Stories Along The Edge: The Accidental Artist

When you explore The South West Edge road trip, you’ll meet all sorts of local characters who will give you a glimpse into their world. Immerse yourself in their stories along the edge.

Kim Wesley, the woman behind the welcome at Peppermint Lane Lodge, is the encapsulation of Ferguson Valley – beautiful, open and possessed of a relaxed allure that reflects the quiet charm of an undersold region.

As a sculptural welder and curator of an outdoor sculpture exhibit that forms a centrepiece for the annual Dardanup Arts Spectacular, Kim also offers unique insight into the unexpected international appeal of Gnomesville: a verge-side collection of some few thousand gnomes that arose without notice and has gone on to become one of the Ferguson Valley’s key tourism calling cards.

“It’s an incredible place,” Kim smiles of Gnomesville. “You’ve got to wonder why and how it happened. So many guests come to Peppermint Lane and say they’re looking for their gnome, planted in the years before. They come. They all come.”

“People see Gnomesville as a wonderful arty thing, ‘how great’, and others go, ‘why would you have that here?’ And it’s the same with art,” Kim muses. “You see whatever it is you want to see. But mostly Gnomesville is just 99 per cent joy and happiness and wonder and whimsicalness and here it is. It just is.” - Kim Wesley, owner/operator at Peppermint Lane Lodge

Kim sees Gnomesville’s appeal in its whimsy. The way it reaches into childhood imagination and adult nostalgia. And yet she’s also conscious that it took root in Ferguson Valley in part because the nature of the region’s people is in sync with such organic creativity.

“There’s something over here in this river and in this area, some feeling,” Kim reflects, noting her initial call out for locals to contribute to her outdoor sculpture walk as part of the Dardanup Arts Spectacular three years ago received unprecedented response. All of her respondents were local. Almost none of them were artists. And yet they felt the impetus to create for an outdoor public art space.

Kim sees this enthusiasm as being an extension of a small regional community driven to connect and to share in each other’s passions. An openness to also sharing that experience with visitors. Perhaps it’s that placing sculptures and gnomes outside makes for an attainable creative outlet. Certainly Kim believes so.

“People see Gnomesville as a wonderful arty thing, ‘how great’, and others go, ‘why would you have that here?’ And it’s the same with art,” she muses. “You see whatever it is you want to see. But mostly Gnomesville is just 99 per cent joy and happiness and wonder and whimsicalness and here it is. It just is.”