Post Colonial Fluorescence

Joan Ross

M.F.A. Paper 2012

Table of Contents

Statement of Originality……………………………………………………………………….3

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………..………7

Prologue…………………………………………………………………………..…..……….8

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………9

Hi Vis Colonisation (Becoming Invisible)……………………………………….…………..15

Hi Vis Society………………………………………………………………………...17

Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk……………………………………………………………27

When I grow up I want to be a forger………………………………………………………..40

Barbie Bush………………………………………………………………………….…….....61

Take 1: BBQ this Sunday BYO…………………………………………………………...…90

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….121

Epilogue…………………………………………………………………………………….124

Table of Images...... ………………………………………………………………………....125

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………...135

Statement of Originality

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no written material previously published by another person, except where due knowledge

Is made in the text

Signed…………………………………………………………………………..

‘What happened between these un-like peoples when they met on the edge of a continent?’ 1

1 Inga Clendinnen, Dancing With Strangers: Europeans and Australians at first contact (New York Cambridge: University press, 2005), 2.

Municipal Gum

Gumtree in the city street, Hard bitumen around your feet, Rather you should be In the cool world of leafy forest halls And wild bird calls Here you seems to me Like that poor cart-horse Castrated, broken, a thing wronged, Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged, Whose hung head and listless mien express Its’ hopelessness. Municipal gum, it is dolorous To see you thus Set in your black grass of bitumen O fellow citizen, What have they done to us?

‘Municipal Gum’ - by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)2

2 Kath Walker, My People: A Kath Walker Collection (Sydney: Jacaranda, 1981), 53.

I would like to thank my family and friends for putting up with me…

Abstract

This thesis investigates the early European colonization of Australia with particular interest in first contact and Imperialism. It is critical of High Visibility (Hi Vis) clothing and considers the 'creep' and colonising agency of Hi Vis, as a metaphor for the pervasive forces of White Colonialism and broader power relationships within Australia. The incorporation of fiction and private recollections provides insight into how the emotional characterises my work as well as engages with the narrative and fictive construction of Australian history.

My working methodologies will be central considerations. Particularly, the videos When I grow up I want to be a forger (2010), BBQ this Sunday, BYO (2011) and the sculptural installation, Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk (2010). Drawing specific attention to: history, memory, the absurd, the significance of materials, paradox and the personal.

Prologue

I often float out into the ocean, looking back at the land, just imagining. I love trees, I love nature, I love water, love Hi Vis, hate HI Vis, I hate consumer society, I hate pretension and arrogance, I dislike interiors shops and puffy pillows and neat houses with statues and ornaments and the obsession with these things. I also hate clichés and stereotypes, you can’t live with them, yet, you can’t live without them.

I hate colonisation, I don’t enjoy the notion of ‘being civilised’. One of the synonyms for civilised is enlightened… I think it is the opposite, ‘civilised’ has holes in it, blind spots and ignorance.

Introduction

Figure 1. Joan Ross, BBQ this Sunday (The end of the world as we know it3) 2011, digital pigment print on premium photo paper, 76 x 42.5 cm.

Australian colonisation is a car crash.

When I think of the colonials on the 26th February 1788… their ceremony and their singing of the English national anthem or something similarly patriotic as they planted their flag, to take (unlawful) possession of the Land, I feel a little hysterical. I feel like I’ve always known that this was the scene of a crime.

3 With all the titles of my works I have capitalised only the first letter. This is with the exception of people’s names or where an acronym is present in the title.

Edward Said in his seminal text ‘Culture and Imperialism’ argues that colonialism and racism are part of the liberal tradition. He accounts for the illusion of colonial superiority imposed upon the indigenous, asserting that:

Almost all colonial schemes begin with the assumption of native backwardness and

general inadequacy to be independent, 'equal', and fit’.4

This ideological and binary construction of the colonisers and ‘colonised’ has been used to validate white superiority over ‘uncivilised’ Aboriginal peoples. This has caused devastation.

Steven Ross articulates these resonating effects, maintaining that the white invaders’ conquering of Aborigines has resulted in “the breaking down of traditional social, political and economic structure – cultural and physical genocide.” 5

The influx of High Visibility work-wear into our world is a disease.

High visibility (Hi Vis) clothing is colonizing our country whether we like it or not. Its luminosity has infiltrated all facets of our lives in an insidious and powerful way, bringing with it elements of: fear, demarcation, ownership and authority over spaces and land.

4 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London, Random House,1994), 96. 5 Stephen Ross. Western Science and Aboriginal People. http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/barani/themes/theme9.htm (accessed November 15, 2010).

In this sense, the 'creep' and colonising forces of Hi Vis are metaphors for the pervasive forces of White Colonialism and broader power relationships within Australia.

In my work, I aim to expose the creeping invasion of Hi Vis as a marker of colonisation and its authority and engage with processes of subversion. Particularly, I weave the past, present and a potential future with the absurd to highlight my distaste for being ‘civilized’ and scrutinize the relationships between the natural and civilized and Hi Vis in relation to: colonization, ownership, authority, fear, and the personal. Through this process, I aim to encourage an open dialogue that addresses what has occurred and is occurring to the

Aboriginal communities and the apathy that surrounds the social and cultural issues facing indigenous peoples.

Figure 2. Poster used on Australia Day by Occupy Australia for Aboriginal rights.

Characteristic of these processes is a work I constructed in 2007, The Emperor’s New Clothes

(2007) (fig. 3). I constructed a portrait of a nude Captain James Cook out of scarred kangaroo

11 fur with the scarring going across his chest. It was mainly kangaroo fur but some rabbit and mink fur were also included to reconfigure the Captain as an introduced species.

His European clothes’, also made out of different furs lay crumpled on the floor. This literal and symbolic disrobing functioned on two levels. Firstly, it showed he had disrobed with the intention of wanting an equal and open discussion with the indigenous peoples. His nudity was also meant to humanize him, making him vulnerable and taking away the protection that clothes offer. Particularly, by stripping away the authority of the uniform. Yet, The

Emperor’s New Clothes exclusion from the Opening night of Drawing Together 2007 and from the RBS emerging artist award in 2008, due to it being a nude picture of Captain James

Cook, suggests to me that dated and default attitudes from 200 years of white settlement may still be prevalent today.

Figure 3. Joan Ross, The Emperor’s new clothes, 2007, 200 cm x 100 cm, (irregular).

