26/01/2019
I thought it particularly appropriate today, so-called ‘Australia Day’, that I re-iterate what John and I are doing and what we are hoping to achieve with our Carrolup Project. Seventy years ago, Aboriginal children of Carrolup ‘reached out’ to white society with their beautiful landscape drawings. Their efforts, […]
23/01/2019
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 […]
22/01/2019
This is the third of a series of blogs that considers the social, political and cultural context existing prior to our story of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup. I focus on the policy of removing Aboriginal people from their families, which resulted in what we now know […]
17/01/2019
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 […]
16/01/2019
![Blackboys by Revel Cooper, watercolour on paper, 38 x 57cm, 1964. Purchased from George Abdullah, Perth, 1965. Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU3269]](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Blackboys-by-Revel-Cooper-960x720.jpg)
As my colleague John Stanton is away on holiday in New Zealand, I thought I’d take this opportunity to blog about John’s association with Carrolup for a period of over 40 years. That’s a serious, long-standing interest and commitment! The initial large section of this blog come from […]
14/01/2019
It is essential to consider the social, political and cultural context in Western Australia to fully appreciate the Carrolup Story and the achievements of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup. We have devoted early chapters of our forthcoming book – Aboriginal Child Artists of Carrolup – to this […]
11/01/2019
![Imagined corroboree by Reynold Hart, watercolour and ink on paper, 25 x 30cm, c.1948. Stan, Melvie and Gael Phillips Collection, 1947 - 65, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7255]](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WU2775-960x720.jpg)
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 […]
10/01/2019
The Story of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup must be told within the social, political and cultural context of what was occurring in Western Australia during the 1940s and 1950s, as well as at earlier times. The first chapters of our forthcoming book – due out later […]
08/01/2019
![Hunters by Revel Cooper, pastel on paper, 29 x 38cm, c.1948. Stan, Melvie and Gael Phillips Collection, 1947 – 65, Berndt Museum of Anthropology. [WU7304]](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WU3NL-960x720.jpg)
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 […]
07/01/2019
It’s good to be back after a long break for the Christmas and New Year holidays. I would first like to wish you all the very best for 2019. I know that John would say the same if he was here. At present, he’s in New Zealand spending […]
14/12/2018
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
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 […]
12/12/2018
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, 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
![John Stanton (Berndt Museum) [Left Front] with Howard Morphy (Australian National University), who discovered the ‘lost’ works at Colgate University, watch the Official Opening of the ‘Koorah Coolingah’ exhibition at Katanning Art Gallery, 24th February 2006. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.](https://www.carrolup.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/P1010532-copy-960x720.jpg)
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 […]