My Street is a Creek

November creeps past; its' air hangs close and wet.
I am mapping my street; a project initiated in response to a long past deadline.

The paintings as always take a life of their own; intended to grace the walls of an unmet niece.

Long time no see; new project

Greetings;

The boat now rests at anchor; buddies with a larger vessel in a mangrove creek near the city.
So no excuses for not painting and posting.
I have this week off work (to look after the kids for school holidays)so for the sake of a bit of discipline and retrieval of momentum I will enter the 'Street Stories' project with the ABC.

The oldest and the youngest sons

My excuse is that I started a new job and have been pushing hard to complete the boat. Launching date is the 12th April. I will then shift my efforts to painting and keeping this blog alive...promise!

Jazz's comments on an early version of The birds

A race through the house and then dinner

Billy and Clancy go for a swim and catch some little fish

Clancy and Billy cooking.

Harry Clancy and Billy

A20 finished and in action

After nearly a year of sanding scraping gluing and tinkering we have re-entered to briny deep and Amandari is all kitted up as a sailing camper van. Now we have notched up a few trips and hope to get a few more under our belt before the monsoon sets in.



Filled with epoxy it started to smoke...holy hell i had thinners and metho all over the place and it is hot at night. A squirt with the hose and a layer of ice saved the day.
From below, I have put in a section of marine ply
Using a router I cleared the rotten wood from the top
The Trailers;




Stage one complete. The objective here was to make the object in the driveway into another living space. The crew occupy themselves while the skipper knocks over a job here and there.

I'll be doing some more painting yet.

I've got about 6 weeks until the first rains. So the cockpit drains and stormboards are a priority.
Clancy and Billy;The Crew. Clancy in the foreground
Nearly finished






I replaced all wobbly joins

After removing the panels to use as templates
The trailer.... To be the subject of another holiday effort.
The amazingly long process of removing fittings continues.
Note the hose; wetting the wooden beams helped to ensure smooth sliding.
Winching the trailer out from under the boat after the weight was on the stern keel.
Winching the boat back off the trailer.
I threaded a snatch strap across the bows to ensure the forces were evenly distributed.
The tyres were insurance against the risk of toppling off the stacks of bricks.
I did not dare to go any higher so I cut the tyre with a grinder and slid out the axle and rusting hub.





This is an Austral 20 trailer sailer. I think it is about 20 yeas old.
It was auctioned off by the sailing club and for better or worse I ended up with it.

She is called Amandari, A Balinese word meaning peaceful spirits.

Amandari arrived last Sunday (24.6.07) I've been taking all the fittings off in preparation for a full refit.As she arrived. The axle and tyres were just sitting there, springs long gone.

seahorse introspection

About to start on one of the Shell Series

eating the elephant; A VLM perspective.

Don't think I've abandoned this project.
Just putting one foot in front of the other and carving out enough energy to keep this up sometimes exceeds the abilities of a Very Lazy Man.
Well now at least I've done something.
I can Rest In Peace.

The bush undertakers; the crows. And the road

Pages from a drawing book 1998

The Tree. Nightcliff Foreshore Painting project

Plunging head first from the railings into the sea. I found this to be a tonic for many ills. 'Diver' Acrylic on wood 10x10 cm

The Story of those living in the mangroves is all about relationships. The network of resources and support that provide a saftey net. The specific areas that each group uses are well understood and the boundries observed.
Acrylic on canvas 40x90 CM

Sitting in the same place at the same time every day and painting always unearths more that is anticipated.

I sat under a tree on the edge of the sand overlooking the beach and mouth of Rapid Creek.
I was joined by the people who camped in the area and as at Mijijimaya I shared my materials with them and asked them to paint their story.

As I was working through the week this was a series of weekend mornings. Starting at dawn.

Todays' painting. Some big changes. watch this space!

So I wiped out the busy skyscape and found that it was all about the sea, the sand and the cliffs.
Iwas struggling with the sky. But like all of lifes' problems the issue is usually not what it seems.

watercolour on ricepaper 5x8 cm 1992

These paintings were done while living at Mijijimaya
This book was sent to me from Nepal. I set myself the challenge of doing one painting a day in it.
When I finished I sent it back. It was very kindly repatriated electronically for this blog.

The battered cover attests the distance and time that this little book has come
There was Law business happening up near the bore on the way to the forbidden hills.
The men passed on thei way back to camp wearing the ochre rubbed hair belts.
They sometimes stopped for water.
The tree is a Parntal, a reminant of the long passed rainforest still with shiny deep green leaves and hard round nuts with sweet flesh. The bones feature later. Rising up like a great ocean wave the first of the sandhills that march ever East.
Rhidian adopted this teddy from his maternal grandmother.
One of the bones


The perennial hope; 'Everything will be alright...in the morning'.
Lunch and a reflection back to the Bruny Island painting.
The stone from the river; round and smooth. Under the jagged stone from the hill,The sprig from the Turjey bush. Edible fruit , a little sweet. Where these grew we hunted the birds.Some early thoughts....
Pandanus, perched above the beach at Cape Leveque.
The sound of these insects cut through the morning ringing out until the afternoon's light waned.
The small bundle of feathers rapidly dissipated as the heat and the ants took their toll.
I tried to keep the joey away from the leg of its' mother that was being kept for lunch.