In this paper, my working methodologies will be central considerations. Particularly, the videos When I grow up I want to be a forger (2010), BBQ this Sunday, BYO (2011) and the sculptural installation, Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk (2010) will be subject to inquiry. I will draw specific attention to: history, memory, the absurd, the significance of materials, reconfiguration of colonial landscapes, paradox and the personal. The seemingly disparate incorporation(s) of fiction and private recollections provides insight into how the emotional characterizes my work as well as engages with the narrative and fictive construction of

Australian history. A survey of Hi Vis’ positions in society and popular culture will clarify the connections I make between it and the insidious, seeping nature of Australian colonization.

Hi Vis Colonisation: Becoming Invisible

Figure 4. Advertising billboard on M4 at Prospect NSW 2011.

Story No.1: Hi Vis is the new black

Since Joseph (Lycett)6 was only new to Australia I’d decided we’d head to the Blue

Mountains for some sightseeing. When we arrived at Blackheath we were hungry. Joe recalled someone mentioning the reputation of the pies in Blackheath, he had a fine palate and his love of painting and all its associated sensibilities meant he could move just as easily in the culinary world. Sometimes I think he would have done equally as well as a food critic if he hadn’t had such a love of and ability for copying money.

6 See page 43 in the Chapter When I grow up I want to be a forger, for further information

As we entered the pie pub we were both immediately overwhelmed by a glow of Hi Vis. The road workers nearby on their lunchbreak had also heard of this town’s pie reputation and there wasn’t a man (or woman) amongst us who wasn’t wearing some form of Hi Vis Fluoro vest or jacket. We felt like the odd ones out. Now, Joe made more sense of the billboard we had passed on the freeway. It said “Hi Vis is the new black”, and that I hitherto had trouble explaining.

Joseph hadn’t seen anything like this colour before, the way it stood out on the landscape, how beautifully it stood out.

Driving along the freeway, now near Blacktown on our way back to the big smoke, all of the tradesman in the cars surrounding us were wearing Hi Vis shirts Orange and yellow clashing horribly as they squashed into the front of those utes, the colours overlapping. Were they all heading to the same fancy dress party? Or were they in the same political party.

The flashes of Hi Vis began to invade his psyche too, we realised we were involved in an epidemic, a masculinized /space /danger/colour epidemic, one we hadn’t voted in, or asked for. It was like smallpox.

Imagine if you could actually see the introduction of smallpox into Australia in Hi Vis.

Hi Vis Society

Like hip-hop music and graffiti, which jarred my senses when they first emerged, I initially experienced Hi-Vis as an eyesore. It dances, between being the ugliest colour ever seen, to something transcendent. Yet, when new things start to become commonplace, we embrace them without even noticing. My Seventeen year old son asked if he could borrow one of my

Hi Vis workers vests so he could buy alcohol at the bottle shop without being questioned he knew because of its new place in our world, naturally, that it gave him an authority.

We are now seeing it as a fashion accessory. It is now mainstream. Not just as a resurgence of 80’s acid dance party attire, but through the upsurge of work wear due to the Occupational

Health and Safety (O.H & S) issues and general sense of paranoia spawned by the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2011. Until then, Hi-Vis had been the uniform for the emergency services, and road workers and the smart bike courier, but suddenly every tradesperson was made to wear them as a requirement of their job, accelerating insurance premiums. It makes an appearance in every pub at lunch and after work and on every peak hour train. It is even on the Internet and invading parts of society that often remain ‘hidden’.

For example, prostitutes in Spain are being asked to wear it for safety. But of course, they are jazzing it up a bit, making it sexy.

Figure 5. Prostitutes wearing high visibility vests in Els Alamus, TELEGRAPH.CO.UK.

People have blogs dedicated to their hatred of the influx of Hi Vis. There is even a Facebook group called, “SAY NO TO FLURO”.

Figure 6. Screenshot of Facebook group “SAY NO TO FLURO”.

In 2008, the designer Karl Lagerfeld appeared in a French public information campaign attired in a Hi Vis vest above the slogan: "It's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything, but it could save your life".

Figure 7. Billboard of Karl Lagerfeld promoting road safety.

The Fashion World uses the contemporary to inform its directions and Hi Vis is making an equally strong appearance there. In gay porn (as tradesman fetish), school uniforms, animal coats, workman’s kilts, the Paris catwalks etc. The irony is not lost on us.

Figure 8. Joan Ross, montage of Hi Vis images from the internet, 2011

It is also oozing into the world of the politics, always a tricky area, never to be trusted. It seems that if you are not wearing it you are underdressed, these politicians are using every opportunity to get it on. It is suspicious when the Prime minister Julia Gillard, her colleagues and the opposition leader are all donning the Hi Vis. I’ve even seen the Queen of England wearing it in press shots. Matt Abraham comments on this, stating,

“Yes, the fluoro vest signifies so much for a political leader - safety, industriousness, a sense of purpose and affinity with the workers. It is the perfect disguise.”7

7 Matt Abraham, Early Warning System, Messenger Community News, http://messenger-news.whereilive.com.au/blogs/story/hurley-warning-system/ (accessed December 20, 2011)

Figure 9. Joan Ross, montage Julia Gillard in Hi Vis 2011.

And, when the contestant on the popular Television game show ‘Deal or No Deal’ is wearing a fluorescent Hi Vis vest and hat, you know it has become a marker of middle Australia…of the working class.

Figure 10. Joan Ross, Image from Deal or no Deal on Television 2011.

Even as I write this I’m watching a guy walking back from the beach with his family wearing a slightly more fashionable version of the workman’s shirt. Such yellow intensity, it is as sharp as it is acidic. It is as lovely and high as it is ugly and inescapable.

During the set-up of an art fair in Melbourne all exhibitors, dealers, artists and tradesmen were handed Hi Vis Vests in some attempt to satisfy OH&S requirements. It became impossible to tell who was an authority figure and who was not. It was the great leveller. On a similar note.

Figure 11. Installing at Melbourne Art Fair 2010. Darren Knight Gallery, Louise Weaver Melbourne Art Fair 2010.

