This digital version of The River has been compressed for distribution, which reduces image quality.

The high resolution version, with high quality images, is available to download at the following link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20617814/THERIVER_WEB_HIGHRES.pdf

Introduction

Driving on Mounts Bay Road towards Crawley one day, it occurred to me that the river at my side was much more than just a waterway, some kind of flowing thoroughfare … it is a thing of profound beauty, a national park; it’s our own Sydney Harbour, without the navy perhaps, but with all the beauty. And from every vantage point you look at it, it is di!erent, a moving feast. The River is a pictorial statement on the Swan as a thing of beauty; there are no statistics, no history or geography. It’s not a book for serious study but one that I hope will be enjoyed in the way that I’ve intended it: as a picture book that o!ers pleasure in its glimpses of the river scenery in my part of the world. In particular the popular beauty spots and well-used recreational areas between Perth Water and Fremantle – places that, for many people have been part of their neighbourhood, their consciousness, all their life. Something they’ve known forever, part of their own personal history. Looking at the city from the South Perth Ferry Terminal I remember my delight as a child, when a family visit to the zoo meant a boat-trip across the river. I remember as a five or six year old the beaches of Mosman and of Crawley – where I saw sea-planes landing on the river during the war – and Como Beach where the water was so shallow. But as an artist, the river for me is also a canvas on which I paint the images I see in my mind’s eye. A kind of landscape, an area of totality and completeness; a home for many things and many life forms, diverse and coexisting in an underwater realm that humans know little about. Standing at the shoreline breathing in the quietness, the gentle passing of time when the river is almost completely still, but awake and sparkling, I experience the hushed feeling of seclusion. Even in the stillness there’s a complexity in the surface, with its myriad reflections from dozens, maybe hundreds, of angles. Patterns on the face of the water, colours in the patterns, changes in the colours. The surface in constant motion, its liquid designs and shapes forever changing, arranged and rearranged. The perfect canvas.

Claremont Yacht Club

5 Perth

Perth Water Kings Park

The Old Swan Brewery Narrows Bridge Crawley South Perth Nedlands

Matilda Bay

Claremont

In the course of gathering material for the paintings in this book I spent weeks of seeking and finding, surveying beaches and cli!s, boathouses and sailing clubs, riverside cafes and restaurants. I’ve encountered the river as a living Peppermint Grove Dalkeith Como thing with moods and emotions, a personality of its own; a little capricious, unpredictable at times, fickle perhaps. Through the artist’s lens there’s an invisible dimension that presents itself in the sounds of things, in textures underfoot, the smell of the air, the momentary character of the breeze, all these Freshwater Bay sensations combining to create the spectacle. The river, with all the meanings it Point carries, is a piece of art in itself, waiting to be interpreted. Heathcote Canning Bridge I painted my pictures and sunny days gave way to the not so sunny; winter was on its way all through April and May and I found very di!erent skies in Mosman Bay Applecross June. The changing season doesn’t mean the end of pretty pictures with water gleaming under a steady blue sky. Wintry colour schemes in greys and purplish Mosman Park Point Walter blues are equally compelling, colour is colour after all and a painting is a painting; there’s beauty in every season. North Fremantle Blackwall Reach As the project developed I grew to understand that there was more to the river than the beauty of the surface or the life beneath, more than the thrill of a boat race or the quiet contemplation of fishing. It was all of those things and more, Bicton but it was also a visionary place where memories are made, where values and Melville Water meanings are established. As the paintworks emerged, I saw my feelings for the river revealed in them, in responses I had not always been conscious of: amazement, amusement, excitement, sheer pleasure. Suburban jetties and Preston Point boatsheds took on new meanings for me and a sense of familiarity that wasn’t there before. I have the feeling that I’ve come to know the river. Hopefully, somewhere among these pictures there’s something for the reader’s own recollections, something that will evoke an emotional response and bring East Fremantle enjoyment in thoughts of the river.

Fremantle Harbour 6 7 8 9 Somehow the mornings had not changed since she was a girl. The big houses in those far-o! days were all along the river. The water shone peacefully and the road curved around by the river. Through the trees it was possible to see the town on the far side of the wide expanse of water; clean and always looking as if asleep on the skyline. Elizabeth Jolley, The Newspaper of Claremont Street (1981)

Above: East Fremantle Yacht Club Previous page: Mosman Bay

10 11 Top: Blackwall Reach Above: Melville Water Polo Club, East Fremantle Following page: Sailing o! East Fremantle waters

12 13 14 15 Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club. The buildings here have seen another time and reflect their history. River birds and boatsheds, winding paths and a rustic jetty conspire with light and the mood of the river to create a spectacle. There’s a feeling of a nineteenth-century novel; take the modern boats out of the picture and everything else seems to be in costume.

16 17 THE SILENCE OF MUSSELS Listening posts we used to call them

river pylons thick with ears tapping into who knows what.

At half-tide they would be tuned to both worlds

slicing airwaves above the surface filtering what passed below through fleshy lobes.

