Blog
15/02/2021
In my last blog, I revealed that the first exhibition of the Carrolup children’s art organised in Europe by Mrs Florence Rutter took place in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands in June 1950. I described how Florence kept a book of letters and comments from people who attended her Carrolup […]
11/02/2021
I was really pleased to find a message on one of my Facebook posts from Ange Edenburg, a great-granddaughter of Mrs Florence Rutter. Ange, who lives in Bridgetown, and I have been communicating since then. Ange’s grandmother Margaret Edenburg was one of Florence’s daughters. Margaret and her family […]
03/02/2021
Last year on the 2nd February, I published the last of a series of six blog posts on Mrs Florence Rutter’s two visits to Carrolup and her trip around Australia and New Zealand where she promoted the Carrolup children’s drawings. If you have not already read those blog […]
12/01/2021
Yesterday, I posted the first part of the Preface to my book Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe, which told the story of how I came to be involved with Carrolup. Here is the continuation of the Preface, which describes my background and how it has influenced my decision […]
11/01/2021
Here is what I wrote in the Preface of Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe about how I came to be involved with Carrolup. ‘When filmmaker and close friend Michael (Mike) Liu and I were first shown work of the Carrolup artists Revel Cooper, Parnell Dempster and Reynold Hart […]
05/01/2021
Happy New Year to you all. I wish you all well for 2021. My apologies that I have not posted a blog on The Carrolup Story for a while. I have been busy writing another book—on addiction recovery stories—and then needed a break. I’ll be posting more regularly […]
08/12/2020
John and I visited Casuarina Prison, the main maximum security prison for males in Perth, on Friday, 13th November to give a talk about the Carrolup child artists and see the art class in operation. We greatly enjoyed our visit, which lasted just short of four hours. We […]
12/11/2020
I only realised this week that I had forgotten to post a blog about the talks that John Stanton, Ezzard Flowers and I gave about the Carrolup child artists at The Kodja Place in Kojonup on the 8th of October 2020. We had been invited to give the […]
11/11/2020
In April 2017, I visited John Stanton’s good friend Gaye Sculthorpe at The British Museum. Gaye is Curator and Section Head of Oceania in the Museum. Gaye had arranged to show me a collection of seven drawings done by the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup. These drawings would […]
10/11/2020
It’s NAIDOC Week, a celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is normally in July, but was postponed this year until now, because of Covid. So, it’s time to celebrate! John and I are also celebrating because today is our […]
02/11/2020
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 […]
12/10/2020
Linda and I were in York this weekend with our great friends Graham and Cindy. When I am in a new town, I usually drop in to any bookshop I come across. In this case, it was Barclays Books, a shop well worth visiting if you are a […]
22/09/2020
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
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
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
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
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
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 […]