And today the tradition continues, with the winner of the Brenda Clouten Memorial Travelling Scholarship for Young Achieve in Visual Arts being revealed at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.

“This year’s entries are so inspiring and the amount of work and effort the artists have put into researching programs overseas has been amazing,” MRAG deputy director Brigette Uren said.

“I was astounded by the fact that people so young would be so savvy as to find out what is going on overseas and the various residencies that would be available to them. 

“You need a degree of maturity to be able to cope with the demands of being thrust into another country so this scholarship will certainly set the artist apart from their peers.”

The scholarship was established in 2004 in honour of Largs woman Brenda Clouten following her death from breast cancer.

“Brenda was an amazing person. Always seeing the good in everyone, always putting others before herself,” scholarship founders Vicki and Bruce Woods said.

“The scholarship, in Brenda’s name, is our way of creating a lasting memorial that will give benefit to young, upcoming talents in the area and to keep Brenda alive in our hearts.”

This year’s four finalists are Indeah Clark, Lily Ward, Liss Finney and Michaela Swan.

Today’s announcement also marks the start of the MRAG summer program.

“We have a beautiful line up of exhibitions for summer and they are all very diverse,” Ms Uren said.

“Maitland residents will be so privileged and it’s serendipitous that this full program has come together all at the same time.”

n The summer arts program will be launched on Saturday from 3pm.