Wearing a fluorescent Hi Vis vest gives you the power to do anything you want to the land…just as the British colonists did in Australia. It functions in a paradoxical state of both omnipresence and invisibility. This dichotomous state empowers this emblem. Specifically, by giving it (and the wearer) qualities of authority as well as invisibility and anonymity. We now take notice of, but also ignore people in this colour. In his article in The Guardian in

2005, Jon Ronson examines this phenomenon. He states:

If you want to be invisible in a city, just put on a fluorescent jacket and sit in the

passenger seat of a transit van, or queue up at a telephone box"8

My work, Last seen leaving the scene of the crime (2010), was painted only using Hi Vis yellow. I configured the text using a mix of wordage from police reports in the newspapers.

Serious crimes are now being committed wearing it. It appears all levels of our society naturally understand its unique quality of invisibility.

Figure 12. Joan Ross, Last seen leaving the scene of the crime, fluorescent paint on canvas, 61 x 61 cm, photo 2010.

And so Hi Vis’ colonising power leaks and seeps and slips into our lives. Australian colonisation is the metaphorical equivalent to the alien like invasion of Hi Vis yellow.

8 Alison and Megan, Blending In By Standing Out, Before Our Time, http://www.beforeourtime.com/2011/11/blending-in-by-standing-out.html (accessed December 10, 2011)

Figure 13. Bisley Workwear billboard seen in Waterloo October.

Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk

Figure 14. Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, installation view at Gallery Barry

Keldoulis, Sydney.

When you saturate a space, your eye begins to search for a respite. Typically, fluorescent colour is used to highlight. But when everything is highlighted, it is nauseating. There is no space. All the white turns lilac and the space becomes suffocating.

In 2010 I had a solo exhibition at Gallery Barry Keldoulis in Waterloo Sydney. It was called

Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk. It comprised of an installation of a Hi Vis lounge room, overflowing with subversive sculptures, ideas and colour. In this vivid, Hi Vis world the colour has invaded, we have unconsciously let it in, obeying its authority and legislations often without realising. It is a pervasive smell we don’t notice anymore.

Figure 15. Montage of exhibition, Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, at Gallery

Barry Keldoulis, Sydney.

We have adopted it. It is now one of our own (children). We so easily adopt the oozy muck that we are fed, often without thinking. Stereotypes and fashions are our dinner, from the television and the internet.. we lap it up like sheep. With aesthetic purpose, I have exaggerated this unconscious landslide.

In Joan Ross: Enter at your own Risk, Hi Vis’ expansion and infiltration is literally seen as colonisation or as a metaphor for the European colonisation of Australia. Tracy Clement articulates this connection, arguing that:

Enter At Your Own Risk is just the latest stage of the artist’s ongoing project in which

she symbolically pokes her fingers into the pus laden, festering wounds of Australian

history.9

Additionally, my revulsion for obsessions with ‘house and garden’ and its creep from the

‘civilised’ and genteel to the way we construct our rooms and houses is pronounced. The way we construct the interiors of our houses is about establishing and upholding our identity.

There are only so many acceptable identities we can inhabit within our culture. We have the same markers, mostly the same needs and therefore similar elements that constitute a room.

There are only so many ways to arrange them. The installation represents a generic room. A mix of kitsch and old and new, not a specific time or style.

9 Tracy Clement, "Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk" in The PostPost, October 26, 2010, http://thepostpost.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/joan-ross-enter-at-your-own-risk/ (accessed

November 26, 2010).

Clement observes a similar point of view, presenting the opinion that:

It might seem like Ross has just returned from studying interior design in some kind

of parallel universe where too much kitsch is never enough and hazard yellow is the

new black.10

Clement also suggests that my figures literally embody the phrase ‘dickhead’. In addition to being beautifully fitting, I felt touched that she had experienced it the way I had meant it to be read.

10 Ibid.

. Figure 16. Joan Ross, Two heads are better than one, 2010, ceramic figurine, vinyl, fluorescent paint, 157 x 55 x 24 cm (irregular).

The baby photo on the mantle piece in this installation is glowing the same eerie chartreuse.

Even the innocents are tarred.

Figure 17. Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, installation view, detail, at Gallery

Barry Keldoulis, Sydney.

The process of creating one of the sculptures in the installation called ‘May I offer you a head’ (fig.18).

Gave me a huge amount of pleasure as I knocked off the heads of all of the figurines. I would come home with a handful of them and I could not wait to hit them, one by one, onto the brick, on their sweet spot. I didn’t mind how much they cost, in fact the more expensive, the greater the pleasure.

Figure 18. Joan Ross, Pardon me, can I offer you a head?, 2010, silver dish, ceramic figurine heads, fluorescent paint, 14 x 48 x 28 cm (irregular).

Antiques and the less valuable bric-a-brac type ornaments found in second hand stores often have their real histories and meanings left somewhere in the background gathering the real dust. We acquire these objects often just because we like them. In the catalogue essay for

Joan Ross: Enter Your own Risk, Lisa Armitage raises similar questions in relation to these kinds of objects. She questions:

Why did they [the owners of them] want these things, these stories? Why did they

bring such uncomfortable histories into the comfort of their homes? What meanings

have been accumulated in their collection? What rules?11

11 Lisa Armitage, Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk, (Gallery Barry Keldoulis, 2010) 2.

My reasons are multi-layered and contradictory. Sometimes it is their bazaar qualities. Other times it is to rescue. Occasionally it is to ridicule, or love or hate simultaneously. But ultimately, my interference and reconfiguring, not only with other people’s sculptures and paintings and histories is the basis of most of my work.

Figure 19. Joan Ross, Pirate of the Tasman, 2010, ceramic bird, vinyl, florescent paint, 14 x

26 x 7 cm (irregular).

Figure 20. Joan Ross, Play for me, 2010, ceramic figurine, florescent paint, 26 x 8 x7 cm

(irregular).

In Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk I have altered and enhanced various ornamental colonial statues and pieces of furniture through strategies of intervention. For example in ‘Not Yetti’

(fig. 21), the stuffed seat of a piano chair has grown out of control. It has not stuck to its original purpose. It has not done what it has been told.

It laughs at itself as it turns into a monster, a colonial monster with a matching hat. This eccentricity has humanised it, it is a huggable work and it has dropped its armour of pseudo sophistication.

Figure 21. Joan Ross, Not yetti, 2010, mixed media, 180 x 50 cm (irregular).

Even though the reconfiguration of the antique style stool is clearly a subversive act, this sculpture also pits itself against its own beauty. Its elegant legs are still grounded in their original splendour.