The quiet of the sandhills as the night falls,wind dies and insects have yet to start singing.
A seed-pod collected at Fitzgerald River National Park and carried to Mijijimaya.
Lighthouse at Cape Leveque.
A kangaroo foot, long dried and bleached by the sun.
A study of the leaves from the tree that scrapes and whispers against the iron roof.
A by-product of getting fresh meat was the baby's that were pulled from their mothers pouch. Growing some of them up involved having a little face peeping from a sack every time you pass.


A line from a Midnight Oil song from their album Diesel and Dust. Altogether apt for the setting.
This waterhole was on the road into camp and filled with a single storm. The frogs would emerge and breed.
Citrus fruit grown locally travelled far surviving the heat, light and long corrugated roads.

The small parrots flash green and red across the deep bowl of the sky.
After the rain insects clattered against the light and crowded along window ledges. In the morning their bodies were scattered by the early breeze.
Collage bird wings and watercolour. In the shade of the old sea container the boys waited with shanghais watching the dripping tap. When the birds settled to drink they fell stunned to the precise stones. The little kids ran in and grabbed them. leaving the little bodies to the ants after the game had finished.
'The brilliant fires remind me of home. Long ago.'
The Plains Bustard, or bush turkey, were wary and difficult to get close to. For good reason as they are very good to eat. Only the feet and feathers remained after people and camp dogs had their pickings.
'I am calling you'. I did this while staying with a friend in South Hedland. He had a frangipanni that shed white flowers generously. The rich green leaves and fleshy white flowers were always there by the open door to welcome me.
An old bone found at the bottom of a dried well. A kangaroo must have fallen and become trapped long ago.
A collage of a band aid and watercolour. I was thinking of wounds that are raw but hidden.
'And with the night small insects count out the moments of the velvet black between the staring lights that wheel over and into dawn.' The kids played this bat to death and I painted it as its wings shrivelled in the heat.
A collage of the red desert sand, a fishhook and a dried flower. I had found the fish among many that had died when their river was cut from the sea and as the water evaporated and became more and more salty they lay twitching feebly in the shallows. The crows pecked out livers and eyes as they died.
Yalalu looked over us. In the absolute stillness of dry season nights the echo from clapping hands came ringing back across the spinnifex.
'The Forbidden Hills';These hills are the site of a waterhole that only initiated men could go to.

watercolour on ricepaper 5x8 cm 1992

I was listening to shortwave radio. BBC world was playing Neville Shutes' 'On the Beach'. Everyone gets it in the end. It was hot and still.
Every few weeks there is a new thing available to eat. These are a grub that is inside a hard woody case that the tree grows around it.
Tied up with wire, tobacco tin wheels and internal elements of a radio. These 'tin cars' were a whole lot of fun to play with.

I looked after the goggle like eyewear for the Old Man. In the mornings the young men brought him up to sit with me and paint. He crouched over the small perfect little images. His goggles nearly touching the surface. When his head was 'banging' he stopped for a cup of tea.The Plains Bustard, or bush turkey, were wary and difficult to get close to. For good reason as they are very good to eat. Only the feet and feathers remained after people and camp dogs had their pickings.


'I am calling you'. I did this while staying with a friend in South Hedland. He had a frangipanni that shed white flowers generously. The rich green leaves and fleshy white flowers were alwyas there by the open door to welcome me.
An old bone found at the bottom of a dried well. A kangaroo must have fallen and become trapped long ago.
A collage of a band aid and watercolour. I was thinking of wounds that are raw but hidden.
'And with the night small insects count out the moments of the velvet black between the staring lights that wheel over and into dawn.' The kids played this bat to death and I painted it as its wings shrivelled in the heat.
A collage of the red desert sand, a fishhook and a dried flower. I had found the fish among many that had died when their river was cut from the sea and as the water evaporated and became more and more salty they lay twitching feebly in the shallows. The crows pecked out livers and eyes as they died.
Yalalu looked over us. In the absolute stillness of dry season nights the echo from clapping hands came ringing back across the spinnifex.
'The Forbidden Hills'; This book was sent to me from Nepal. I set myself the challenge of doing one painting a day in it. These hills are the site of a waterhole that only initiated men could go to.

Clancy helping paint the sky

After the fire. Watercolor 12x12 cm 1996

Another of the Marralam series from 1996-7
The strangest things would found after the grass burned back. Hidden by the rapidly growing new growth after the first rain objcets would dissappear and their remains revealed in the ashes. A a perfectly straight line of white ash leading to a rusted and scorched axe head, old bones and the missing billycan.

'The Way' Acrylic on canvas60x40 CM 2001

The tussock cling to the baked black soil plain that gives way to the tidal mudflats.

