Sunday Essay - Armidale: avoiding submergence in the local

 

Beardy Street Armidale, 1964

It's very hot in Armidale today, 28.0C as I write. I find the heat enervating. I suppose that's a sign of just how much I have acclimatised in the twelve months since my return to Armidale. 

Writing of growing up in Armidale. I said that it was an unusual experience, intensely local on one side, international on the other.

The very particular rhythms  of life in Armidale and, to a lesser degree, the North dominated life. Sydney was remote, Oxford and Cambridge closer. I was more aware of global developments than I was of events in that parochial metro centre huddled round its harbour. Even then, the city's growth had created its own urban sprawl with outlying suburbs that few visited or knew much about. 

From birth until my twentieth birthday I visited Sydney perhaps eight times. 

Three of those trips were to Manly for holidays, creating an image in my mind of central Manly, the harbour and ferries and the Sydney CBD. Childhood memories are vivid, I remember the way that pineapple crush made my nose sting with the cold. 

Two of the trips were were for sporting events, one running in the GPS athletics, one  to play rugby.against Cranbrook. Two more were transiting Sydney on the way too or from New Zealand. In all cases I stayed in what might be called the inner city or at least that area and immediate suburbs. In the remaining trips I transited Sydney, spending the day wandering around Central waiting for my next train.  

Later and especially after I moved to Canberra, I would visit Sydney many times, For the moment, I am simply trying to illustrate how remote Sydney was when I was growing up. I came from a middle class family. Many people had less money and fewer opportunities to interact with Sydney. Many had never been to Sydney at all. 

Tattersall's Hotel, Armidale, before modifications in the 1930s

Once I decided to return to Armidale to live, I started to dig back in to create and recreate links. I knew that the city had changed and had no automatic expectation that I would fit in. I had to earn my place. As it happened, I need not have worried. My newspaper columns have given me a continuing base in town. Indeed, many did not realise that I was not living in Armidale and indeed had not for twenty years.  I also found that the combination of my personal history  with the work done in rebuilding my connections had paid of in ways I could never have expected. But I also found a problem.

Armidale is a scarred city, scarred by history and present lack of vision. I find this difficult to describe. 

Arnidale as a city has been greatly affected by external decisions and especially by externally imposed changes in education, now the city's main industry. Those changes are externally imposed I find that people are focused on internal responses, on the failure of those responses, not the challenges themselves I find that people are so concerned with parry and issues divides, areas dealt in absolutes, that they cannot respond to cross-areas except in political or preferred issues framework, 

I experienced this in the context of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Authority (APVMA)  move to Armidale. In the face of virulent attack from ACM's Canberra Times, I attempted to mount a counter case based on economic and policy analysis. I struggled. 

The Armidale Express simply picked up the arguments from its fellow ACM masthead. Those opposed to Mr Joyce attacked the move. Labor's Joel Fitzgibbon said that anybody who expected the move to happen had rocks in their head. There were arguments about the procurement process, arguments picked up in detail by the Canberra Times.  In the end, APVMA did move, but Armidale did not deserve the move. It had worked very hard to stop it. 

During the APVMA discussion, Col Murray as Mayor of Tamworth attacked the  APVMA move. It was, he suggested, featherbedding Armidale. Why shouldn't Tamworth get benefits from decentralisation? While I attacked him at the time, I have to say that I have some sympathy with the Mayor. 

When both the Teachers' College (!929) and the University College (1938) were established in Armidal,e there was no opposition from the Northern Press nor from other Northern towns. Ii was seen a a logical extension that would benefit all, Today, Armidale residents and many civic leaders oppose water to the Costa tomato plant in Guyra, the extension of university education in Tamworth, on the grounds that it might damage Armidale. And then Armidale people wonder why those outside the city oppose things that might benefit Armidale! 

At the moment, I am working on a new project, the development of a new approach to UNE's Heritage Centre.   Success depends on getting people to recognise the benefits that the Centre offers to Northern NSW and beyond. Sometimes I regard Armidale as the greatest impediment to success.  

If this is seen as an Armidale focused initiative it's dead, wrecked on the rocks of dislike of Armidale. I really had no idea how great this had become until I returned. If we come up with a model that involves diminution of the Armidale role, can we sell it in Armidale?

Bluntly,  Armidale needs to ship up, to adopt a a broader Northern perspective, or it should really ship out.

Bogged down in growing up in New England

This is your life, Channel 9, 1977. Peter Allen, Peter's Aunt Nancy, Clare Napier-McCann, Roger Climpson

Some years ago my old  friend and blogging colleague Neil Whitfield commented that he and I seem to have grown up in different Australia’s. The trigger for the comment lay in an exchange of experiences relating (among other things) to first exposure to things Asian.

Neil was right, of course. Australia is not and never has been uniform. There are many different stories depending on location, time, ancestry and family circumstances.  I mention this now because I have been bogged down in New England Travels. The current chapter, Growing up on the New England Tablelands is due for posting here tomorrow. I doubt that I will make it.

The piece was triggered by four autobiographical books that I had been re-reading, all set on the Northern Tablelands. The age of the writers vary, although all were born before the Second World War: Maslyn Williams was born in 1911, Judith Wright in 1915  Binks Turnbull Dowling in 1923, Judith Wallace in 1932. Three of the four became writers. The fourth, Binks Turnbull Dowling, was the daughter of a writer.

Each book describes different aspects of life during formative periods in the writer’s life. They are very different, but each tells stories of personal and family change set against a backdrop of major historical change. I thought that the piece would be doable, but then I added Peter Woolnough to the mix. Peter is better known as Peter Allen, the name he would adopt.

Peter was born in Tenterfield on 10 February 1944, but moved to Armidale with his parents soon after his birth. He lived there until his father suicided in 1958, after which his mother moved to Lismore. I did not know Peter, although he was only a year ahead of me at primary school. Now, digging down, I have found some wonderful stuff. But, oh, what to do?!.

I do need to finish what I'm doing at the moment, at least in working draft so I'm sticking to target. That has to be my priority. But then I feel another series coming on!

  .

First reflections on the opening of NERAM's permanent exhibition of the Hinton collection

Opening of the permanent exhibition of the Hinton Collection at the New England Regional Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Paul Barratt.  