By adding kangaroo fur and Hi Vis material next to earthy tones of embroidered upholstery fabric, a comparative relationship, forces consideration of a deeper psychological relationship. This is also in regards to personal relationships and even the title Joan Ross:

Enter at your own risk is double-edged and a warning, suggestive of danger in the space and boundaries but also on a personal level…

Figure 22. Joan Ross, Fly me to the moon, 2010, ceramic figurine, fluorescent paint, plastic, vinyl, 44 x 18 x 10 cm (irregular).

Figure 23. Joan Ross, With a big stick 2010, ceramic figurine, fluorescent paint, Hi Vis safety fabric, 157 x 55 x 24 cm (irregular).

On the opening night everyone was asked to wear a Hi Vis vest to enter the installation, you couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Figure 24. Montage of Opening night Exhibition, Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk at

Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney, 2010.

Figure 25. Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, installation view, detail, at Gallery

Barry Keldoulis, Sydney.

Figure 26. Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, detail, installation view, at Galley

Barry Keldoulis, Sydney.

When I grow up, I want to be a forger

Figure 27. Joseph Lycett, Aborigines cooking and eating beached whales, Newcastle, New South Wales, (1817) watercolour, 17.7 x 27.9 cm, (National Library of Australia).

When I was a child I remember hearing on the news that a man that been caught forging money. They showed the money and described what a good job he had done. He was jailed and I felt a bit sad, it seemed such a waste. I could see even from my young vantage point that this was no mean feat, and that it must have taken a huge amount of skill to have gotten so far before being caught. I remember so clearly thinking ‘when I grow up, I want to be a forger’

The video “When I grow up, I want to be a forger’ is not the first work where I re- contextualize and resuscitate other artists’ landscape paintings. I originally started by using found work and attaching fur wigs over the top of them. Much in the same way (as previously stated) I reconfigured the sculptural works in Joan Ross: Enter at your own risk. 40

Using other artists’ landscape paintings has two purposes. Firstly, it allows me to express my vision of landscape, a direct result of a particular type of meditation I practiced , where the landscape would seem to actually be my head. Secondly, by resuscitating ‘found’ objects and paintings, I value the effort and intentions that had gone into the making of these works usually by amateurs. These works would otherwise be left unloved, unconsidered and without a home to hang their sentiment in. Though this might seem at odds with the contempt I also hold for the bric-a-brac and antiques, I subjugate in my sculptures and installations, both of these purposes.

Figure 28. Joan Ross, It was a warm wind and it blew right through me, 2004, kangaroo fur on found print, 85 x 35 cm (irregular). Figure 29, Joan Ross, Muttonchops, 2003, kangaroo fur on found oil painting, 76 x 66 cm.

I have also reconfigured found landscapes in a series of photographs made of a colonial man and aboriginal woman dancing, to depict the dance of an inter-racial marriage and a marriage dance with the landscape.

Figure 30. Joan Ross, Shall we dance (The marriage), 2007, photograph, diptych 90 x 90 cm

(each).

My stepping into the moving image was inspired by an Archie Moore video animation in an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009, called Making it New: Focus on

Contemporary Australian Art, Curated by Glenn Barkley.

Figure 31. Archie Moore, E, 2006 video still, DVD and durotran 0:45 minutes, looped, 101 x 66 x 8 cm, (Museum of Contemporary Art).

I found its visual simplicity, subtlety of movement and colour, the use of a traditional painting as the background and context extremely powerful and moving. It coincided with my wish to see a Joseph Lycett landscape come to life.

Joseph Lycett was a convict artist, sentenced to transportation to Australia for forgery, he arrived in Sydney 1814 and was by profession a portrait and miniature painter. His watercolours form one of the most important visual records of early New South Wales and

Tasmania (though we are not sure if he ever stepped foot in the latter). He is one of the most accomplished and prolific artists of colonial times. Lycett’s work in Australia documented the life and culture of the Aboriginal people and the diverse nature of this new environment, his landscapes showed the progression of settlement through colonial Australia.12

12 Rex Rienits, Lycett, Joseph (1774–1825), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tench- watkin-2719

Figure 32. Joseph Lycett, The Sugar Loaf Mountain, near Newcastle, New South Wales 1824, Aquatint etching, hand coloured, 26.1 x 36.1. (Newcastle Regional Gallery, New south Wales).

This image (fig. 32) is the original Joseph Lycett aquatint that my video, When I grow up I want to be a forger (2010), is based upon.

Story no 2: His Foliage Conditioning

My tin mug was on eye level. As I watched the steam rising and its heat changing the look of the leaves behind I became mesmerized. I was drawn deeper into the trees and bush in the distance, still warped by steam I began to wonder: what would it have been like to see your first gum tree? What it is like to try to comprehend newness? How much can you drop of your previous understanding…your foliage conditioning? Joseph hadn’t dropped his conditioned view, he looked at this bushy dry scruffy gum tree, old man banksia landscape as though he was looking at London.

* * *

The Video ‘When I grow up, I want to be a forger’ starts with an idyllic, Australian,

Novocastrian landscape. Sounds of the Australian bush emerge and the magnificent floral call of the Magpie, “like an angel gargling in a crystal vase,” 13 can be heard. The trees start to sway in the wind, something I had wanted to see for a long time, a Lycett alive! The normally flat watercolour springs to life! A magpie flies across the screen to the drone of a small plane.

We are now not so sure what else to expect.

Figure 33. Joan Ross, When I grow up I want to be a forger, 2010, Video still from digital animation, duration 5 min.

This moment was important. Like a crucial point in a comedy letting the viewer know that, up until this point it looked like a lovely traditional colonial landscape, (albeit moving),

13 Peter Carey, Illywhacker (St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1985) 356

45 something unexpected was about to happen. I was also aware that I wanted to keep the viewer watching. To do this I needed a purposeful mix of aesthetics, wit and movement.

My intention is to bring to the fore, issues surrounding the 1788 colonisation and its legacy.

By telling the story with some slapstick, the hijacking of Joseph Lycett’s original, traditional artwork makes it easily accessible, allowing the play of a complex issues to exist simultaneously and be understood.

In the next sequence in the video, an Aboriginal woman and child walk into this pristine tableau first, as is appropriate. The wrap around her waist originally depicted by Joseph

Lycett as an earthy coloured modesty wrap, has been replaced by what could have been a re- fashioned Hi Vis safety jacket.

She is now visible, her and her child, as occupiers of the land, able to be seen day or night with the reflective strip allowing visibility under all. It also gives her an authority and she can’t be overlooked.

