02/11/2020

Carrolup Talk in ‘History West’ Magazine

My apologies for the long period of time since I last blogged. I’ve been busy working on a book of addiction recovery stories, which focuses on the original story and seven-year updates of people’s lives I originally published on my Recovery Stories website. Last week, I received the […]
22/09/2020

Mrs Rutter in England, Early 1951

Today, I thought I’d try a novel approach to help me decide what I should write about from our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe for this blog. I had an online random number generator select a number from 1 to 65 and I had to chose […]
15/09/2020

My Carrolup Talk in Perth

On Friday, 11th September 2020, I gave a talk entitled Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe at the Royal Western Australian Historical Society in Perth. This talk was originally to be given in May, but had to be postponed due to Covid-19. I had been looking forward to […]
09/09/2020

Arrival at Carrolup

Noelene White, daughter of teacher Noel White, still remembers today her family’s arrival at Carrolup in 1946. Here is a description based on an interview I had with her which you can find in our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe.  “Noel, Lily and their three young […]
18/08/2020

Mrs Elliot Visits Noel White

In my last few blogs, I described, using text from our new book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe,  what happened at Carrolup Native Settlement before the arrival of teacher Noel White. In my last blog, I described the time that Mrs Olive Elliot spent at Carrolup School […]
07/08/2020

Mrs Olive Elliot

In my last blog, I referred to a written description by Revel Cooper [1], one of the Carrolup child artists, about life on the native settlement before teacher Noel White’s arrival in May 1946. Revel also writes about teacher Olive Elliot, who arrives after the Carrolup children had […]
29/07/2020

‘The Very Lowest Standards’

In my last few blogs, I have included sections of our recently launched book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe that described various elements of the colonisation process in Western Australia. Description of the colonisation process, which impacted so badly on Aboriginal people,  provides a context to the story of […]
13/07/2020

Carrolup Native Settlement

I continue including sections of our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe, this one focused on the setting up of Carrolup Native Settlement. ‘The economic situation of Aboriginal people living in the South West deteriorates during the first decade of the 20th Century. From 1911, many Aboriginal […]
02/07/2020

Facets of Colonisation, Part 3

In my last two blogs you can see here and here, I have included sections of our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe that described various elements of the colonisation process in Western Australia. Description of the colonisation process, which impacted so badly on Aboriginal people,  provides a context […]
27/06/2020

Facets of Colonisation, Part 2

In my last blog, I described elements of the process of colonisation in Western Australia and their impact on Aboriginal people, taken from the Prologue of our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe. Here are some more facets: ‘No piece of government legislation stirs more negative emotions […]
25/06/2020

Facets of Colonisation

‘… The consolidation of colonisation in Western Australia occurred with the establishment of pastoral settlements (sheep and cattle farming) in central coastal regions (e.g. the Gascoyne) from the 1860s, and later in the Kimberley region of the far north from the 1880s. The Fairburn Report of 1882 highlighted […]
24/06/2020

Read a Sample from ‘Connection’

You can read (and download) a free sample of our book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe by visiting our page on Amazon. [This link is for the Australian store. If you live elsewhere, you need to make sure that you are in the appropriate store for your […]
23/06/2020

Carrolup Book is Available Today

My book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe, written in association with John Stanton, is available today as a downloadable eBook from Amazon, Apple and Kobo. It’s been six years since I first saw a piece of art from one of the Carrolup artists. And four years since […]
12/06/2020

Coming Soon: ‘Connection’

We’re just 11 days away from the launch of our digital book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe which you will be able to purchase and download from Apple, Kobo or Amazon. It has been a long journey since I first viewed artworks by the Carrolup child artists (2013) […]