Part of the reason why I have been so quiet here is that I have been busy preparing a public lecture I gave Saturday as part of the opening ceremonies of the permanent exhibition of the Hinton collection at the New England Regional Art Museum.  

Starting in 1929 and continuing until his death in 1948, Howard Hinton gave over 1,000 artworks plus 700 art books to the Armidale Teachers' College. The result is one of the greatest art collections in Australia seen through the eyes of a single collector.

The concentration of such a large number of artworks in a small space is quite sumptuous. This is an exhibition you need to savour. Photo courtesy of Paul Barratt. . 

The sheer size of the collection makes it impossible to exhibit all pieces. So the gallery has chosen 230 or so pieces that can be rotated from time to time.  This number of paintings makes for a concentrated hanging in a small space. The impact is overwhelming. If visiting, you need time to enjoy the works,

In mt talk, I focused on the early days of the Armidale Teachers' College, while art historian Micheal Mignard focused on Hinton. This was a fascinating talk, telling me much I did not know.  As summarised by Paul Barratt:

Mike observed that the Hinton Collection is the best collection in the country of the Heidelberg School when they moved from Heidelberg to Sydney. It is also an important insight into what was going on in the Sydney art world in the 1920s and 1930s. Hinton knew the artists, and his standing as a collector was such that he would be granted early access to new exhibitions and would have first chop at buying the ones that caught his eye. The majority of these ended up at Armidale Teachers College, which also received the paintings in his personal collection when he died.

The New England Conservatorium of Music's Dixie Six at the exhibition opening.  Fabulous jazz. 

It will take me a little while to write up my notes from the trip and do the necessary follow-up. Each time I go to Armidale I end up with more action items than when I began! 

Dalwood House

My main post today is on the New England Australia blog, New England Travels - A visit to Dalwood part one.

Some time ago, I started writing New England Travels, subtitled journeys through space and time. Part history, part travel, part personal reminiscences,  the book gave me an opportunity to write beyond the usual confines set by the need to record sources, to sit within boundaries.

Like so many of my projects, it is only part written, but I decided that I should share some of the material via irregular posts.

Joyce v Windsor in New England

My main post to night is on my neglected New England Australia blog.

That Australian Life - Windsor, Joyce and the New England imbroglio

The decision by Tony Windsor to re-contest the New England electorate has created a real frisson among the politerati.

In a piece on this blog on 12 February on Barnaby Joyce's election as National Party Leader (Placing Barnaby Joyce in his Northern NSW context) I mentioned the push to get Mr Windsor to run. Then in a 29 February post on my still neglected New England blog, Joyce v Windsor - a first poll, I provided the first poll results

There I noted that According to the Guardian, a Reachtel poll of 712 residents in the seat of New England conducted on 11 January found 32.2% would vote for Windsor as their first preference if he returned – compared with 39.5% for Joyce.

The poll also found 11.2% would vote for Labor and 4.6% would vote for the Greens with 6.2% nominating others including other independents with 5.1% undecided. Labor and the Greens would likely preference Mr Windsor.

The poll was conducted before Mr Windsor decided to stand. Now we have a Newspoll conducted after the announcement that shows a polarising electorate.

The poll of 518 voters shows Mr Joyce with a primary vote of 46 per cent, down eight points from the 54 per cent he polled at the 2013 election. Mr Windsor sits on 44 per cent. The poll suggests the remaining 10 per cent of the vote is shared by Labor, the Greens and others. Preference allocations give Mr Windsor a two-candidate lead of 52 to 48 per cent..

There are a few things to note about this result. I mentioned polarisation. Since Mr Windsor announced his decision, the Labor vote is down sharply, the Green vote is down too. Prominent Green politician and NSW upper-house MP Jeremy Buckingham who was apparently close to announcing a dramatic switch to the federal sphere to contest the seat.will be forced to reconsider. This is a Windsor-Joyce contest. Nobody else has a show.

Spare a thought for Rod Taber. In a piece headed Federal frenemy, Express Editor Lydia Roberts reports on the falling out between the two men.The photo shows them in happier days.

Mr Taber, owner of New England Solar Power, was part of the New England independent group and picked up the banner at the last election, scoring 13.7% of the vote. Having twice asked Mr Windsor whether or not he would run and having received  categorical no, Mr Taber had his campaign this time already geared up. He now feels betrayed.

In a discussion on Late Night Live (hat tip Evan) between Philip Adams and Frank Bongiorno, New England was described as an angry electorate. If you listen to the discussion (I'm not sure that its available internationally but try), you will understand. Regular readers of this or the New England blog will find the arguments instantly familiar.

This is going to be a very nasty and bitter campaign. It's also one where you are going to get a lot of misreporting. I will try to report on the different issues, for its going to be a fascinating contest.     

Placing Barnaby Joyce in his Northern NSW context

The election of Barnaby Joyce as leader of the Australian Commonwealth Parliamentary National Party with Fiona Nash as his deputy marks a significant changing of the guard.

The previous leader, Warren Truss, was very much a team person within the Liberal-National Party coalition arrangements to the point of partial invisibility. This may have aided the functioning of the coalition, but created real electoral difficulties for the National Party. In electoral terms, the Liberal Party is as much a threat to the Nationals as Labor or indeed the Greens.

Describing the coalition as a business partnership, not a marriage, Mr Joyce is likely to be more assertive,

One side effect of Mr Joyce's election is that I ended up on air this morning talking to ABC New England North West's Kelly Fuller (@kelfuller) about Mr Joyce's election in the context of Northern NSW politics.

It's actually quite remarkable. Of the thirteen leaders of the Commonwealth Country/National Parties (the Nationals were previously called the Country Party) seven have come from Northern NSW. At NSW State level, six of the eleven leaders have come from Northern NSW. If we compare this to the other parties, the score is none for the Liberal Party at either state or federal level, one for the Labor Party at state level.

In addition to the parties themselves, we have to add in the New England independents including especially Tony Windsor and Rob Oakshott who were instrumental in making Julia Gillard Prime Minister. There are also the separatists seeking self-government for the North.

Describing My Joyce as a retail politician, not a detail politician, Tony Windsor is considering running again against Mr Joyce. Should he do so, he will draw in particular from resentments created on the Liverpool Plains in the south of the large New England electorate over coal mining and cold seam gas extraction. This is Windsor territory. Whether his previous vote elsewhere in the electorate will be maintained, he needs that to win, is open to question. My present feeling is no.