Two men in red Hi Vis coats, walk into the frame towards the shore with the distant sound of dogs barking. One of the dogs, a greyhound, is as originally depicted by Lycett. Greyhounds were very popular amongst the colonials. As the dogs run into the scene they disappear into the shrubbery to investigate the birds, flushing them out as they transmute into spirographs and screech like cockatoos. At dusk I’ve witnessed what appears to be the trees screaming.

The sound is deafening.

The spirographs are manifold, they are otherworldly, like underlying geometric shapes of some cell structures and so, could be the absolute basis of nature, they emerge like stars or snowflakes, symbolising ‘parrot speak’. They are also representations of intensely private 46 feelings, evoking a joyous expressive spirituality, that I identify within indigenous culture. In the video, as this detonation occurs, the Aboriginal woman lifts her arm and points towards the flying Spiro graph telling her child stories… imparting wisdom, as mothers do.

Figure 34. Joan Ross, Once upon a time in Great Parrot land (spirographs) 2010, digital print, 48 x 76 cm.

In these images of works using Spirographs called ‘It only starts to explain how I feel about you’ the spirograph is used to express the inexpressible.

Figure 35. Joan Ross It only starts to explain how I feel about you’ 2010, Acrylic 120cm round (irregular).

Figure 36. Joan Ross, I wondered what you'd look like with mascara, 2008, Ink and collage on paper, 18 x 38 cm.

The sounds of the parrots were anathema to the colonials, their squawking was so unfamiliar and shrill compared to the more sedate European birds. It might have seemed that the birds too were wild and uncivilised, the parrots were colourful and many and varied. So much so that Australia was referred to as ‘The land of Parrots’ by the German cartographer Mercator,

Australia has a long history and tradition relating to the number and variety of

parrots that are native to its shores. In fact, one of the earliest representations on a

world map by the German cartographer Mercator, in the late sixteenth century,

included a world map that included a land (located near present-day Australia) that

was called Terra Psittacorum - the Land of Parrots.

Early settlers often referred to Australia as 'Parrot Land' and there are numerous

examples in the journals, and drawings, of colonial officials, artists, naturalists,

and diarists of the fascination and interest that the parrots of Australia exerted

upon European observers of the 'new continent'. 14

And so I called my set of printed stills from this video ‘Once upon a time in great parrotland’

With the idea we could be living in Great Parrotland, not Australia.

14 Journeys in Time: The Journals of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie, “Related Topics: Birds”, http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/all/journeys/related/birds.html (accessed March 22, 2011).

Back in the video, the cacophony of this visual and audio explosion slowly recedes and we are left with one galah from the Macquarie Chest15 sitting in the swaying tree wearing a Hi

Vis vest. It is then we start to question whether the colonials are wearing red coats or fluoro

Hi Vis workman’s wear.

The clouds are gently moving by as the water laps, a butterfly comes in taking up the whole frame, it flaps and lays eggs, which appear as road safety cones. These cones are indicators of colonial presence, and of our continual altering and modifying of the land, specifically by land clearing and roadwork. It further reflects on our belief that we have the authority to do this. This butterfly, the Meadow Argus, was one of the insects kept as a curiosity in the

Macquarie chest by Lachlan Macquarie. The galah also represented in the Macquarie chest, transformed from one of the Spirographs now sits in the tree. They become like spies, quietly watching but able to move. Not pinned down and lifeless. Free to watch and take their own notes on the collectors trying to collect them.

Here the video indicates the sense of ownership that the colonizers inherently felt. Not only in possession but in collecting Flora and fauna for analysis and study. The butterfly lays the road cones to surround an area of erosion, which resembles the shape of a monster or ‘Yowie’.

Paul Cropper and Tony Healy account for the Yowie’s place within Aboriginal culture stating:

15 Macquarie collector's chest, State Library NSW, Discover Collections http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/macquarie/chest/index.html (accessed February 22, 2010).

During the early colonial era, Australian Aborigines often warned British settlers to

beware of huge, ape-like creatures that lurked in the rugged mountains and deep

forests of the island continent. Their people, they said, had been encountering the

hairy horrors since time immemorial.16

It is believed that ‘The Sugar Loaf Mountain, near Newcastle, New South Wales 1824’ which this video is based, is this same area in Lake Macquarie which was/is home to the supernatural spirit Puttikan.

Mount Sugarloaf is also a sacred site for the Awabakal people, so when I began to work on this image and zoomed in, I noticed that the erosion that Lycett had painted looked suspiciously like a huge yowie type figure lying face-down, legs and arms akimbo.

Figure 37. Joan Ross, detail, When I grow up I want to be a forger, 2010, digital video still.

I began to consider that not only were the colonials taking Aboriginal land, they were ignoring Aboriginal sacred sites. Because it looked like a Yowie, I felt it could be a representation of Puttikan and possibly a demonstration of a sacred site.

16 Paul Cropper & Tony Healy, The Yowie, In Search of Australia’s Bigfoot, http://www.yowiefile.com/

So when my butterfly lays its road cone eggs, it is to protect the imaginary site from further degradation and symbolises the need to respect, but also to give power to the natural world.

By using the same markers as the invaders, the colonials. Here, provided is an opportunity to reconsider authority and the imbalance of power.

In the video issues of ownership are even more poignant as a Lycett couple come into view walking arm in arm. I have a lot to say about Lycett’s couples. There appears to be a

‘possession through gesture’ in a great percentage of Lycett’s pictures where his couples often point proudly and suggestively towards the vista, as if they were saying, “look at our land, we own this.”

My large Perspex installation work titled ‘Oh look along my stick at our land’ 2009 is the first piece where I approached this topic.

Figure 38. Joan Ross, Come a little closer, Gallery Barry Keldoulis, 2009, Installation shot.

All my titles are well considered, this one, Come a little closer is no exception. It suggests an arrogance as the newcomers stroll along the shorelines of numerous locales strutting and pointing out what they now perceive as theirs, without a second thought for whose land it actually was. My bringing to life of these strollers and strutters and pointers in this animation, allows me to wreak more havoc onto them by the addition of sound to their movement. They whistle light hearted tunes as do the happy go lucky types we see so often stereotyped in relation to this perspective. Lisa Slade in the catalogue essay of Curious

Colony: A Twenty First Century Wunderkammer, in reference to this video, states:

In many of Lycett’s paintings and etchings, self-conscious settlers pervade the middle

ground, more often than not announcing their ownership of a piece of land, waterway

or mountain. Lycett often employs a coupling effect, where the humans and animals

populate this new world two by two, as though from the biblical ark.17

17 Lisa Slade and others. Curious Colony: A Twenty First Century Wunderkammer, (Newcastle Region Art Gallery, 2010), 6.

Figure 39. Joseph Lycett, View of Wilberforce, on the banks of the River Hawkesbury, New South Wales, 1825, Detail, etching.