What they heard shut them up for good a long time back

or is this silence even now illusory their sound the clap of a castanet the beat too slow or fast for human ears.

Wendy Jenkins, Rogue Equations (2000)

Left and following page: The Old Swan Brewery

18 19 20 21 Above: The Swan Yacht Club, Preston Point Right: Freshwater Bay

22 23 Cicerello’s, Fishing Boat Harbour, Fremantle

24 25 FISHING

We stand on the shore and cast lines out from us. We both wait for something unknown to bite, for the tug at the line’s far-away end.

Andrew Lansdown, Homecoming (1979)

Fishing below Fremantle Tra"c Bridge

26 27 Left: Left Bank Restaurant and Bar, East Fremantle Below: Sailing o! the Nedlands Yacht Club

28 29 Near Canning Bridge

30 31 COMO BEACH JETTY So firmly fixed, it shocks to leave; pelican lifts heavy to soar, cormorant belatedly on cap of pylon, its wing-sweep catching monogram, your hesitation; that frisked by sail-light an opening widens over wind-cauled furrows – getting up a head of steam, dragged back to foam – to hold you there and then break up the bright black boat, its sail so full of childhood you dare not let go, have done with river blood you can never have, letters carved long-back, jetty lost in rainlight. John Kinsella, Sand (2010)

Como Jetty

32 33 Above: Fremantle container wharf Right: Walking across the tra"c bridge in Fremantle, just before sunset, looking down into the glistening water, there were two pilot-boats directly beneath. They looked as though they were waiting to take part in a performance.

34 35 The water was purple-brown with topsoil washed from the vineyards further up the valley. It was the time for black cockatoos. They flew now in formation low across the choppy tumult of the river in flood. Elizabeth Jolley, The Travelling Entertainer (1979)

Left and following page: Melville Water

36 37 38 39 Top: Left Bank, East Fremantle Above: Fremantle container wharf Right: Freshwater Bay with Claremont Yacht Club in background

40 41 I can feel the Darbal Yaragan calling to me like I am a tidal flat, and that river is the moon. Peter Docker, The Waterboys (2011)

Above and right: Freshwater Bay Following page: Day’s end, Fremantle

42 43 44 45 Above left: Freshwater Bay Left: Matilda Bay, Crawley Above: Point Walter

46 47 48 49 The dark cli!s of Blackwall Reach sweltering with jazz-sounds; black water … knuckles of music on the golden ferry – way down in Perdido way down in Perdido the clarinet lamenting, remonstrating … crab-lanterns quietly in the shallows laughter under the trees pushing away from the jetty at Point Walter in Perdido Nick Hasluck, excerpt from ‘Anchor’, Anchor and Other Poems (1976)

Previous page: Melville Water Left: O! Blackwall Reach Above: Point Walter Jetty

50 51 Above left: South Perth foreshore Left: Sailing o! Nedlands foreshore Above: From a tall city building you can see the full expanse of the river winding beyond the Narrows Bridge toward Fremantle.

52 53 One enjoys a pleasant detachment out on the river. Even the tragic depredations of the property developers can seem to be just comic follies when drenched with enough sunlight and framed by acres of blue blue sky and bluer blue river. Nick Burningham, Messing about in Earnest (2003)

Near Stirling Bridge, East Fremantle

54 55 Above: South Perth foreshore Right: Point Walter

56 57 In the evening, after tea, was the time for crabbing. Then my brother – and sometimes my sisters, but just to pull the bag – went down to the river and caught dozens before it got too dark to see them against the white bottom: although on nights when there was no moon every crab moved in a little cloud of greeny-white fire that made them easy to catch. T.A.G. Hungerford, Stories from Suburban Road (1983)

Exploring, Point Walter

58 59 Point Walter

60 61 EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT PELICANS LOOK LIKE these pelicans appear evenly , sitting on lampposts along the Kwinana heading north, toward the city . these pelicans look at heaven & all they can muster is a yawn . they have no interest in the myth & astrology humans have wedged into the dawning night sky . the unmerging bumper exhaust sloth chaos beneath them is also a human distraction . occasionally a car crash sparkling glass bitumen diamond glints their attention , but they do not dive . instead they eye , are engrossed by the algae-blossoming swan rivering fishes to swim the indian sun . Scott-Patrick Mitchell, New Poets (2010)

Late light, Fremantle

62 63 North Fremantle foreshore

64 65 Early in the morning and at the end of some days the river is cheerful and busy with canoeists and rowers, but for the rest of a weekday it is a place of solitude. Nick Burningham, Messing about in Earnest (2003)

Top left: Freshwater Bay Bottom left: Near Mosman Bay, on a river cruise on a sunny day in April. The weather was perfect, the river was calm, an ideal day for the slow boat to Fremantle. I enjoyed imagining that the little boat I was watching was lost, it seemed to be so lonely, hurrying to catch the other boats or just to get home. Above: UWA Boat Club, Crawley