Kelly and I chatted about Mr Joyce's somewhat larrikin style. I compared him to Earle Page, a long standing Country Party leader, but there is a strong dash there of Artie Fadden, another Country Party leader.

It will be interesting to see how all this evolves. . . .

Postscript

It seems that GetUP is considering organising a campaign to draft Tony Windsor to run against Barnaby Joyce. This is the GetUp email:

 "Calling all GetUp members of New England: over the last couple of days, we've heard from a number of you about the promotion of your local MP, Barnaby Joyce, to Deputy Prime Minister. The question is: what can New England do about it? One idea is below. It's up to you to vote on whether to move forward. This email is your ballot, and voting closes Sunday.

Well, this Election year just got a whole lot more interesting.

In case you missed it: this week, the leader of the Nationals stepped down and, unchallenged, up stepped a familiar face. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Barnaby Joyce - Australia's Deputy Prime Minister-in-waiting.

As you hail from New England, Barnaby Joyce probably requires no introduction to you.

He's probably best known for being a part of the Cabinet that approved the Shenhua mine on prime agricultural land. You might also recognise him when he personally received $50,000 from Gina Rinehart for his political campaign. Mr Joyce has done some pretty unforgettable things, so it was unsurprising when GetUp polls suggested New England voters like you were concerned about him becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

But there's another version of the future - in the form of former independent member for New England, Tony Windsor. Speaking to media this week, Mr Windsor said he would consider a challenge to Barnaby Joyce for the seat of New England. In the past, Tony Windsor's been at the forefront of the fight on key issues like protecting water from large mining projects and coal seam gas mining.

This week, I've spoken with GetUp members from New England who say that our community should use this moment to band together, and encourage a strong, independent candidate like Tony Windsor to run against Barnaby Joyce this election. But GetUp is its members - and the vote is yours.

Here's the big question. Should the GetUp community of New England come together to urge Tony Windsor to run for Parliament in your electorate?

YES - let's launch a community campaign urging Tony Windsor to challenge Barnaby Joyce for the seat of New England.

NO - the local GetUp community shouldn't do this

GetUp has a history of strong political campaigning during elections — but to be effective, it needs to be owned and driven by the local community. So this is your call. This email is your ballot, and voting closes on Sunday night.

Here's why this idea is on the table:

• Barnaby Joyce has a track record as a notorious climate sceptic, and as Deputy Prime Minister, he will present a real threat to Australia's progress towards a clean energy future - among a number of other issues. This week, he became much more powerful in the Turnbull government.
• Tony Windsor has serious credentials when it comes to standing up on issues GetUp members care about. He's represented New England as an MP before as an independent, where he stood up for protecting water and prime agricultural land from threats of coal seam gas and big mining projects, and for action on climate change. He's probably the only person who could challenge our Deputy PM in waiting, and win.

Tony Windsor's not in the race yet. But this week, speaking to media, he said that he's considering it.

And now, so much is at stake.

When Malcolm Turnbull rose to power last year, many of us were hopeful. Yet, Australia's still staunchly shackled to ineffective "Direct Action" policies. The Turnbull government still issued approvals for one of the world's largest coal mines -- just days after assuring the rest of the world that we're acting on climate change. With Barnaby Joyce - climate blocker extraordinaire - our PM in waiting, we can probably expect to see far, far more moves like this.

We've heard from many local GetUp members who are eager for change in the seat of New England. Many think that encouraging a strong, independent candidate like Tony Windsor to run as an independent for the seat of New England is one way to get there. And one thing's for sure: it would call Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to account on his climate sceptic ways.

As a local GetUp member, this decision rests in your hands. What do you say?

YES - let's call on Tony Windsor to challenge Barnaby Joyce for the seat of New England.

NO - I don't think the GetUp community should do this

What will it mean if GetUp members of New England decide to move forward? If we do vote to go ahead, together, we'll kick off a community-powered campaign to publicly call on Tony Windsor to run for the seat of New England. We'll go into bat against Barnaby Joyce's climate denier ways. Together, we'll demonstrate that the people of New England are hungry for a leader who is unafraid to stand up to the powerful few within the Coalition Government, the polluter lobby and corporate interests that's holding them back. And if Tony Windsor can be a candidate that makes key commitments on the issues our community cares most about - GetUp members will back him all the way.

With Barnaby Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister in waiting, your local election will be about more than just New England. It'll be a referendum on our on the future of our entire nation's policies, and the next Parliament after that. So what do you say?

Thanks for being a part of it."

Meantime, Winton Bates pointed to these cartoon depictions of Mr Joyce. Winton is also concerned about the opposition to foreigners buying Australian agricultural land (Should foreigners be allowed to buy agricultural land in Australia?), opposition led in part by Mr Joyce.

 For his part, kvd feels that Mr Joyce lacks sufficient gravitas.

Jim, I expect he doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but I have the continuing impression (see Winton's reference for several issue examples) that he manages to put a sort of vulgar touch on anything under debate. Some like that approach; I don't.

A recent one is the Depp dog saga: I take Australia's need for quarantine quite seriously (I've been through the process three times over the years with dogs, so I know some of the procedures) and I think the two serious issues involved - (i) how did the dogs get past inspection, and (ii) the need for quarantine controls - were to a large extent subsumed by his dramatic posing. It was an ideal opportunity for an international teaching moment lost.

He just reminds me of the mad uncle nobody wants to sit with at the wedding, and certainly not "top table" material. Except, now he is.

This Buzfeed story gives some other reactions.  .         .

Do visit NERAM's The Art of Wool Exhibition while you can

Some days things just don't go right.

I was writing the second in my series on fissures and divides in Australian politics. I started about six, but found it slow going because of the topic plus the need to check links.

About ten, I went out to buy some coffee and a little stuff for dinner. Walking back from the shop up a side way  I had a fall. My right foot caught is some plastic wrapping used in packing sticking out from behind a barricade and I went down quite heavily.

A nice Chinese family helped me up. I wasn't hurt beyond abrasions and a sore leg, but I was shaken up. Both the coffee and the curry paste bottles were broken, so I came home in a down mood.I then found I couldn't concentrate. I ended up putting the post aside and read a book. Still restless and unwilling to think of serious things, feeling in need of a cheer up, I decided to visit the New England Regional Art Museum site. There is something soothing about art when you are feeling down.