John Mcphee makes further observations of these couples in his book Joseph Lycett: Convict

Artist. He observes:

The views of towns are further civilised by the inclusion of fashionably dressed

couples, most often a man and a woman, leisurely admiring the achievements of the

European settlers. Occasionally they are shown pointing out a particular sight or

building, and the men sometimes gesticulate with walking sticks.18

I feel very strongly about this leap the colonials took, the leap into possession. I began to

18 John Mcphee, Joseph Lycett: convict artist, Sydney (Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 2006), 162.

55 explore this in an earlier work The day a white man gave a black man (his) land. (2006). (fig.

40), This was a pivotal work for me, very important for the gravity of its passion. I wrote the text by hand in permanent laundry marker on fake woodgrain lino to cheapen it, to bring to ridicule the abomination of its existence. I didn't project it to draw it up, I did it all by eye and as I copied Lachlan Macquarie’s handwriting with my own hand, the writing of a British colonial giving a land grant to an Aborigine, I became convinced of my conviction around these issues.

Figure 40. Joan Ross, The day a white man gave a black man (his) land, 2006, Laundry Marker on lino160 x 114 cm (irregular)

Continuing with video we watch an aural conflict as the couple walk along whistling an inane old-fashioned English song, which competes with the exquisite birdsong.

He lifts up that pointing stick now, to bring attention to the line-up of boats that begin to appear, entering right. They round the bend simultaneously as two Aboriginal men who are in the original work, but left out till now, walk in. They are wearing Hi Vis colours and carry similar coloured Hi Vis spears.

Following the rowing boat is a Nobby’s Head itself, a headland on the south side of the entrance to Newcastle which, has been in constant physical flux since the arrival of Lachlan

Macquarie. A small island like knob, piece of hill, it arrives like a ship to the sound of a

Newcastle coal ship, it is a sound that is out of place like the colonials.

The sky is changing to the sky of the Lycett oil painting of Newcastle, and forebodingly gets darker.

Figure 41. Joseph Lycett, Inner view of Newcastle, c1818, oil on canvas, 61 x 91.4 cm,

(Newcastle Regional Gallery, New South Wales).

Following behind are two tall first fleet ships. The first turns away suddenly, just before reaching the shore as if it might have had second thoughts. The other is coming towards us and unexpectedly moves up and onto the land, running aground and straight over the top of the sacred, safety cone protected site. This is to the overwhelming loud sound track of wood cracking and creaking. As the ship hits the Hi Vis road cones, there are ten pin bowling noises, as if they have bowled a strike, a win. This is a gross arrival.

We are struck here at this climax, not only by the ships grounding, the brash sounds and the darkening sky, but also by invasion of stillness in this gentle paradise.

Magpies warble on cue.

The two aboriginal men stepped back, as the boat comes straight for them easily and without panic, as if to suggest that the drama and overtness is not a part of their nature and that they entertain no fear.

7/09/12 2:25 PM

Barbie Bush

Figure 42. Joan Ross, Barbie Bush, 2010, digital video still.

This work is the epitome of juxtaposition. Let me introduce you: Barbie Island Princess

Rosella Karaoke Styling Head by Mattel 2007, meet Lieutenant Watkin Tench 1788. A nightmare waiting to happen!

Figure 43. Mattel, Barbie Island Princess Rosella Karaoke Styling Head, 2007.

Figure 44. Joan Ross He had an eye for detail, 2008, crayon on Linoleum, 60 x 35 cm,

(irregular).

Watkin Tench a sensitive, observant and keen writer. He arrived in Australia with the first fleet as a Captain – Lieutenant, he wrote two books in which he described the voyage and the early years of the settlement in New South Wales. It was reported to be the most perceptive and the most literary of all first fleet accounts.

Inga Clendinnen speaks highly of Watkin in her book Dancing with Strangers.

She explains that:

In his writings Tench lives again, as he makes the people he sees around him live,

especially the men and women rendered near-invisible or unintelligible in too

many other accounts: the indigenous inhabitants of the Sydney region. 19

Furthermore, Tim Flannery in the introduction to the book Watkin Tench 1788 succinctly states:

Tench's claim to remembrance rests on the two books in which he described the

voyage to and the early years of the settlement in New South Wales, at once the

most perceptive and the most literary of the contemporary accounts. Less detailed

than David Collins, less matter of fact than Arthur Phillip or John White, Watkin

Tench was the first to mould Australian experience into a work of conscious art.

To a sound eighteenth-century style—he had read Voltaire and Gibbon—he added

an interest in the novel, the picturesque and the primitive that foreshadows

romanticism. His eye ranged over the convicts and the Aboriginals with a mixture

of shrewd common sense and sympathetic tolerance, and his reaction to the

country itself shows the same qualities. His notes, made while the events were

fresh, were no doubt polished at leisure and were then selected and arranged to

bring out the main themes, and his writing combines the freshness of immediately

recorded experience with more elaborate set pieces and reflections.20

19 Inga Clendinnen, Dancing With Strangers: Europeans and Australians at first contact (New York Cambridge: University press, 2005), 58.

20 Laurence Frederic Fitzhardinge, “ Tench Watkin (1758 -1833)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tench-watkin-2719 (accessed July 24, 2011).

Tench saw the Australian indigenous people as fellow humans beings and reported most of his observations from that viewpoint.

This Barbie doll is poignant just as it sits, untouched, not often do you get to witness such a vulgarity. Barbie sings horrifying songs about stupendously supercilious things.21

I changed her words into something completely contradictory to her appearance and meaning.

The fact that Barbie mimes Watkin Tench in this short video is a multi-layered proposition.

Welcome to the plastic, mass produced, artificial, styled, oversized singing ‘Barbie’ head.

The Disney cartoon like animals and the fake plastic flowers that surround the coiffured plastic lady-girl appear so utterly removed from nature whilst trying to emulate it.