Jibbigung Hill. East Kimberley Dry Season 1997 Watercolor 20x90 CM

Pentacost River. Easter 2004

The last hurragh of the Wet creeps across the skies. The river is flowing fast and clear.
The cliffs of the Cockburn Ranges loom over the valley. Phllip Parker King described these

At the entrance of the basin the high rocky character of the west shore
is superseded by low mangrove banks, with here and there a detached hill
rising from a plain of low marshy land, that, at the time of our visit,
was covered with a salt incrustation, occasioned by the evaporation of
the sea, which, apparently, had lately flooded the low lands to a great
extent: some of these plains are seven and eight miles in diameter. The
hills rise abruptly; those we examined are of sandstone formation. The
basin is very shoal, but there is a narrow channel in the centre, with
from five to nine fathoms water. The shore, opposite the Bastion Hills,
is low, and the gulf trends gradually round to the South-West for five
miles, when it is contracted into a narrow communication, called The Gut,
leading to an interior shoal basin, strewed with low marshy islands,
which the tide covers. This basin terminates to the southward in a narrow
stream, winding under the base of Mount Cockburn; and there also appeared
to be several others falling into the basin more to the westward. The
water was salt at the extremity of our exploration. The Gut leading to it
is two miles long, and not so much as a quarter of a mile wide: in some
parts we had nineteen fathoms, but in others it was deeper; it runs
through a chasm in the hills, which rise abruptly, and occasionally
recede and form bights, in which, in the wet season, the rains form some
very considerable mountain torrents. No fresh water was seen in any part
of the gulf; but as it was near the end of the dry season when we were
there, it might probably be found in a more advanced season in every part
of the western side, where the land is high and the gullies numerous:
there is, however, no durable freshwater stream without the Gut. An
alligator was observed swimming about, but very few fish were noticed

We camped close to the water and in the mornings I would move to a seperate painting camp.

Again the fish swimming in the depths crept into the image

Gus Hole Trilogy. Acrlic on canvas 80x120 cm 2003

Big rain Marralam 1997. Watercolor

Gus' Hole near Marralam. East Kimberly.Acrylic on Canvas 200 x60 cm

The calls of the black cockatoos travel far in the cool still early morning air. I painted this over about five days on-site as well as many evenings back in Darwin where I worked the rhythm of the marks together.
The ancient boab clings among the loose rocks to the spinnifex covered flanks of the hill
Cutting through the reflection of the overhanging cliffs the kids head back to camp for breakfast
An echo of 'The Departure' these fish revealed glowing with an inner light against the black depths.

billy and the dogs

Squall Line

It has been raining for days.
Insects crowd the screen and the air hangs close on the skin.
Sweeping in from the North West with irregular grumbles of thunder low grey maidens disgorge drenching warm water. Gutters overflow and puddles collude forming brief torrents.

The Gulls

Back to todays paintings;
It is the full blown monsoon at the moment and I am battling to do these dramatic and ever changing skies justice.
I think I may have to repaint this sky. The storm looks like a condom full of pebbles.
In an earlier version I had more light and hard shadows but this is now muted and I may need to take these contrasts back further.

The deep middleground is empty, too empty, but that reason alone is insufficient justification for putting something in.

Any suggestions or comments welcome.

They always sleep in.

Remembering Foxeys' Hangout

I discovered that there was a story involving stolen gold and an unsolved murder behind the traditional hanging of dead foxes on the tree.
This is a page from the Marralam book where I am thinking about this.

Jackson fishing on the Keep River.1997

Dry Season. They called him Jackson.Watercolor

The snake shed it's skin like the moon sheds its' shadow

I copied the image of the Old Man; trying to follow the story.

The old man was drawing a 'pocket' that is the word they used for a valley.
A brown snake left it's skin drifting among the tall grass.

12.3.97 Marralam, The grass yellows and seeds.

I found the frog dessicated in the bedroom. I had been away for Christmas.

Felt tip pen on paper. TheOld Man. 1992

I made this page just after he died in the accident.
It is a carve peral shell around the neck. These were imbued with Law. The figure is in the shade. Waiting. Elements of this image are evident in the boys' painting.
It is a stone axe. I think this is cutting saplings for spears.
This is dogs chasing a kangaroo across the river. The influence on Peter Woodman is obvious.This is a place called (in dominant culture speak) Kitty Gap. About 200 Km east of Marble Bar on the Telfer Road.
He would be brought up to me from camp by the older boys in the morning and sat while I anxiously grappled with creating worthy and fashionable images.
I began by providing the colour. He was very clear about what tone went where.
I think the people above are cutting the tree for honey.
Whenever I was around and honey was found I noticed that an older person would intervene to prevent the bush bee's home being totally destroyed. It was carefully repaired and left for next time.

I asked what the bird meant and he wouldn't' tell me. I've found myself repeating this motif. The hunter is behind the sand hill, watching for something.
He drew this crouched over the page wearing goggle like magnifying lenses. (i did a painting of this. When I find it I will post it)
An optometrist came out on a plane one day and when I asked about the Old Mans' eyes he said that every thing that could be done had been done; he was blind and the fact he could still draw defied the facts.
The biggest challenge to my middle class art graduate sensibilities was that there was never any intention to exchange this artwork for money.
These images were done with relentless intensity to contribute to the maintenance of the Law; the songs stories and understanding that were (and continue to be) suffocated into oblivion by the dominant culture (us).