Both the top illustration and this one are from the current The Art of Wool Exhibition.

I love wool. I grew up when Australia was still seen as riding on the sheep's back. More importantly, I grew up in a wool growing area.

I was a townie, not a country person, but I had family and friends who were on the land, so I had a fair bit of contact with sheep from an early age.

I quickly formed the view, one that I have never changed, that sheep were remarkably silly animals. Lambs were silly too, but very endearing. While sheep were silly, I wasn't frightened of them. This compares with an early experience with a goose with young who was just about as big as I was then. That was scary, frightening to the point that I can still remember it clearly now.

With sheep with their rolls of wool, they could be pushed, you could run your fingers through the greasy wool.

As kids, we used to run up to the shearing shed to play. There were the shearing machines, the races, the wood floors stained with grease. The wool presses for making the bails. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we were there during shearing.

This 1933 Robert Johnson painting, part of the NERAM permanent collection, is included in The Age of Wool Exhibition.

Later, I wore wool by preference when I could. I loved the thick woolen jumpers, the wool suits were nice on the skin. With research, wool became more versatile, some of the textiles lighter.My new suit has a little cashmire, but is a lovely, smooth, comfortable clothing.

This last illustration shows another exhibit in The Art of Wool Exhibition.

To this day, I don't quite understand what happened to wool. Wool promotion and the woolmark seemed to be doing such a good job in promoting wool in the face of price and other competitive pressures.

I am well aware of the economic forces and of policy responses such as the reserve price scheme.  However, that is not a sufficient explanation.

Rightly or wrongly, I blame the decline in part on that dreaded policy instability that seems to affect government, the desire to apply new models and principles to things that are actually working quite well.

I must leave this post here. My leg is still sore, but working my way through the reproductions while writing this post has restored my sense of equilibrium.

The exhibition finishes on 2 August. Get there if you can.    

New England prehistory: creating synthesis in the face of destruction

This is a photo of Belshaw asleep on the job. It's taken a long time ago. I still have hair! It's taken during a break on one of the digs at the Seelands rock shelter near the Clarence River.

Trying to get back on track with my history of New England, I have focused over the last two weeks on the first chapter in the Aboriginal section, Prehistoric New England. This focuses primarily on the archaeological material. The next chapter, New England on the Dawn of Invasion, focuses on the ethnohistorical material backed by the archaeological analysis. I am probably quite close to being an expert now. Certainly I have enough material to tell a coherent story that you won’t have heard before. But I am also sad.

Go back to the explosion of interest in Aboriginal history and culture during the 1960s. It was an exciting time. Then, somehow, things seemed to collapse. I actually have to research and write this properly, for it’s part of my story. But let me give it to you as it seems now, raw, unvarnished and unbalanced.

Start with Aboriginal languages. In 1967, there were still original speakers of many New England languages, many old. A conference held at the height of the enthusiasm concluded that we must record this material  before it is too late. Then nothing happened. By the time interest resurfaced, much had been lost.

Now go to archaeology. The last synthesis of New England prehistory was published in, I think, 1974. Today outside digs and survey missions associated with development proposals, there appear to be fewer people working on the archaeology of Northern New South Wales, or indeed Australia in general, than there were in the 1960s or early 1970s.

What went wrong? I think, I stand to be corrected, that the whole area got hijacked. In the 1970s, the fashion became black-white contact history. You simply couldn’t get money nor was their interest in documenting Aboriginal languages as compared to other topics.

In archaeology, the focus was dominated by Aboriginal self-determination and heritage protection. It became harder and harder to undertake archaeological work. So from the viewpoint of archaeologists and their students, why bother when it was just so much easier (and rewarding) to dig in Greece or Egypt?  At the same time in Northern NSW, the sea change urban phenomenon was happening, wiping sites out. Yes. there was increased protection, but it was too lagged and too late.

The losers in all this? The Aboriginal people. Yes, it’s partly their own fault. Their obsession with self-determination and with the preservation of uncertain perceived cultural values blocked work that would have given them the story of their past that they really wanted. But it still makes me sad.

I know that Aboriginal people want to know about their past, I can tell them part of the story. But sadly, both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities  have blown the chance to extend the story in the way that seemed possible in the 1960s and 1970s.

Switching from the glass half empty to that half full. Sitting here in the early morning hours looking at carbon dates against a backdrop of climatic change including huge shifts in sea levels, I can see a pattern that explains variances in dates. There is still enough to write a synthesis for further test.                    

NEWC response to the NSW Government’s discussion paper on a NSW cultural policy now on-line.

Some time ago, I referred to the response from the New England Writers’ Centre to the NSW Government’s discussion paper on the development of a cultural policy for NSW. I promised Evan who wanted to read it that I would place it on-line and then let him know. I have now posted it to Scribd.

How to browse the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) collection

The New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) has one of the best collections in Australia. This painting is by Joshua Smith.  

NERAM has now started to put its collection on-line. So far, 985 works of art have been digitised. More will be added as necessary copyright approvals are obtained. You can search via the artists name or by tags.

I spent several enjoyable hours random browsing. If you would like to do the same, you will find the collection here.

Enjoy!

Train reading – Vivien Gaston, Julia Griffin & Rain on the Uralla Road

I have let Monday’s Forum (Monday Forum – the changing face of work) run. I will update it to include responses to comments, but it has already given me the base for several new posts. In the meantime, feel free to add further comments.

I have featured this painting by Walcha artist Julia Griffin, Rain on the Uralla Road, several times, most recently in Musings on a visit to Armidale – art and all that stuff. There I complained that I lacked the visual language and indeed context to explain certain paintings properly.

  Since writing that, my train reading has been Vivien Gaston’s The Naked Face self-portraits (National Gallery of Victoria). Its a very good book examining ways in which self portraits illustrate key if evolving ideas about the human persona. Vivien’s focus may be on self-portraits, but the technical challenges she faces in writing are very similar to the problems I experienced in trying to explain Julia’s painting.

One challenge lies in drawing out the elements in the painting itself. If you look at Julia's painting, you can see that it centres on the road.  This dominates the bottom of the painting, stretching from the right back across two thirds of the canvas. The road then narrows with distance, drawing the eye to the centre of the piece. 