These particular over-sized Barbie style heads are normally used for young girls to ‘practice‘ hairdressing and using make up. This one has the added appeal of karaoke, it is of course one of the most sexist toys in existence, ‘great tits! Love your work’!

Patriarchy and sexism is something my work addresses. These are recurring themes in a number of works, one in particular where I cut off and hand-spun Barbie’s plastic golden locks into ’wool’ and crocheted it into male underpants (2007).

21 for further reference see this link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K33NMEmhcos

In the video, ‘Barbie Bush’, Barbie’s hair was styled by me into the late 1700s fashion and she is wearing a faux colonial man’s hat. These additions refer to the notion of the Uncanny

“the opposite of what is familiar"22, espoused by Freud. Something I repeatedly return to in my work.

The voice in this video is from the audio book of Watkin Tench,1788 by Tim Flannery. This is the text:

Spiders are large and numerous. Their webs are not only the strongest, but the finest,

and most silky I ever felt. I have often thought their labour might be turned to

advantage. It has, I believe, been proved that spiders, were it not for their

quarrelsome disposition which irritates them to attack and destroy each other, might

be employed more profitably than silk-worms. The hardiness of some of the insects

deserve to be mentioned. A beetle was immersed in proof spirits for four hours, and

when taken out crawled away almost immediately. It was a second time immersed,

and continued in a glass of rum for a day and a night, at the expiration of which

period it still showed symptoms of life. Perhaps, however, what I from ignorance

deem wonderful is common.23

22 Sigmund Freud and James Strachey, Art and literature: Jensen's Gravida, Leonardo da Vinci and other works (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1985) 341.

23 Watkin Tench, 1788, ed. Tim Flannery (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2009), 243.

Figure 45, Joan Ross: Enter At Your Own Risk, 2010, installation view, detail, at Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney.

Though it is clear that Watkin was indeed a sensitive and open-minded man for his times and that his observations generally embodied a high regard for the ‘natives’ but his talk about the experimentation of the beetle for example, was still saturated with the mentality of his era.

It appeared to me that apart from Watkin, most of the colonisers behaved in a true narcissistic fashion, interested only in themselves. Their perceptions were dominated by thoughts of how everything affected them. Disregarded were the consequences and effects of their actions. It appears the Indigenous peoples were simultaneously irritating and intriguing to the

Europeans, and used only as a means to an end.

Portraying Barbie miming this particular Tench diary excerpt and exact words in that particular English accent questions and exaggerates the ethical purpose and experimentation of the insects, as an example of the broader approach.

This comparative relationship forces us to reconsider the colonials attitude to the Aboriginals and brings to light colonial collecting and experimentation of flora and fauna.

This Barbie is extra special though. She talks. Her little pink mouth mimes stiffly and out of time, to some inane songs about princesses and dresses. Artist Julie Fragar said to me on seeing the Barbie’s head miming. ‘She is tragic, the limited movement makes you ache.’

This intrigue with the collection of body parts and curiosities has concerned me and is apparent in my installation Eugene (fig. 46) and (fig. 47) first installed in 2007, account for

Eugenics in history, Russell McGregor expands on this:

The policy of removing mixed race Aboriginal children from their parents emerged

from an opinion based on Eugenics theory in late 19th and early 20th century

Australia that the 'full-blood' tribal Aborigine would be unable to sustain itself, and

was doomed to inevitable extinction, as at the time huge numbers of aborigines were

in fact dying out, from diseases caught from European settlers.[104] An ideology at

the time held that mankind could be divided into a civilizational hierarchy.24

Figure 46. Joan Ross, Eugene, installation, Lines in the Sand, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery,

2008, (irregular).

24 Russell McGregor,Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the doomed race theory, 1880-1939 (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, VIC, Australia 1997).

Figure 47. Joan Ross, Eugene, installation, (detail,) Lines in the Sand, Hawksbury Regional

Gallery (2009) (irregular).

Figure 48. Joan Ross, How many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea,

2008, mixed media, detail, (irregular).

This installation is more than anything a homage or even a ‘perverse shrine’ to Pemelwuy and to the fight he put up against the colonials for the atrocities they committed against the

Aboriginal peoples. Pemulwuy is remembered by the Eora as a courageous resistance fighter.

He was a Bidjigal ‘warrior’ who led the Eora and surrounding nations in the first major response to the invading British from 1790 to 1802. Pemulwuy was shot dead in June 1802.

George Suttor described the subsequent events: “his head was cut off, which was, I believe, sent to England” 25

25 J. L. Kohen, Pemulwuy (1750–1802), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

My installation Eugene originates with thoughts of Pemelwuy, and the tragedy of the requesting and collection of his severed head, but continues to talk in general about the collections that colonising powers made of artifacts and body parts of Aborigines which led to Eugenics and notions of white supremacy, which I detest.

There are not only references in this work to Pemlwuy’s head being cut off and put in a jar but also references to Joseph Banks and his collection, Lachlan Macquarie, Captain James

Cook, Nazi Germany and Eugenics.

My intention here was to bring to light some of the atrocities that have occurred in the colonising and ‘civilising’ of Aborigines and their land. It is so poignant in the story of

Pemelwuy, that even in the letter from Joseph Banks to Phillip Gidley King, 8 April 1803, which jokes of the comical consequences of getting Pemelwuy’s head through customs, it simultaneously describes his great and strong character, it is both a travesty and a tragedy.

These works (fig. 48) (fig. 49). were part of the installation Eugene and they appeared on the

wall behind it as in the image above with transcripts of the original letters as seen below

Figure 49. Joan Ross, Brave and independent and in a jar, from Eugene, installation in Lines in the Sand, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 2008, detail (irregular).

Figure 50. Joan Ross, By hook or by crook, from Eugene, installation in Lines in the Sand, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 2008, detail (irregular).

Letter transcriptions of works Brave and independent and in a jar

(fig. 49) and (fig. 50) By Hook or by crook

[Phillip Gidley King to Sir Joseph Banks, 5 June 1802] I send by this conveyance [Lady

Nelson] the articles named in the enclosed list. The printed paper will explain how I came by the head. The bearer of it you will find mentioned in Collins’ books. ‘Altho’ a terrible pest to the colony, he [Pemulwuy] was a brave and independent character, understanding that the possession of a New Hollander’s head is among the desiderata, I have put it in spirits and forwarded it by the Speedy.26

26 Philip Gidley King, “Letter received by Banks from Philip Gidley King, 5 June 1802” in Papers of Sir Joseph Banks (State Library of New South Wales, 1802), http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_39/39_068.cfm (accessed July 6, 2011).

