Carrolup

08/01/2019

The Liminality of Dusk

The Carrolup child artists appear to have been particularly fascinated with the liminality of dusk. That is, the period between day and night when the light gradually fades to become night; when the breeze settles and becomes stillness personified, and when colours become simply black and white. When […]
14/12/2018

Thank You, A Break, Best Wishes and…

The website has been running for just over a month now and we’ve uploaded blog postings on all but three days. Our major aims in this initial period have been to: enhance awareness of the Story of Carrolup to the public and make people aware of our initiative, […]
13/12/2018

Our Visit to Carrolup

John and I visited Carrolup—or Marribank as it later became—on the 26th November 2018, on our way down to Albany from Perth. We walked around and explored some of the buildings, reflecting on what had gone on before when Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and held […]
10/12/2018

Ezzard Flowers Speaking at the Official Opening of ‘Koorah Coolingah’

Ezzard Flowers, who travelled to Colgate University in America with Athol Farmer and John Stanton, reminds us of the impact of the return to the South-West of some of the ‘lost’ collection of Carrolup children’s art on Noongar culture. It was, indeed, an emotional occasion. Indeed, the event was […]
07/12/2018

Institutionalisation of the Carrolup children

In recent blog posting, David revealed the memories of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper about life on Carrolup in the first half of 1940s, when the children were ‘running wild’. In his most recent posting, he described Revel’s memories of the time when Mrs Elliot was teacher between 1945 […]
05/12/2018

The Arrival of Mrs Elliot at Carrolup

In my last blog, I wrote how Michael Liu and I found a ‘letter’ written by Carrolup artist Revel Cooper in 1960, which described how the children were ‘running wild’ at Carrolup Native Settlement during the first half of the 1940s. Revel went on to say: After the […]
03/12/2018

Running Wild – Revel Cooper’s Memories of Carrolup

When close friend and filmmaker Michael Liu and I were researching the life of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper, we came across an important ‘letter’ he wrote that was in the Doreen Trainor Collection at Battye Library. Revel wrote his memories of Carrolup Native Settlement from the time he […]
30/11/2018

Farewell Albany & Project Importance

Good morning. Today, John and I head back to Perth this morning after a very enjoyable week staying with Tony Davis in Albany. We’ll drop into The Kodja Place in Kojunup to meet John Benn, who as a youngster was taken to Carrolup by his mother, a local teacher. […]
29/11/2018

Adventures in the South West

On Monday, John and I travelled down to Albany to stay with my good friend Tony Davis. We stopped at The Woolshed in Williams,  where John ate a tasty savoury muffin and I gorged on a lamb and rosemary pie.  John reflected on how he had stopped at […]
28/11/2018

Keeping Up With the Jones’s

Before I moved to Australia at the end of 2008, I lived in a beautiful area of South Wales (UK) for 16 years. In Wales, the most common surname is Jones. I didn’t know any Jones’s! Since starting to investigate the Carrolup Story, Jones’s have started ‘appearing’ in […]
19/11/2018

Noelene White on the Children of Carrolup

We launched The Carrolup Story on the 10th November 2018, the 85th birthday of Noelene White. Noelene is the daughter of Carrolup schoolteachers Noel and Lily White. I have known Noelene for two years, a far shorter time than the 30-plus years that John and Noelene have been […]
15/11/2018

The Classroom Photo

Key to photo: (1) Edith Smith, (2) Johnny Smith, (3) Emily Bennett, (4) Revel Cooper, (5) Reynold Hart, (6) unknown, (7) Mervyn Smith, (8) Vera Wallam, (9) Parnell Dempster, (10) Ross Jones, (11) Tilly Wallam, (12) Janine Bennell, (13) Keith Indich, (14) Marlene Mead, (15) Philip Jackson, (16) […]
09/11/2018

Reconnecting

As described in my last blog, I travelled with Ezzard Flowers and Athol Farmer, Noongar leaders from South West Western Australia, in April 2005 to inspect the newly rediscovered artworks at Colgate University, Hamilton, New York State, with a view to borrowing a selection for an exhibition at […]
09/11/2018

Welcome

Welcome to our new Storytelling, Education and Healing online resource. My name is David Clark and I am one of three co-Founders of The Carrolup Story. My colleagues in this venture are John Stanton, like me from Perth, Western Australia, and web developer Ash Whitney from Neath in South Wales. Forty-two years ago, […]
09/11/2018

Colonisation

The colonisation of Australia by Europeans had a massive negative impact on a peoples and culture that has existed for over 50,000 years. The first settlers brought diseases that wiped out large numbers of Aboriginal people, as they had no immunity to European diseases. Many of the survivors existed […]
09/11/2018

Connection

When teacher Noel White arrives at Carrolup in May 1946, he is unable to communicate with the Aboriginal children. They sit sullenly and silently at their schoolroom desks. ‘The first week at school with our new teacher we were all scared stiff. I think if it wasn’t for […]
09/11/2018

Acclaim

In 1947, the children’s drawings attract public attention locally at the Katanning Show, and further afield in Perth. ​Three children (Reynold Hart, Dulcie Penny and Vera Wallam) have their articles accepted in the Lord Forrest Centenary Booklet—in competition with other children from all over the state—whilst Parnell Dempster has a […]
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