If you keep focused on the bottom of the canvas, you can see how Julia has used layering, marking and smoothing to indicate the surface of the road, still shiny with the rain, You can see the puddles. As the road draws the eye forward, you can see how the hills set the middle distance Then above them are the clouds. They dominate the top of the painting, with lighter sky creating a separation between hills and cloud. It’s a visually successful composition.

But why did Julia paint this scene? What does it mean? I don’t think that we need to be too precious here. I suspect, I don’t know, that the scene just caught the artist’s eye, that it was recreated in the studio. I am not an artist, but I have a reasonably good visual eye and know how specific scenes, ephemeral images, just catch. However, while that’s true, the painting still has a context.

In the case of Vivien’s self portraits, context includes the artist’s life, the period in which they lived, their location and their place in broad changes in artistic and intellectual perceptions. This broad context reflects the National Gallery of Victoria’s large collection, the longish time sweep involved and the prominence of some of the painters. Vivien is also drawing from a large body of previous writing on the history of art and its relationship to the world around.

The context for Julia’s painting is much narrower. She has her own story, her own body of work. You will get a feel for that if you click through on the link in her name above. Her Kunderang pieces, for example, are very different from her earlier work such as Rain on the Uralla Road.

Do I like them as much? I’m not sure. Rain on the Uralla Road appeals to me in part because it captures something that I know so well, creating an instant emotional response. That is a second part of context, the geographic location. I know where Kunderang is, but I don’t have quite the same response to the Kunderang paintings for they are more abstract. I have to establish a relationship in my mind between the paintings and the possible scenes.

Landscape is an evolving form. As with self-portraits, it changes over time.  It would be probably be possible to place Rain on the Uralla Road in that flow, although I haven’t attempted it. My own focus, the context I use, is actually far narrower. Beyond my appreciation of the art itself, I am interested in Julia as a New England painter, in what her painting says about the life, history and culture of Northern New South Wales.

In thinking this way, I am trying to determine patterns, to establish differences in patterns, to examine interactions between art and life. In its way, this is just as complex a task as that faced by Vivien.

Vivien had to synthesise a vast body of previous work and thought, to place the art works in that context. In my case, there is very little previous writing.  I am trying to establish the context, writing on an almost blank canvas. I do so not knowing what the results will be. To what degree can we in fact speak of the art of Northern NSW in pattern terms? Is there such a thing as the art of Northern New South Wales as compared to artists who happened to live in or paint Northern NSW?

In writing, I also do so as a player, not just observer. The observer affects the observed. The fact that I create patterns, models that seem to fit, then feeds into later work and thinking.

I don’t want to sound too pretentious. I am not suggesting grand things, But if you have read to this point, if you have clicked through on the link to Julia, you will know a little of one New England painter, you will be able to identify one New England painting. That’s a start.   

Musings on a visit to Armidale – art and all that stuff

I try, not always successfully, to make Wednesday my Australian day, something that links to Australia life  or history as compared to the more serious stuff that sometimes dominates this blog. And who could blame me for wanting a break? Or you, for that matter.

First, a challenge. kvd thought that more than you could point a stick at was an Australian phrase. The alternative phrase is, it appears, more than you can shake a stick at. As best I can work out, its not an Australian origin phrase at all. Anybody know the derivation?

Friday morning last saw the launch of Came to New England, a book written to mark the 75th anniversary last year of the New England University College. I had been looking forward to it, a previous launch attempt had to be cancelled, but it left me feeling a bit moody and reflective. 

The official history of the University of New England, Mathew Jordan’s official history of the University of New England, a Spirit of True Learning,  is a top down institutional history based especially on official records. It’s good, but suffers from the weaknesses of its genre.

Came to New England is very different. This is a bottom up history, with thirty-seven contributors (staff and students) recording their perceptions of the place. My two chapters were context chapters, still personal, but providing part of the historical context.

The group at the short launch ceremony was relatively small, all authors apart from the small official group. Some had come considerable distances. Most were older than me. One price of the Dawkins reforms is just this: institutional change to the point sometimes of destruction so that those with the greatest and most intense memories of university as a place of intellectual, social and cultural change pre-date Dawkins. Its not just UNE, although that institution was more than others damaged by the changes. It seems to be almost universal. For many, universities have become places to pass through, not be immersed in.

The launch was held in the Booloominbah foyer in front of the Gordon Windows, a spot I have known well over many years. It was also a place my father knew well

living in the big house after he arrived as the first NEUC staff member in 1938, as did my mother who remembered it when the house was still a family home with old Mrs White in residence.

I enjoyed talking to people, catching up, but I noticed the gaps, those who would once have attended. I couldn’t help thinking that this might be the last time I saw some of those there. Who would record the stories ?  I try, but I can only do part.

Walking outside, there was a student protest. Perhaps some things don’t change! 

New England is still a strongly residential university, something that gives it a different feel to many larger universities where students travel to lectures when they must.

Proposed changes to university college arrangements had brought the students out in protest. It was a very good natured and well ordered protest. “What do we want?”, was one of the chants. “Communications”, was the response. I rather think that the Chancellor and VC who were at the launch got that message.

I really was feeling moody at this point. It wasn’t just aging friends and colleagues, but also the realisation that for those students this was their place now, that my place lies in the institution’s past. This feeling was accentuated by my own deep connections; my earliest memories are connected with what was NEUC; the portraits and photos on the walls are friends of my parents or grandparents or, in some cases, my own family; I played with their children or grandchildren; it is my place in a deeply personal sense. I become old not because of my age, but because I am part of an increasingly tenuous link between present and past.

Shaking the feeling of gloom off, I went up to the New England Regional Art Museum to look at the latest exhibitions. I got very excited by the new exhibition by Anna Henderson. This painting is called Basin Road.

I rushed off to find out about her. “Is she from Inverell”, I asked? They checked. No, she is living at Guyra. Still, that’s nearby.

The friend who was with me could not quite understand my excitement. It was partly a personal connection, for one of the paintings was called Oakwood. That was the district where the property was that my grandfather took up management on a newly subdivided block, where he brought his new bride in a spider sulky. But it was also an artistic connection, the representation by different painters of the changing colours and patterns of New England.