[Sir Joseph Banks to Phillip Gidley King, 8 April 1803] The manifold packages you have had the goodness to forward to me have always, owing to your friendly care in addressing and invoicing them, come safe and in good condition to my hands. Among the last was the head of one of your subjects, which is said to have caused some comical consequences when opened at the Customs House, but when brought home was very acceptable to our anthropological collectors, and makes a figure in the museum of the late Mr. Hunter, now purchased by the public.27

27 Joseph Banks, “Letter received by Philip Gidley King from Banks, 8 April 1803” in Papers of Sir Joseph Banks (State Library of New South Wales, 1802), http://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks/series_39/39_076.cfm (accessed July 6, 2011).

Just as the video Barbie Bush is formed through the connection of seemingly unrelated elements, there are a number of disparate themes, stories, objects and characters within this chapter. For example, colonisation, Watkin Tench, Barbie’s and Pemelwuy’s heads, the absurd, Eugenics and my own stories and dreams about Watkin Tench Maria Locke28 and

Big. P. Cock (Story. 2) rub shoulders.

28 Maria became the first Aboriginal woman to legally wed a European man when she married Robert Lock on 26 January 1824 at St John's Church, Parramatta She was the sister of Colebee, who along with Narragingy received the first grant of land made by the British to an Aboriginal person. Colebee was a guide assisting William Cox when he surveyed the road across the Blue Mountains. Maria was an extraordinary woman. At a time when women were not a political force and Aboriginal women even less so, she petitioned Governor Darling stating that she had received only a part of the promised entitlements that should have resulted from her marriage. Considering the standing of Aborigines in the colony I think this action alone is worthy of recognition.

Story No.3: Big P.Cock

It sounded like a torpedo or a missile I’d seen on an old war movie. I felt its wind as it moved past me almost grazing the side of my face. It was that close, it left me stunned.

I wasn’t sure whether it was a small UFO, zooming past at the speed of light or if it was a projectile that had gone astray.

In Europe, the swallow has been an influence in the world of aeronautical thought since ancient times, two famous World War II Axis fighters took their names from the swallow, and remain famous for both their speed and beauty.

It was at this station that I noticed birds had started to dominate my life.

Whether it was Watkins’ influence and his awkward persistent observations, that brought me alert to every whistle or movement, I’m not sure.

That day after watching the swallows and crows for hours, I’d felt dizzy and sick and fallen asleep on the lounge. That was a sign normally I was more vigilant.

My dreams have always had levels: I’d gone down on the elevator. At the bottom to guide me, was a large Standard Poodle whose fur had been sculpted into sweet pastel coloured wings and peacock feathers. Big P. Cock, as I came to know him was, contrary to appearances, the wisest animal in existence.

Figure 51. Sculpted Poodle, Sandy Paws Grooming Shop, Creative grooming Awards.

His mission was to educate on racism and begin to eradicate it. He initially dressed like a peacock to attract attention, and it did. He believed that he could show, through bird migration, how living together was possible.

Honoured to be in his presence, he took me to an underground mountain, the most spiritual mountain on earth by chance (it was a dream)…and I saw the brook from where all living creatures sprang.

But what I saw put my vision to question. From the mountain a huge butterfly was taking form, vibrating ever so slightly at first, so you were only just able recognise it. It was gently starting to flap like a very thin slice, of the mountain itself. It moved a little as if to loosen itself from the ground then took off, a flying butterfly shape of mountain.

Then a bird did the same.

By the time they got to the top of the elevator they had all morphed from mountain landscape to whatever creature they were. So as the butterfly emerged at the top of the elevator it was no longer a green mountain, but glowed iridescent bluey purple. It flew away. My friend appeared mid escalator next to a huge plastic Mike Kelley sculpture of dog-poo sandwich. He said. “You are an enigma to me.” And I said I thought I was a see-through plastic bag, and in that moment I realised I was tired of being a rat living off crumbs, of letting him tell me stories about his unrequited love, whilst I grabbed for scraps.

When I reached the top of the escalator. I was colourfully reborn too… woken by the chirping of a passing bunch of rainbow lorikeets.

Story No. 4: He did go on …

I lay watching as I sometimes did, just staring at the sky.

I would drag a mattress out in the yard to lie and wait for falling stars in such anticipation that they would explode across the sky, just for me.

I also just lay there sometimes to see what appeared when I didn’t move. I would just stare straight up to see what passed through my line of vision.

So that day as I lay there I could see the outer branches of a huge Banksia tree in the edge of my vision. What strangeness and excitement it would’ve been to see those plants for the first time. The old creepy man (no name then) Banksia and a little cloud like my best old dog, floats off, reforming itself quickly into a blob. I could hear a kookaburra call close by, but a wattle bird flew straight into its sound not giving me a chance to hear.

This was a waiting game. I could now hear Kookaburras and Rosellas. A pair of them suddenly ripped through the airspace with sharp bell tweets.The red and blue of their feathers became luminous purple.

Now a sea hawk hovered, gliding beyond beautiful like royalty of the air. Watkin peered into my view from above and I motioned him to lie next to me.

Figure 52. Joan Ross, Watkin, Watching, 2012, Digital collage.

The accidental touch of his skin on mine in this warm weather was intense & most exceptionally comforting. It helped my concentration… the lovely prickliness of tension.

Watkin on seeing the eagle other birds flying at a more recognizable speed, said “of other birds the varieties are very numerous. Of the parrot tribe alone I could count from memory fourteen different sorts. Hawks are also very numerous,”

“I know,” I squeezed in but he continued in his ‘posh’ English accent, though the edges were being knocked off it.

“So are quails. ducks, geese and other aquatic birds are often seen in...” his voice merged with the calls of cockatoos so loud, that this shrill squawking freed me delightfully from his incessant monologue.

To my left now drowned out by the shrill calls, the starlings and sparrows were going through the grass with what looked like forensic precision. Nothing now (after their introduction) could/would remain unturned.

* * *

I first had the pleasure of the acquaintance of Captain-Lieutenant Watkin Tench as I read his journal. I came to love him. Then I had to let him go. Like all things, they grow, they disintegrate. And they become history

Laurence Frederic Fitzhardinge in the Australian Dictionary of Biography says of Watkin

Tench: