Age no barrier to Australia Day Award winner’s creativity

Published 16 January 2020

Ellie Neilsen, Arts and Culture Award winner.

Professional artist and master printmaker Ellie Nielsen may be 92-years-old, but time has only enriched her lively spirit and passionate community service.

Acting Mayor Mike Charlton congratulated Ellie on being named this year’s Morton Bay Regional Council Australia Day Arts and Culture Award winner.

“Ellie’s artistic contributions and achievements in our region literally span a lifetime,” said Cr Charlton.

“Ellie is more than a teacher or mentor, her work ethic and creativity is an inspiration to so many other professional and aspiring artists in our community.

“I’m thrilled to be recognising Ellie’s contributions with this year’s Australia Day Award for Arts and Culture.”

Ellie’s advice for those wanting to try something new is simply to have a go.

“Go to every trial day you can until you find something that really gets you,” said Ellie.

“I looked at pottery, I looked at silversmithing, I looked at all of those really interesting things until I found printmaking; I’ve never looked back and that was in 1958.”

Division 3 Councillor Adam Hain said the Morayfield local was the perfect candidate to take home the award.

“It’s an honour to pay tribute to the special people in our community like Ellie, it’s fantastic we have opportunities like this to recognise and celebrate their achievements,” said Cr Hain.

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