Sample Chapter

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.

Load more