Felt tip pen on paper. TheOld Man. 1992

I made this page just after he died in the accident.
It is a carve peral shell around the neck. These were imbued with Law. The figure is in the shade. Waiting. Elements of this image are evident in the boys' painting.
It is a stone axe. I think this is cutting saplings for spears.
This is dogs chasing a kangaroo across the river. The influence on Peter Woodman is obvious.This is a place called (in dominant culture speak) Kitty Gap. About 200 Km east of Marble Bar on the Telfer Road.
He would be brought up to me from camp by the older boys in the morning and sat while I anxiously grappled with creating worthy and fashionable images.
I began by providing the colour. He was very clear about what tone went where.
I think the people above are cutting the tree for honey.
Whenever I was around and honey was found I noticed that an older person would intervene to prevent the bush bee's home being totally destroyed. It was carefully repaired and left for next time.

I asked what the bird meant and he wouldn't' tell me. I've found myself repeating this motif. The hunter is behind the sand hill, watching for something.
He drew this crouched over the page wearing goggle like magnifying lenses. (i did a painting of this. When I find it I will post it)
An optometrist came out on a plane one day and when I asked about the Old Mans' eyes he said that every thing that could be done had been done; he was blind and the fact he could still draw defied the facts.
The biggest challenge to my middle class art graduate sensibilities was that there was never any intention to exchange this artwork for money.
These images were done with relentless intensity to contribute to the maintenance of the Law; the songs stories and understanding that were (and continue to be) suffocated into oblivion by the dominant culture (us).

The pattern; the road.

The clash of the yellow sign against the rhythm of the landscape an an echo of these images.
And the scar in the earth that is a road is a constant theme.

The Bird Lady of Shoobridge St. Oil and acrylic on wood.1998

Poster for the 1998 exhibition.



Right now I am trawling through imagery and notes made years ago. It is the wee small hours of the morning. The suburb sleeps. Gentle rain, irregular distant growl of thunder. Susseration of ceiling fans. No other soundsBy scratching through into the white ground I could make marks like bleached bones.
Olive had just died when I made this one so in a moment of indulgence I've imagined the birds picking the flesh from her bones.

"My name is Olive. Every morning I feed the hawks. I started doing it in the railway camps. Now I do it because I love to see them swoop. There are so many. we counted 53 along the powerlines.Fifteen kilos of chicken wings a week. I cook them every night. We live on the pension. You know someone complained to the Council once. They can't stop me. I always pick up the bones so dogs dont' choke. I love animals."

Drawing book. Marralam 1997.

I found I could paint the same tree again and again , and each time was like new.The book is interesting to me as it shows how I've been looking internally and playing with images from my minds' eye as well as painting what is in front of me. The tiny little frames up the right side of the page are from memory and imagination. The little one of a highway going off to the horizon is a memory of the long drives in the Pilbara, the crowd of people is recollections of the Ubud market and I am thinking of eight-year-old Rhidian in the top one.There are some related paintings here
The grass is so tall that it blocks the breeze.
Fishing along Sandy Creek. The run off from the wetlands is clear and constant. The watercourses are highways between the land and the sea that will soon dry.
The grass is tall and the seed clogs radiators and covers clothes. The early morning cool soon becomes close and humid

Go back to the Marralam post for more; I've updated

A page from Marralam drawing book. More back at the older post

Darwin Daze. Mid 1994 Oil on wood 1.2x.40 M

oil on board 140x40 com
The fruitbats camp in the mangroves during the day and flock into the city at night
The cranes hunt along the everchanging edge of the tide


The crane with the storm looming up and dregging its' skirts of rain in from the North. From the dark mouth of the pipe a rivulet snakes across the exposed mud. The sheds shimmer under the overhead sun.

After West Arnhem land, on the way to Marralam, I camped in Darwin through the glorious dry season where the bowl of the clear sky is stitched to the horizon by a haze of smoke from distant fires. After the close and hot air of the Wet the July air extracts all the moisture and your clothes generate sparks of static electicity.

Cambodia.1997. Watercolor. 15x8 cm

I studied this quiet corner of the coastal Provence of Kompong Som. Sitting in the same place at the same time watching as first light creeps across the sky.
I was living at Sams' place. She told of surviving the Khmer Rouge time. Her father was executed for being a teacher. At about eight years old she cared for her mother, infant sister and baby brother. She managed to get a piglet that she raised by herself, sleeping and foraging with it. Her brother died. Sam sold the pig when it was grown and bought food medicine and two more piglets. Later she bought a shortwave radio and learned English from Voice of America.
Everyone except for the children had a story of the 'KR' time. I would drink beer in the evenings with former child soldiers, using pencil sketches and gesticulations to surmount the language barrier. As a parting gift I bought a piglet for Sam. The whole street seemed to be there to wish me off.
The people in this house would visit in the afternoon and very politely ask to see my pictures. I passed the down from the veranda and would glimpse the paper being passed from hand to hand all along the street. The would be returned unmarked with much respectful approval.
An awful lot of hanging around in the shade was done at this house.

Ubud Bali 1993. Watercolor 40x20 cm

The formula was; Get up in the dark every morning and paint for two hours.
I chose a corner of the market near my lodgings.
I sat with the others in the dark having over sweet coffee and then I settled down on a small mat, listend to pirate music and tried to capture the story. In the afternoonsI sat on a balcony overlooking Monkey Forest Road and did studies of a mask and a shadow puppet.