I couldn’t explain that. I realised that I lacked the visual language and indeed the context to explain properly. This was a real frustration. If I who know can’t bring it alive, who will? I can explain the paintings to some degree in artistic terms, but I can’t presently explain the shadings that show difference across land and style.

This painting by Walcha artist Julia Griffin is called simply Rain on the Uralla Road. It is a scene that I know so well. I have driven it many times.

I find that it is of continuing importance to me explain, to justify if you will. Justify? 

I want to explain to people from my own perspective why these things are important. I am not saying that they are important from a global or even Australian perspective. But it would be nice to explain to locals that they have a culture  that is varied and constantly evolving.  It would be nice to make that culture whether it be expressed through music, film, literature or at available to a broader audience. 

Call it a dream if you like.  But it would be nice.          

Sunday snippets – more about life and art than politics

This is a  Mary Edward’s Suva Girl (1937) from Face to Face, one of the current exhibitions at the New England Regional Art Museum.  Face to face features paintings from NERAM’s large permanent collection.  

Ms Edwards appears an interesting if eccentric character.

As I write, the mystery of the Tamil refugee boats, or is it boat?, continues. Have they been intercepted, are they being interviewed by Skype, are they or some of them being handed over to the Sri Lankan navy? And so it goes on.

I don’t know how this one will end. However, there is something very tarnishing about it all. Those who follow this blog regularly will know that I accept the need to protect Australia’s borders. I was also inclined to accept the original Malaysia proposal on the grounds that it was least worse. We took more refugees while maintaining a tough line.

Where I parted company with this and previous Governments lay in my perception of the mistreatment of individuals. Bluntly, if we can’t rely on the Government to exercise a degree of sensitivity and compassion when it comes to the treatment of refugees, how can we rely on it to do the same for us?

This next artwork  is from a second NERAM display featuring the works of Judy Wilford. Entitled Mist Rising, East of the Tablelands (2013) it is actually embroidered canvas.

I find Judy’s work quite beautiful. This piece does capture part of the essence of the New England Tablelands.

As you know, I write a lot on New England life and culture.

In Armidale Friday for a meeting of the New England Writers’ Centre Board I had lunch with my editor at NERAM Harvest. As we talked over lunch I started thinking just how important art is in making the character of an area accessible to a broader audience. Music does this too, perhaps even better if you think of the US case, but we presently don’t have quite the same depth in regional music in Australia. Its there, but it’s not collected and presented in the same way.

Returning to more serious matters, the scandal engulfing the Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning arm kind of came to a head this week. This has been a sorry tale, too complicated for me to try and explain in detail. In essence, and as i understand it, financial planners driven by performance incentives ripped Bank clients off. I was going to say that the Bank now has to pay the price, but in reality its clients have paid. It is now scrambling to compensate.

Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers is celebrating 100 years. During that 100 years, there have apparently been just  seven Managing Directors; Wesfarmers prefers that term to the new fangled CEO. Seven in 100 years compares to the broader Australian corporate sector where, according to the Australian Financial Review, the average tenure of a CEO among the top 200 ASX listed companies has dropped to 4.2 years compared to a longer term average of 4.9 years. Wesfarmers is apparently considering the longer term issue of a replacement  for current CEO Richard Goyder. Given Wesfarmer’s management depth and stability, it seems certain that the appointment will be an internal one.

There have been very many major changes in Wesfarmers over the last 100 years and especially in recent decades. Still, the company has had the stability to manage those changes. 

This is another painting from NERAM’s Hinton Collection, Arthur Streeton’s Canal Scene, Venice 1926. The post continues after the photo.     After the NEWC Board meeting, I wanted to write up my notes from the day, to consolidate my impressions. I fear that I was a little extravagant.

I started with a New England Pale Ale. Then with my half dozen oysters I had a glass of New England sparkling. This was followed by a small piece of New England Angus scotch fillet accompanied by a glass of New England red.

Sadly, I am not yet aware of any New England liqueurs. I am sure that there are some. Instead, I had a Sambucca and black coffee sitting in a big arm chair in front of the fire. Bliss! 

Train reading – Edith Potter’s The Scone I Remember

My background reading at the moment is solidly entrenched in the Hunter Valley. Reading intensely on a particular area, even one I know reasonably well, is always informative because of the linkages it establishes in my mind.

Once a mental pattern is established, new information challenges, deepens, shifts the pattern. Something that would have seemed dry or even trivial becomes meaningful. “Wait a minute”, I say to myself, “that’s a nice example.”  Alternatively, I say to myself “That can’t be right. It doesn’t fit!”  Then, sometimes, something that is apparently local or personal or family will take me in a new direction far removed from that locale or even time as I seek to understand.

My present train reading, Edith Potter’s  The Scone I Remember (Scone and Upper Hunter Historical Society, Scone, 1981) is a case in point.

Scone is a town in the Hunter Valley.  It’s not a big place, but one with a considerable history. The photo shows Scone’s St Luke’s Anglican Church.

Edith Potter’s recollections cover her younger life in Scone in the period leading up to and including the First World War. Her family, the Hulins, came to the area in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The book is packed with detail, you could walk the streets of of old Scone with it in hand. It is loaded with names, I think that Edith tried to include every name she could!, to the point that they blur. It is a very polite book. Yet it’s also a very good book in part because of all that detail.

When I first started to read the book I got a little lost in the names, although even then there were patches of recollections expressed in a writing that sucked me in. As the book progressed, the detail became important. The names of the main stores are just that, names, although I knew some. The detail of their physical location will mean little to someone who does not know or is not interested in Scone. However, the descriptions of the stores and the life that revolved around those stores is interesting.

More broadly, in describing the detail of daily life Edith provides real texture. Take women’s clothing, those complex long dresses that were fashionable at the end of the nineteenth century. Edith describes not just them, but the whole paraphernalia from undergarments up, the fabric, look and feel. She describes the detail of the ceremonies and sometimes tragedies of life as expressed in one place at the one time and especially among one group. The laying out of the bodies in a formal sense, the procedures for saying farewell.

I said that books like Edith’s took me in new directions. In my case, it’s my next two History Revisited Express columns looking at changes in women’s life over the last century and a half. My conclusion is not quite what you might expect. The grand fights of the women’s movements in the last half of the twentieth century were second order issues. They were major changes, but they could not have occurred without earlier changes.

For some reason, bobbed hair has become my mental symbol of the fundamental change that took place. The trigger for this is a simple one. Edith describes the pain that could result from the combination of long hair with long high necked dresses with multiple small button holes stretching up the back. The hair became entangled with the buttons; getting undressed could be painful. In the end. you might just have to cut the entangled hair.

I well remember the problems I had in getting knots out of my daughters’ hair as I brushed it, They would wriggle: “Daddy, you are hurting me!” So I could empathise with Edith’s predicament.

I will return to this theme once I have finished my columns. In the meantime, I will finish reading Edith’s book with great pleasure. Maybe, later, I will tell you a little more about Scone. There are stories there that have a modern resonance that you may find surprising.       

New England Travels – journeys through space and time

Last year, my main writing for publication outside my weekly newspaper column and the blogs were two chapters, one a long one, in a book to be published to mark the 75th anniversary of the New England University College, the 85th anniversary of the Armidale Teachers’ College. I spent a fair bit of time on those chapters, trying to write as well as I could while ensuring proper historical referencing. I was looking forward to holding it in my hand as tangible evidence of my work. Frustratingly, the book hasn’t been published. First it was due to be published last year, then by the end of March this year, now who knows?

Last year, too, I began what would be two attempts to turn some of my existing writing into book form. Both stalled because of the degree of rewriting required. Now I am having another go, but this time in a different way. Instead of trying to edit and restructure my existing writing, I am writing from scratch in an area that I already know where I can draw from my existing work.

The working title is New England Travels – journeys through space and time. Part autobiographical memoir, part travel story, part history, my story meanders wherever it will take me. New England provides the unifying element, the frame if you like, but I am not restricted to that; the sands of Arabia, Lugard’s Nigeria, spying in Japan, boxing and boxing tents, life and death on the frontier, the rise and fall of dynasties and the strange by-ways of family life are already there, sketched on the canvas I have created; my choice now is to select.

I am not being too ambitious. For the moment, I have an income to earn, other things to write. My writing target is 300 words per day. So far I am sticking to it, although it’s very early days. For the present at least, I am finding the process liberating, an anodyne to other frustrations that bedevil me. I know that the draft will change greatly as I write. Even now it has changed several times as I strive to capture the right words, to achieve the balance I want. Accepting that, this is the present start of the book.         

“Dalwood House stands on a rise. From the side verandah, mown grass runs down to the old vineyard. The Hunter River lies beyond, hidden within its high banks. It was hot and still, the silence broken only by the distant sound of a crow. Even the working properties on the hills on the other side of the River were still, remote in the faint heat haze.

This was only my second visit to Dalwood. Many years before I had read Australian writer and poet Judith Wright’s Generations of Men, the story of her grandparents and the establishment of the Wyndham and then Wright pastoral dynasties; the book gripped me. I was especially caught by the almost lyrical descriptions of Dalwood House as seen through the eyes of Charlotte May Wright nee Mackenzie, Judith’s grandmother.

By chance, I had just finished the book when I went out to dinner in Canberra. Talking about the book over dinner, my hostess, herself a member of the Wright family, said “The house is still there, you know, although it’s a ruin now.” I got directions and visited it with a friend on my next trip to Armidale.

Many parts of Australia now claim Judith Wright as their own. Up in Queensland, the State Government has expropriated her for a performing arts centre. Her New England connection is dismissed in just a few words: “Judith Wright was a Queensland resident for over thirty years. She was born in New England, in regional New South Wales, and came to Brisbane as a young woman”. Later, Canberra and Braidwood would claim her too.

In all this, Judith remained a quintessentially New England writer. That was where her views were first formed, although her later experiences and especially her relationship with the older novelist and philosopher Jack McKinney would exercise a powerful influence over her. Judith met Jack McKinney when she moved to Brisbane. He was a much older man, some twenty four years her senior, only two years younger than her father. They fell in love, moving to Mount Tamborine in 1950; daughter Meredith was born in that year. In 1962, Jack and Judith finally married. Four years later Jack died, leaving a hole in Judith’s life.

Jack McKinney was the second of three powerful men in Judith Wright’s life. The first was her father, Phillip Arundell Wright, with whom she shared a middle name. The third was H C “Nugget” Coombs, a noted Australian economist and public servant, with whom she had a twenty five year love affair. Coombs was again an older man, in this case by nine years. Both were major public figures. Judith was a widow, Coombs long separated from his wife. Both shared common interests, including Aboriginal advancement and the environment. Judith moved to Braidwood to be closer to the Canberra based Coombs, but the affair was kept secret, if open to their friends and the Canberra network within which they moved.

Each man had a powerful impact on Judith, but I think that it was the father that formed her core views. It was he that gave her that love of the environment and of the country. It was he that gave her that love, affection and unstinting support that seems to shine through in the letter between them.

I knew her father as a much older man. PA, we all spoke of him as PA, was my grandfather’s friend; my grandfather was godfather to his son who bore the same first name; my copy of Generations of Men carries my grandfather’s signature, bought in the year the book first came out. To me, PA was a somewhat remote figure. I saw him at events and at the New England New State Movement Executive meetings that he sometimes chaired. I and my fellow students at the University of New England where he was chancellor poked gentle fun at him for his sometimes mangled English. It would be a number of years before I came to properly understand his contribution to Northern life and the causes he supported.

Judith loved her father, she loved the Fall country in which she grew up, she loved the life on the family properties. Her earlier works reflect that love, and then the joy she found in her relationship with Jack McKinney. Later, there would come a darkening of spirit, erosion in optimism, a rejection of elements of her past. “You ask me to read those poems I wrote in my thirties?” she wrote in Skins. “They dropped off several incarnations back.”

Judith had the misfortune to be born a girl in an age when men inherited. After the death of PA, she became separated from the properties and life she had loved. Towards the end of her life, she saw the end of the Wright family empire that had been carefully built by her grandparents and especially grandmother May Wright. The ABC TV Dynasties program recorded the event in this rather dramatic way:

By December 2000, he (brother David) had lost it all – his properties, his cattle and his wife to cancer. His sister, the poet Judith Wright, watched in despair and died soon after.

