John Stanton

17/04/2019

Did the Carrolup Girls Draw, Too? Yes!

People often ask me, ‘Did the girls at Carrolup draw, we only hear about the boys?’ There is a lot to say about this, much of it reflecting the punitive control the then Department of Native Affairs had over Aboriginal people’s lives, including those of the children. When […]
10/04/2019

The Dormitory Frieze

One of the most remarkable artefacts surviving at Carrolup/Marribank today is one element of a frieze that encircled one of the bedrooms in the westernmost of the two children’s dormitories—the left one viewed from the front of the buildings. According to Carrolup artist Parnell Dempster, the frieze comprised […]
27/03/2019

Milton Jackson’s Long Lost Drawing

For Milton Jackson, the last surviving Carrolup child artist, attending the opening of the Colgate University crates in Katanning in 2006 (noted in an earlier posting) with his daughter Merlene Meade brought mixed emotions. His reconnection with an artwork he drew about 55 years earlier also affected all […]
19/03/2019

Carrolup Art Arrives from Colgate University, 2006

There was great excitement in the Katanning Gallery as preparations were made to unscrew the lid of the first of several crates flown out from Colgate University, Hamilton, New York State, for the Perth International Arts Festival exhibition, Koorah Coolingah: Children Long Ago. The crates had sat acclimatising […]
06/03/2019

Were the Children Paid for their Art?

I’m afraid the answer to this question is ‘No’! The child artists were minors at the time, as well as Wards of the State, so they couldn’t receive any money until they turned 21, the age of majority at that time. The funds earned from sales of their […]
13/02/2019

Berndt Museum Exhibition ‘Carrolup Revisited’ Opens

The 8th of February saw the formal opening of the Berndt Museum’s new exhibition, Carrolup Revisited, at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, The University of Western Australia, which will last until the 29th of June. It was an emotional occasion for families of the child artists present, and […]
01/02/2019

Interview With Doris Flatt: Part 2

Doris Flatt was one of daughters of Florence Rutter, the self-appointed ‘ambassador’ to the Carrolup child artists. Over 100 years old at the time of the interview, Doris had strong memories of her mother’s great enthusiasm for their art, as she was determined to bring it to the […]
23/01/2019

Interview With Doris Flatt: Part 1

Doris Flatt was one of the daughters of the 71-year old Englishwoman Florence Rutter, the self-appointed ‘ambassador’ to the Carrolup child artists. Over 100 years old at the time of this interview (May 2006), Doris had strong memories of her mother discussing the Carrolup artworks with great and […]
17/01/2019

Noongar Trainees: Marribank Cultural Centre Project

Yesterday, David wrote a blog about my 40 year involvement with Carrolup. He described the collaboration between the Marribank Family Centre and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology (of which I was Director), The Carrolup Project, that received generous funding from the Australian Bicentennial Authority. Today, I focus on another […]
11/01/2019

The Corroboree Artworks

A previous blog highlighted the child artists’ fascination with the liminality of dusk, the period between day and night. The night was also a time for ceremony. This is depicted most evocatively in, for example, Reynold Hart’s ‘Dancing Figures’, or his deceptively titled ‘Imagined Corroboree’—deceptive, in that this was […]
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 […]
12/12/2018

Guests See ‘Koorah Coolingah’, Katanning Art Gallery, 2006

Following the Official Opening at the ‘Koorah Coolingah: Children Long Ago’ exhibition at Katanning on 24th February 2006, members of the community, and the wider public, were allowed into the Katanning Art Gallery for the first time. Many had wanted to come in earlier in the week when we […]
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 […]
09/12/2018

Homecoming of Carrolup Artworks, 2006

Colgate University in up-state New York seemed a very long way, and a very long time ago, as Howard and I watched the Opening Ceremony at Katanning, a welcome homecoming to the 20 artworks that had been loaned by the Picker Gallery to the Perth International Arts Festival […]
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 […]
02/12/2018

The ‘Lost’ Florence Rutter Carrolup Collection

We’ve been thrilled with the response we’ve had from community members about The Carrolup Story website, and their delight in looking again at a selection of the Carrolup children’s art we have shown. However, we’ve just realised that we haven’t let everybody know that a number of works […]
27/11/2018

Athol Farmer: Maintaining Noongar Heritage

Athol Farmer comes from Gnowangerup, where there was a Mission up until the 1980s. It is now an Education Centre. Athol travelled to Colgate University with Ezzard Flowers and myself back in ’05, to inspect the newly rediscovered collection of Noongar child art from the late 1940s and […]
23/11/2018

Aboriginal Children Dance at the Opening of ‘Koorah Coolingah’

Aboriginal school children from Katanning played a vital role in the Official Opening at the Perth International Arts Festival exhibition, ‘Koorah Coolingah: Children Long Ago’. They had been practising their dances for weeks: a group of older girls, then the older boys, followed by the little kids all […]
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