I was alone among the crowd, talking to myself.

Letter to Leigh Chiller. Never sent for no good reason

Poster for nightclub. Screenprint.

For some reason Franck Gohier and I produced a new poster for a nightclub held every week on the end of the wharf in Darwin Harbour.
The box jellyfish and crocodiles kept the two worlds apart.
The quarantine zone was close enough for the impounded Indonesian fishing boats and their crews to hear the music. They were entertained by the antics of the intoxicated white middle class.
The cheap beer and low lights unleashed various passions.

I never heard the end of this.

Foxeys Hangout

A stranger to me collaborated with this additional fox. Imagine if it became a movement of anonymous fox makers and hangers.


This started with a real fox. Run down on the road over the top of a nearby dam wall by my brother in law Jamie.

These foxes are made from American Oak barrel staves that I collected when working at Corio Distillery in Geelong (1985). There was the last cooperage in Victoria there. Staffed by old men who had a trade that was no longer valued. their last task was to cut in half the barrels so they could be sold as garden tubs. As they did so they would comment on the various repair jobs done by their predecessor, each with a unique brand , going back decades. I save the barrel staves for 20 years before converting them to foxes. We remembered the traditional hanging of foxes at a nearby intersection. A practice that had stopped years ago with new gun laws and the gentrification of the area. I was also struggling to articulate what a sacred site meant in practical terms; seeking the equivalent for the sake of argument at family BBQ's when I was collared by some well meaning family friend and asked what all this sacred site business was about. It worked.
I realised that this rotten old tree would be removed and a roundabout installed soon and that many local people would feel a sense of violation and loss as a result. Yet it's 'only an old tree' a traffic hazard. Making this parallel eased the struggle to get well meaning people to understand the connection to country issue.

Western Arnhemland. 1993

The gates of Paradise; the Gunbalyana Sports and Social Club at closing time.
The East Alligator River marks the border between Arnhemland and the world. You need a Government issued permit to enter. The deep muddy banks with the annual monsoonal floods ensured that geography supported the leglislation. Oil on board.
Card players below ripe mangoes. Excluded from participation in either the customary or mainstream economy ther is not much to do but gamble in the shade until the club opens.
Mamadewerre Outstation. Ruth and Charlies house. Oil on board. 60x5 cm. The shelter is to keep the fireplace dry. The high shelves stop the camp dogs from stealing food.
The broken house. Injalak in the background. This hill is like broken books piled high. The overhangs and corners provide shelter from the weather in all directions. There are paintings upon paintings on the rock. Like the people at Mijijimaya, these artists were not manufacturing a product for sale. However I was then employed to in a government funded art dealership.
One day a Swiss collector rang up, Frank Beat Keller. He wanted arework dealing with sickness.There was nothing like that being created however I had been reading Berndt's collected Kunwinjku stories and there was one dealing with this issue. So I read this story out to the men I was working with and one of the senior one, Thompson Yuildjirri started drawing out Mimi figures on the concrete. We photographed these images and sent them off to Frank.
He rang up and was very excited and the painting began. A demand for these images suddenly emerged locally and many versions were done and are in collections around the world.


Leaving Mijijimaya stung. I'll go back to visit sometime. Living in Oenpelli, a government created encampment that I hope these images describe, was a shock.
This is the road there. A red scar through the trees.

More painintgs from Mijijimaya 1991

It was here that I learned what painting was truly about. The idea of generating a commodity, a product for sale was incomprehensible to these people.
The main thing about this image is the horizon. that sand hill running North South marked the beginning of thousands of marching waves of sand. They reminded me of the great swells of the Southern Ocean.

Rhidian, about two and a half. Everywhere I went he went and (within limits) everything I did he did.
The boys wrote the story of each of the small watercolors in Nyangumarta and then translated for me.

We saw these emus and Peter Woodman told the story in such explicit marks.
The River, where all of our daytrips ended.
Paulie claiming the prized liver.
Paulie, Peter and Charlie sat on the roof. lookout. The barrel of the gun is in the top right corner.
The faithful toyota with the hunting crew.
Cranky Iti preparing a snack to eat while the rest of the kangaroo cooked. The kidneys and liver were put into a washed out stomach that acted like an oven bag in the coals.
Dinner camp in the clean sand of the Oakover river
Waiting for the meat to cook
Oil on board, the snake that made the hills and the river.
Whitegum. Watercolor. (below) We waited while the boys went to get meat.

Painting at Mijijimaya. Great Sandy Desert West Australia

Peter Woodman; The best painters of running dogs I have ever known

There was a constant volley of small stones flung at high speed with deadly accuracy using slingshots
One of the main young artists. Who did the painting above.

Everyone had a go.

Sitting in the river bed the old man marked out the country in chalk. This was used to frame the paintings done back at camp.

The back of the painting where he has written in Nyangumarta the fundamental statement;
This is my Country.

One of the early watercolour paintings by Peter Woodman showing the river, sand hills and a dead tree.

We ended up painting the school as well.

None of these paintings were ever traded for money. They were regarded as far too precious for that.

A detail from the big painting showing both a hunting story and a traditional story.

These paintings emerged as a result of me giving some of the older boys some materials to make images with. I was trying to get some of my own painting done and they were hanging around distracting me. My role at the time was Mr. Mum while my partner worked at the school. In the mornings two year old son Rhidian would go with mum to the school and it was then that these young men would visit to have a yarn.
I was obsessively keeping up with painting. The clarity and strength of their imagery astounded me. This relationship developed into trips to the river, that often took all day I was often saying' how much further' and they were saying 'not far'. An older man or two would come along sitting next to me while the boys sat on the roof with the guns looking out for kangaroo.
At first the content of the paintings was the story of our trips. The big painting is bisected by the track of the local rivers.

This place is Mijijimaya. In the Great Sandy Desert in North West Australia. It's name is derived from "Missus Maya" (camp) referring to a time when there was an attempt by white people to farm sheep among the sand hills and a woman was brought out to live there. They say she never came outside. The people are the traditional owners, Nyangumarta who had refused to continue working for the white man in 1946. Some background about their commitment to cultural maintenance can be found here.
The leaders were at the time locked into a battle with the WA Government that is symbolic of the ongoing oppression of Indigenous people. A Google search on Strelly Mob' will unearth more background on these people.

The journey here began travelling South over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the setting new moon caught my eye, it was at that moment that I knew the plan to go out into the desert and be with these people was the right plan. Since that moment that first sliver of the moon following the sun below the horizon has always reminded me of that journey over the bridge. All my ambitious peers with whom I competed so lustily were off to London and Paris. I was always planing to do the same; the traditional template of the budding Australian artist required as much. So to do the opposite, head in instead of out, was challenging the accepted wisdom and until the moon spoke I was fearful.

Feeding the Kites at dawn. Darwin 1998. Ceramic plate and Oil on board. 1.5x.5 M

This is a true story.

At first I just noticed the Kites. She emerged carrying a red bowl in a shapeless nightshirt with a cigarette smouldering in the first of the light, the Kites had already gathered along the power lines and rooftops. Squinting in the new sun she cast meat into the air. Some were caught on the wing others subject to savage competition as the meat was plucked from the road.

Dawn is my time too, I was already holding a paintbrush taking advantage of the very early calm to to some painting, she and the Kites became my models.

One morning, seeing the bird silhouettes against the fading stars, I grew impatient to begin and threw some lamb chops out onto the road. The Kites ignored them. At the usual moment she brought the bowl out. When the feeding had ended and the birds dispersed into the new day she picked up all my lamb chops and with a hostile glance at me returned inside. After feeding the kites the next morning she came and asked me what I was doing.

I explained about the images I sought to capture of the kites as the swooped down to catch the food she provided, I showed her the pictures. I asked her about feeding the birds.

" Every morning for seventeen years I've been doing this. And before that down in Katherine when the children were born. Every morning I've been feeding the kites. They only eat boiled chicken wings. Don't you go throwing rubbish to them, people might think it was me and start complaining again. Once I counted 67 kites."

One day she was late. The birds watched. An old man brought the red bowl out. I went and asked.

" Shes' dead. I am only going to feed them whats in the fridge. All these years buying chicken wings, the money she spent. That's it. Don't' go spending all you time worrying about what has passed. You cant' change it so you have got to forget about it. It's no use thinking all the time about your mistakes. Just forget about it."

For a while the birds gathered and watched. I cant' forget that backward squint into to morning sun before she returned inside. Looking up into the great chamber of the sky.

The Neck. Bruny Island Tasmania early 1991. Oil.

The wave. Hobart early 1991. Tryptich 1.2 M square oil on canvas

The Departure. Hobart 1991

Jacqui Stockdale helped with the hand. The bird is a fluttering sheerwater. Only seen at sea


The anchor is an eye surveying the offerings spread across the wharf. The fish are swimming deep below.

Painted in a 3rd floor studio in in Liverpool Street Hobart.

shell series 1988

I did 12 of these metre square paintings. The actual shell had come up in the net on a trawler I was working on. Each painting seemed to develop it's own mood. I imagined that there was water in the hills.

self portrait s1987 and 1989

The close and tepid air of Northern New South Wales. ( it rained for about two months solid) The canvas began to rot and the paint crack like an old master. The weight of the world had just descended upon me; the pitter patter of tiny feet.
I had propped a section of broken mirror on a bench and while the leaking roof dripped I indulged in narcissistic self reflection in the forest gloom. Oil on Canvas 80cm square. Tuntable Falls.
I cant' think of a comment on this one. I cheated using an epidascope. 80 CM Square. Oil on canvas. Geelong 1987

Family Man; Encaustic, Oil on Canvas 2x.8 M mid 1987

I cant remember the incident that sparked this painting but I felt it was so autobiographical that I finished it all in one night and then took it to my mum and dads house so as to avoid the scrutiny of my peers at art school

Detail of 3 days in Bass Strait

3 Cold days in Bass Strait 1.5x 2 metres. Oil on Canvas

Developing the theme of using layers and rythm to describe the sea, it's moods and how man made devices clash and dominate; ships, navigation beacons, wharf facilities and the like.

Detail of Bass Strait

Looking at this now; Nearly 20 years later I am struck by the prescience of the tumbling bird/bat figures laid against a chruning background as well as the clash of the artifical yellow with the deep prussian and indigo. My most recent paintings are like 'in focus' variants of this.

Bass Strait. Oil on canvas. Mid 1987

Making this was the first time I experienced the heightened sense of vitality, intensity and passion that makes the whole art thing so addictive. I was seeking to capture the rhythm of the sweeping changes of the cold fronts that crowd in from the Southern Ocean. I was discovering the politics of mark making. How each change in texture and colour resonates with what it is near and on top of. Painted at night in the echoing chamber of an old wool mill.

Swimming in the sea

Wet season Evening. Walking the Dogs and Kids

The rain caught us on the way home. But no matter it's not cold.

Night Swimming. Darwin September 2006.Watercolor on paper

The swimmer lingers just below the surface. Waiting to take a breath. Caught in a pool of light.

A small window, basin,bed and toilet

Prison Cell. Darwin 1999.Ink and wash

Made on-site in Darwin's Fanny Bay Gaol. Now a museum.

The beacons. Mornington. June 1993

Navigation beacons.Pencil and wash. June 1993

Made in Mornington Victoria. A day when the winter weather pauses and the low grey sky is echoed in the calm waters of the bay. The only brilliant red and green of the beacons stands out marking the safe passage between the rocks hidden below the surface.

footbridge over the mouth of Rapid Creek.Watercolour.2001

Painting bridges always seems to be redolent with echos of support through transition

detail; frame from etching

The most haunting element of cemetery exploring is comming across those corners that are overgrown and neglected. The headstones dissolving back into the earth. The bird is an echo of the birds that populate Pieter Brughel's images of life in the middle ages.

detail; frame from etching

There is nothing like spending time wandering a cemetery to focus one's mind on the importance of savouring every moment. I left this plate in the acid for a very long time in order to echo the corrosive fact of time passing.

detail; frame from etching

detail; frame from etching

Echings 5X35 CM. Drawn from St Andrews Cemetery study

ink and wash; St Andrews Cemetery. Sydney

Perched on Henry Lawsons' grave I looked out to sea and caught the irregular flash of waves breaking around the distant cape. mid 2000

Ink and wash study for etching series

In early 2000 I spent much time printmaking at with Franck Gohier at Red Hand. Working through images that resonated with the close air of the rainy season and the prospect of many new beginnings.

detail; frame from etching

detail; frame from etching

detail; frame from etching

d

detail; frame from etching

detail; frame from etching

Echings 5X35 CM

One of a series of etchings done with Franck Gohier in his Red Hand workshop

Bush study

Tjis and other ink and wash studies led on to a series of etchings.

Marralam. East Kimberley Watercolours

The road South to the Hills. Watercolour. 40x100 cm. Marralam 1998
On the edge of Keep River. The last light reflected in the last of the ebb tide across the mud.
Playing among the anthills




The strangest thing I remember about this one it the fact I was listening to BBC on the shortwave and heard the sudden interruption to usual programming to announce that Dinah has 'been hurt in an accident and companion killed'.Watercolor
This really happened; A huge willy-willy a bushfire and heaps of cockatoos. Watercolor 1995



Watercolor 10 Cm square 1996
The waterhole near the house
The crows follow the firefront as it flushes out food.
Dawn in the the heart of the cool dry season. The endless delicate blue sky etched the features of the horizon.
(detail) The crows lived always just out of arms reach. Arguing among themselves and watching always for an opportunity to steal something
(detail-of below)When the waters flow settles after the first rain Barramundi move in from the sea.
(main painting; 60x40 cm) This painting follows the journey from the sealed highway to the outstation.
(detail)On the flat near the house a straw man was made and ceremonially incinerated.
(detail)The big Boab at Sandy Creek Crossing.
(detail)The generator shed. I spent many hours communing with this beast in the hot little shed while the fridges thawed and everyone waited patiently.
(detail)This hill next to the house was called Jibbiggung, this is the Mirriwoong name for quail. This is the creation site for this bird.
(detail)The distant hills to the South shrouded in rain. Once the country was wet the only way to traverse it is on foot. The hard earth opens up.
The Marralam studio. This painting was done here
12x15 CM watercolour on paper. The first clouds bringing the rains catch the early light. Black Cockatoos cry out as they tumble south. Marralam East Kimberley 1996

Interior 3

Painted in 3rd year art school in 1988. 1 meter square. Oil on flax.
Part of a series working towards the idea of the shell glowing with a milky inner light set against a landscape that I imagined at the time spoke of the desert.
The shell is described as a female with the potential for life and fragile, out of her element, holding the darkness within.

At an exhibition of these and the shell paintings at Friends of the Earth Gallery in Brunswick St Fitzroy in early 1989.
1989 Living in the heart of alternative Australia at Nimbin in Northern New South Wales.
It was raining all of the time. The waterfall near the house fed a deep cold pool. The line that marked the transition between levels shone out in the dim light.
Oil on Linen 80X80 CM in memory of the sudden announcement of my firs Son Rhidians arrival and of the untimley death of my paternal grandfather.

The old man at noon. Oil, ocre and chalk on board. 80x60 CM

The old man at noon

THE OLD MAN WEARING HIS EYEGLASS
The Old Man marked out on panels of wood. The hill in the background is Yalalu. There is permenent water there. A place for initiated men only. I never went there. The spinifex hisses in the midday breeze. Made in 1992. Mijijimaya. Great Sandy Desert. WA.

The paper boat and the copper pot

The copper pot came from the Belgan Congo. The flowers from the neighbours garden. Painted while I ought to have been getting the Landcruiser ready to Mijijimaya. Mid 1991.
Paper boat Sandy Cape. Water Colour on paper Tasmania 1990
For five years I worked on trawlers usually along the West Coast of Tasmania. I was the stand-by for the regular crew who wanted a week off but did not want to lose their job. I filled in for a trip or two and then want back to the studio.
Sometimes the Southern Ocean would be glassy calm and the light soft and almost milky. The fragile paper boat in his setting may just survive for long enough to reach the distant shore.
Sandy Cape was the site of one of the fishing equivalent of a gold rush when the ancient Orange Roughy were caught in great numbers. These fish were between 80 to 100 years old and are now listed as endangered. They live at great depth and don't breed until over 40 years old.
At the time I felt like I was the paper boat.

I remember working on this series through the depth of Hobarts' winter of 1990. The studio overlooked Liverpool street and the frozen wind rushed straight from the looming top of Mt Wellington to rattle my old windows. The days were short and dim and evenings spent in close interior warmth. So I immersed myself in images of clear blue days and glassy calm seas.
I made the paper boat and put it on a section of broken mirror to give me the reflection.

A family blog; happy snaps

http://tomredston.blogspot.com/

Link to Youtube where the painting process is

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Redstontom

The old man at noon. Watercolour on paper stretched on a thorn branch.

I met this man in 1991 in the Pilbara. He was legally blind but continued to produce detailed images dealing with how the world came into being and what is required in order for the cycle of life to continue.

When he told his stories it was in the tone and intensity of a sports commentator. Graphic and immediate as if it was happening right now.

I helped him fix his car to go on a long awaited trip. He and another old man died when a drunk mining worker collided with them on a remote section of dirt road.

The loss of the knowledge transcended the loss of the individual. I felt that it was an echo of the burning of the libary of Alexandria.

I sought to capture the fragility of a knowledge system that depends on an oral tradition as well as the jagged and brutal hand of fate by stretching tissue paper across a circle of thorns and using ink and wash.

I made this in 1992 and gave it to a friend that I believe understands this story for christmas this year.

1992 Mijijimaya. Great Sandy Desert. Western Australia.
May guts out the kangaroo while the fire burns down in the big shed.
The dogs are alredy full
Watercolour on paper

the gulls

The little boy clutches his stick. The birds watch and the dog circles. A storm drags her skirt in from the sea.

the boy with a stick the gulls and a dog

Surrounded by the watching birds the little boy clutches a stick. A thunderstorm creeps in from left field. A dog runs in towards him.
100 X 70 CM. Acrylic on canvas

Wet season skies

Finally I've managed to carve out a few days to focus on painting.

I found doing more than pencil drawings on the boat too hard; there is so much going on while on the water and it's too hard to bring the sustained focus required.

So this is the story so far in the last day of 2006.
Road into the Sea. A meditation on the lines that get marked across life. The inevitable transitions that at best we accept gracefully. I was rigging up the boat on Christmas day and it was raining.

The air was still and close the water calm. The rain eased and a rainbow shimmered into view.

The triptych acts to divide the looming navigation beacons from the woman in the yellow dress and her dog. The puddle in the foreground catches the sun as it trickles down the ramp into the sea.

This is the first painting I've conceived and completed for a long time. But once the opportunity to release the pent up body urge to create arrived I felt the brush and my hand were no longer my own.

Last Light. A study of the sea and sky as they catch the final shafts of sunlight on Christmas day. The water is restless as the first surge of the monsoon develops. Beating against the flood tide a yacht heads out to sea.


There is one more nearing completion...that moment when the thing created suddenly speaks. Says; No more. I can do it by my self now. A border that, if crossed, my suffocate the very vitality sought.

Wet season skies

Finally I've managed to carve out a few days to focus on painting.

I found doing more than pencil drawings on the boat too hard; there is so much going on while on the water and it's too hard to bring the sustained focus required.

So this is the story so far in the last day of 2006.
Road into the Sea. A meditation on the lines that get marked across life. The inevitable transitions that at best we accept gracefully. I was rigging up the boat on Christmas day and it was raining.

The air was still and close the water calm. The rain eased and a rainbow shimmered into view.

The triptych acts to divide the looming navigation beacons from the woman in the yellow dress and her dog. The puddle in the foreground catches the sun as it trickles down the ramp into the sea.

This is the first painting I've conceived and completed for a long time. But once the opportunity to release the pent up body urge to create arrived I felt the brush and my hand were no longer my own.

Last Light. A study of the sea and sky as they catch the final shafts of sunlight on Christmas day. The water is restless as the first surge of the monsoon develops. Beating against the flood tide a yacht heads out to sea.


There is one more nearing completion...that moment when the thing created suddenly speaks. Says; No more. I can do it by my self now. A border that, if crossed, my suffocate the very vitality sought.

Ink and wash

Painted in 1999 when the future seemed unceratian and the end always near. The track among the trees led ever onwards