66 67 South Perth Yacht Club, Applecross

68 69 Above: Claremont Yacht Club Right: UWA Boat Club foreshore

70 71 Above: Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club Following page: Point Walter

72 73 74 75 THE JAPANESE GARDENER The Japanese gardener who keeps the river is working hard today

He has raked the entire bay neatly except for a small patch near the centre which he has trowelled smooth perfectly smooth

Now just wait and he will probably move that sailboat into the stillness for a mountain

Andrew Lansdown, Windfalls (1984)

Freshwater Bay looking south-east toward Bicton

76 77 Above: JoJo’s restaurant, Nedlands Right: Nedlands foreshore

78 79 Beneath the surface of the river, lying on the river bed, covered in its cool mud, sleeps the Waugal, exhausted by its journey of creation and resting before continuing its sacred duty. Graeme ‘Bindarri’ Dixon, Speaking from the Heart (2007)

Point Walter shore

80 81 Top: Fishing Boat Harbour, Fremantle Above: Perth Water from the Bell Tower Right: Point Walter

82 83 and you might think rivers carry things away, not realise they are raw mirror, pure recurrence, inexorable stasis, and the crystal road to the country’s future Michael Heald, excerpt from ‘River’ in Focusing Saturn (2004)

South Perth Yacht Club, Applecross

84 85 RUSTIC lackadaisical, the river laps the shopping trolley with a long

lolling song. together, they put the rust in rustic

. here, the bridge bridges this world with the supersized

surreal, but only as a bridge, only as it should

. see, there are no fast food franchises, no disposable diatribes

, no, nothing but the ease of easy living, the submersion &

slow set-in of antiquity, of intentional isolation, the

cart devoured in the still waters of a sleepy town .

Scott-Patrick Mitchell, New Poets (2010)

Above: Old boats near Claremont Yacht Club Following page: Near the Old Swan Brewery with Kings Park in background

86 87 88 89 It was a real scorcher, absolutely calm, the water clear as glass and blue as the sky, and hundreds of snow white pelicans wheeling around in big circles above the river, so far up they looked like confetti flung at a wedding. T.A.G. Hungerford, Stories from Suburban Road (1983)

Matilda Bay, Crawley

90 91 Above: South Perth ferry terminal Left: Howard Street, Perth

92 93 Memory is like water, home to many creatures large and small. Home to many creatures miniscule or invisible, and a single drop of the river under the microscope teems with life. Wayne Ashton, Equator (2010)

Near Blackwall Reach

94 95 Claremont Yacht Club

96 97 Above: UWA boatshed, Crawley Left: Matilda Bay, Crawley

98 99 The silver river mouth sparkles and trips its way past the docks and all the cranes take on a cut-out look, like they were made of black felt on gold backing. Bruce Russell, The Chelsea Manifesto (1999)

Old warehousing shed, Fremantle wharves

100 101 About the author

Brian Simmonds was born in Subiaco and worked for many years as a lithographer in the printing industry while studying art in the evenings. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Curtin University and worked for The Sunday Times, New Idea and an advertising agency before becoming a professional artist in 1990. He has since earned his living by painting portraits and busking as a portrait artist in galleries, hotel lobbies and even on a Mediterranean cruise ship. He has exhibited his sketches, oil paintings and mixed media works throughout his career, and his work can be found in many private and public collections across Australia. Simmonds’ award-winning body of work spans genres and decades; his nomination for the Children’s Book Council Crichton Award for Best New Illustrator for his contribution to Lighthouse Girl (Fremantle Press, 2010) is his most recent accolade. In addition to pursuing his own art, Simmonds has taught drawing courses as an extension program for students of Fine Arts at The University of Western Australia. He teaches ‘Art for Recreation’ at the City of Nedlands Tresillian Centre.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge my wife Jean for her support and understanding during what has been a rather isolating time in making these paintings, and to dedicate this book to my father, who would have dearly loved to publish one of his own. This is for you, Dad.

The publisher would like to thank Naama Amram, Georgia Richter, Wendy Jenkins, Janet Blagg, Monique Ivey and Martial Fatton at Censure Photographic Studio, Perth for their assistance in the production of this book.

Melville Water

102 103 First published in 2011 by Fremantle Press 25 Quarry Street, Fremantle, Western Australia 6160 (PO Box 158, North Fremantle, Western Australia 6159) www.fremantlepress.com.au

Copyright text and illustrations © Brian Simmonds, 2011 Copyright published extracts © individual authors, reproduced with kind permission.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Design by Allyson Crimp Printed by Everbest Printing Company, China

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Simmonds, Brian, 1938- The river / Brian Simmonds. 1st ed. 9781921888687 (hbk.) Subjects: Swan River (W.A.) – Pictorial works. Swan River (W.A.) – Poetry. Western Australia – Social life and customs – Pictorial works.

Dewey Number: 944.1

This digital version of The River has been compressed for distribution, which reduces image quality.

The high resolution version, with high quality images, is available to download at the following link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20617814/THERIVER_WEB_HIGHRES.pdf 9781921 888687 www.fremantlepress.com.au