Six years later David, my grandfather’s namesake, died suddenly. On his death, University of New England Professor Bernie Bindon described David as one of the pioneers of the scientific research underpinning today's Australian beef industry. "I can't think of a beef industry person” Professor Bindon said, “who's made a bigger contribution to not only the growth of the beef industry but the science that underpins the beef business," The Herefords that formed the base of the V1V and V2V Wright brands began their life at Dalwood. It was Judith’s grandparents, the core characters in Generations of Men, who began the breeding program that created the Wright cattle.”

I hope that this will give you a feel for what I am trying to do.

Postscript

Message first via the UNE Facebook page and then a personal email from Jennifer Miller UNE Alumni Officer to say that the UNE book was back from the printer with a launch being organised. I was so relieved.  

Hot air balloons over the Hunter

We were woken by  a hsst hsst sound. While daylight, it was still early. With breaks, the sound continued. We wandered out onto the little patio at the front of the room to find out what it was, shivering in the still cool Hunter Valley air.  In the distance, we could see a hot air balloon.

We had seen them in the sky the day before, but some distance away cross-country. Finding one nearby on the ground was confusing. Had it just landed? What was going on?

While hot air balloons have a long history, dating back to their use as airborne lanterns (Kongming lanterns) for military signalling purposes in China during the Three Kingdoms era (220–280 AD. However, the first untethered flight with human passengers seems to have taken place much later, in France on November 21, 1783.

The hssst hsst sound continued. As we watched, we could see that there were in fact two balloons, that they seemed to be inflating. This is a long range shot. From where we were standing, we could barely see the balloons, let alone the people.  

As the hsst hsst sound continued, first one and then the second inflated, then came the first take-off.

Now the second was ready to go. In this shot, you can clearly see the hot flame heating the air, with the chase vehicles standing by. With hot air balloons, directions depends on wind. The chase vehicles follow the balloons to collect the passengers at the other end and to repack the balloons.

  

As it lifted, the first of the chase vehicles set off through the vineyards. The others soon followed.

Hot air ballooning has become big business, with providers packaging the flights with all sorts of extras such as champaign breakfasts to add to the experience. This is an example. Excitement over, we wandered inside to prepare for breakfast. 

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Stray cats, cruelty, civil aviation and my Hunter Valley trip

Much of Sunday afternoon, Monday night plus three hours this morning before I went to work, were spent first on trying to fix email problems and then on resolving quite aggressive virus/malware issues. Given that this meant that I had not been able to write pretty much anything, I was so looking forward tonight to coming home and settling in to writing. But it was such an early start and then busy day that I was exhausted by the time I got home. 

In an earlier post I mentioned the stray that I felt obliged to feed, in part because I had known him for two years (I’m sure that he had belonged to someone). I called him Blackie; obviously he is not. Still, Scrawny is not a bad name.

For the benefit of the pet Nazis in our midst, he is not my cat. I have neither the time nor money to put him through the cat registration process. I am simply stopping a nice and well natured cat from starvation.

Speaking of Nazis or at least the Authoritarian robotic rule makers who now dominate public policy, we were talking today at work about the impact of the latest anti-smoking laws in prisons and especially mental institutions. The mark of a psychopath is lack of human empathy. The mark of an authoritian system is rules enforced conformity. There seem to be a lot of both around at the moment, For the first time, and it is a first time in this country,the word cruelty has entered the public debate as a marker. I hadn’t seen it before, but I think that it’s right.

The latest Australian Government action on boats may or may not be cruelty. I don’t share some of the views of refugee advocates, but it certainly seems to have had a further adverse impact on our relations with Indonesia.  The practical suspension of our cooperative relationship with Indonesia continues. Assuming the newspaper reports are correct, It is hard to see how the relationship might be fixed before the Indonesian elections.  And then there will be a new and probably less sympathetic Indonesian president.

Turning to more positive matters, I began a series with Towards a new approach to economic and community development 1 Introduction. Winton, while I have only done one post since I haven’t forgotten. The New England aviation series is actually part of the story.

On a still more positive note, kvd will remember my 2010 Greek trip series. I am now doing something similar with my recent trip to the Hunter Valley.  So far only two posts, but I am working on a third. This is the first post in the new series: Journey to the Hunter – Friday 18 April 2014: the adventure starts

Just an open cut coal mine

This photo shows the Warkworth open cut coal mine. Comments follow the photo.

When do locals have the right to object to developments like this? It’s a real question.

At one level, of course they do. We live in a democracy, don't we?  But what happens when local protests including legal and political action get to the point that they stall a development, when the Government is forced to change the rules? The issue in this case is the extension of the mine towards the little village of Broke in the Hunter Valley.

Don’t get me wrong. I support development. However, the questions that I have posed a number of time on this blog include who pays, who gains, how do we compensate? If the little village of Broke effectively vanishes as a result of mine extension, how do we compensate? Just a question. 

Moving images of a past New England

I got up very early this morning, but then got completely sidetracked by the YouTube video that I embedded in this post: Moving images from New England's past.

Of course it means more to me than it would to many others because I know the area and its history. However, it actually provides a remarkably good snapshot of the changing pattern of daily life over a number of decades.

Produced by the National Film and Sound Archive, it's long, over an hour. I sat and watched, studying the detail revealed. The changing clothes, the hats, what people wore at the beach, the industrial technology. Oysters, fish, making butter, the parades.

Do have a browse. look at the detail. You don't have to know Northern NSW. Tell me what you notice, and I will provide the context and commentary.

Postscript

kvd wrote in a comment:

Jim, you've no doubt heard of 'unconscious male privilege' before? Well now I give you 'unconscious city privilege' being that casual thought that all folk have access to the latest baling twine and tin cans technology between their home and the nearest ADSL point.

I shall have to download this vid in its entirety, then sit down later this arvo to view it as my tin cans do not have sufficient buffer to provide for anything more than jerky snatches. I have the same problem with the ABC's fine site - which is a pity because iView(?) looks like it could be something I might enjoy.

In the meantime I shall get back to learning why 3-toed sloths descend to the ground to do their business, whereas 2-toed sloths just let it fall where may: ttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/science/the-sloths-busy-inner-life.html?smid=pl-share&_r=1

kvd

In return, I wrote on Facebook:

This one came from kvd, a regular blog commenter. Why is a sloth, well, slothful? Why do two toe sloths shit in their tree when three toe sloths risk the dangerous passage to the ground to shit? And what is the importance of green algae in all this?

Obviously, all this has nothing to do with the post. However, if you want to find out more look here.