty years watching the through-traffic. People come down for the wine and the surf and the caves, and those are good reasons. But if you've got a day spare, and you like looking at things that have been made carefully by hand, the run between Yallingup and Dunsborough is one of the better self-drive art days in the country. I'd argue that even though my gallery is on it. Maybe especially because.

Here's how I'd put the day together.

Photo: Lasthib, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A bit of context first. Yallingup is small. The town itself is maybe two hundred people. Within a ten-kilometre radius there are, last time I counted (a few years ago, and probably under), at least fifteen working artists with their own studios or gallery spaces. Glassblowers, painters, photographers, ceramicists, a few jewellers, and a small handful of furniture makers. Some of these studios are open by appointment. Some have shopfronts. Some you'd never find without being told.

A few things explain the density. The landscape: you only need to spend twenty minutes on the Cape to Cape track to understand why people who make things want to make them here. The light: this stretch of coast has a particular quality of light, especially in autumn, that does something to a maker. And the community. Once a few makers had set up, others followed, and the whole thing began to feed itself. Pamela likes to say Yallingup attracts people who want to live close to what they're making. That's about right.

The formal version of the trail is the Open Studios Margaret River Region event in September each year. Sixteen days, more than 150 artists across the whole region, studios open ten to four. Planning a trip with dates that line up? Plan around it. when the studios open up is the deeper guide. The rest of the year, you can still do the self-drive. You just need to ring ahead at a couple of stops.

A relaxed day. Five stops, not all of them must-dos. The whole loop is about thirty kilometres of driving and a full day if you stop properly for coffee and lunch.

1. 9:30am

   John Streater Fine Furniture (Blythe Rd, Yallingup)

   Start here. The workshop is usually going by mid-morning and the viewing window is open. I'll talk if you want to talk, leave you alone if you don't.

2. 11:00am

   Yallingup Galleries (Caves Rd)

   Group gallery a short drive down. Painting, ceramics, smaller works.

3. 12:30pm

   Lunch at Vasse Felix or local cafe

   Vasse Felix if you've booked. Otherwise the Yallingup General Store or back to the beach.

4. 2:00pm

   A glassblower or photographer

   Alan Fox glass or Dylan Fox photography — both worth the detour, both often by appointment.

5. 4:00pm

   Eagle Bay or Meelup

   End at a beach. The light is what made the art. You should see what made the art.

I'd be a liar if I told you I wasn't biased on this one. So I'll just tell you what's here and you can decide.

The gallery is at 88 Blythe Rd, Yallingup. I built it in 1988: jarrah walls, southwest limestone. The building is the first piece of work. Inside there's furniture in jarrah, marri, sheoak, and tuart, all of it made here, plus a curated rotation of work by glassblower Alan Fox, painter Julia Carter, photographer Dylan Fox, painter Elani, and pieces from Cattlean Italia which I distribute in Western Australia. Behind the showroom is a viewing window into the workshop. If I'm in, you can watch.

A few things to know about visiting:

• We're open seven days, ten to five.
• Pamela is usually at the front. If you have questions about how a piece is made, she'll either answer them or send me out.
• Bring your hands. Pieces are meant to be touched.
• Google Maps sometimes misdirects via Wildwood Rd. Stay on Bussell Hwy, turn at the Carbunup store, then Blythe Rd.

Most galleries hide the work. I wanted to show it. You walk in, you look at the pieces, you look through the window, and you see how the pieces happen.

The pieces range from small turned bowls (the kind of thing you can take home in a suitcase) to commissioned dining tables that need a freight truck. Never sat at a hand-built jarrah table? This is the moment. For more on what goes into a commission, how I work through a commission.

Start the day here. The workshop is usually going by mid-morning, which means you'll see something most galleries don't show — the sawdust, the chisels, the half-finished piece on the bench. Open seven days, ten to five.

A short drive from me you'll find a few of the group galleries along Caves Rd, Yallingup Galleries being the best known. These are spaces that show painting, smaller sculptural work, ceramics, prints, jewellery, often by ten or fifteen makers under one roof. Price points across the spectrum. You can leave with a hand-thrown coffee mug for forty dollars or a major painting for several thousand. Both are equally legitimate ways to walk out.

The advantage of a group gallery on a crawl day is range. You see five styles in fifteen minutes. The disadvantage is depth. You don't get the sense you get when you walk into a single maker's studio and see thirty pieces all working through the same idea.

I'd do both. Group galleries for the survey. Single-maker studios for the depth.

Photo: Vasse Felix, CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

To make a meal of the day, and you should, book lunch at Vasse Felix. They're open daily for lunch from twelve to three, the dining room overlooks the vines, and they've got an open fire on a winter day. The building itself is worth the stop: proper architectural work using local materials, which is exactly the conversation the rest of the day is in.

Vasse Felix is fifteen minutes south of Yallingup on Caves Rd at the Tom Cullity Drive intersection. Book ahead. It's busy.

Without a booking, the Yallingup General Store does good coffee and decent rolls, the Yallingup Beach Hotel has pub food and a beer garden, and there's a strip of cafes in Dunsborough fifteen minutes east. Any of those work.

This is the part of the day that depends on who's open and who you've rung ahead. The makers I know best around here:

Alan Fox. Glassblower. Has been working in glass for decades and is one of the better blowers in the country. The pieces are sculptural rather than functional: vessels and forms that take the play of light very seriously. Worth ringing ahead to see what's in.

Julia Carter. Painter. Mostly working in oils on the landscape and weather of this stretch of coast. The paintings do something with the light off the ocean that photographs can't.

Dylan Fox. Photographer. Long-exposure coastal work, some aerial. Different aesthetic to his father Alan but the same eye for what light does to a surface.

Elani. Painter. Smaller, looser work, colour-led. Some of her pieces hang in the gallery rotation.

Several of these makers are part of the formal Open Studios trail. Outside September, ring or check social before you turn up.

For the broader Margaret River arts scene the tourism site has reasonable summaries. For deeper navigation, the painters and photographers in the trail focuses on the painter and photographer side, and the best galleries in the region zooms out to the whole region.

Photo: SeanMack, CC BY 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

I'd finish at a beach. The art comes out of the place. You should see the place at the end of the day.

Eagle Bay for sheltered, family-friendly, north-facing: a different mood entirely from the surf coast. Meelup for one of the prettier swimming beaches in the South West with the small chance of a crowd. Smiths for the long crescent and the headland walk. Sugarloaf Rock for the dramatic version: exposed granite, big sky, the Indian Ocean doing its work against the rocks.

Wherever you finish, give yourself half an hour. Sit. Don't try to fit anything else in. The day will land properly if you let it.

Photo: Harry Foley, CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A rough guide to price points for what you might come home with.

• Group galleries: $40 ceramics, $80 prints, $200–500 small paintings, $1,000+ major work
• Glass: $80 small vessel, $500–1,500 sculptural piece, $5,000+ major work
• Photography (Dylan Fox and similar): $400 small print, $1,500–3,000 large editioned print
• My place: $80 small turned bowl, $400–800 occasional table, $4,000–8,000 dining tables, custom commissions up from there

Commissioning something to take home in a few months? Start at the gallery first. The wood matters, and you want to see it in person.

The thing that surprises most people who do this loop properly is how connected the makers are. Walk into Alan's studio and you'll see one of Julia's paintings on the wall. Walk into mine and you'll see Dylan's photographs in rotation. We've bought each other's work since the early days. The community isn't a marketing construct. It's literally what's on the walls of each other's spaces.

That's the conversation you're stepping into when you do this day. Not five separate transactions. One conversation, five rooms.