Carrolup

22/10/2019

Why I Do What I Do: My 100th Blog

This is the 100th blog I personally have written and posted on The Carrolup Story. You can peruse the Story and Healing blogs I have written since John and I launched the website in November 2018. I thought I’d celebrate my ‘100’ by describing how I came to […]
26/09/2019

A Moving Visit to Carrolup

John and I are currently staying with our good friend Tony Davis in Albany. Tony has been writing a book about the Noongar artist Bella Kelly, Carrolup and the interaction between Noongar people and Europeans since colonisation. His research and book writing have been strongly encouraged by numbers […]
27/06/2019

To Regain Our Pride: Revel Cooper

In 1968, one of the best known Carrolup artists, Revel Cooper, wrote a seminal article in the Aboriginal Quarterly whilst he was serving time in H.M. Training Prison in Geelong in Victoria. In this article, Revel emphasises the importance of pride to Aboriginal people. In To Regain Our […]
25/06/2019

Meet Cheryle Jones, Whose Mother Was At Carrolup

The story of Carrolup is one that needs to be told in full detail. We must not just relate the story of the Carrolup children and the people with whom they interacted with at that time, but also tell the stories of the impact that the children and their achievements had […]
06/06/2019

An Extraordinary Human Being: Jan James R.I.P.

I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that my close friend Jan James is physically not with us anymore. Jan passed away last Friday night, the 31st May 2019. She was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. Here is a […]
29/05/2019

Art Continues After Closure of Marribank

The Baptist Union took over Carrolup in 1952 after its closure, renaming it Marribank Baptist Mission to avoid the negative connotations of the former Native Settlement. It was renamed Marribank Family Centre in 1980, and was run throughout the Baptist period as a residential home for Aboriginal children […]
28/05/2019

Noelene White’s Memories: Life at Carrolup

I’ve included two sections so far that focus on the memories of Noelene White – daughter of Noel and Lily White – as described in our forthcoming book The Aboriginal Child Artists of Carrolup. You can find those blogs here and here. I now include some further memories, related […]
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 […]
02/04/2019

Tony Davis, A Carrolup Story Advisor

One of the great pleasures I’ve had since starting this project several years ago is meeting Tony Davis from Albany. In 2016, I was working very closely with my close friend Michael Liu on a Revel Cooper project. Revel was one of the Carrolup child artists and it […]
20/03/2019

Cheryle Jones’s Mother, Mildred Jones, at Carrolup

One of the aims of our project is to connect with families of the Aboriginal children who were at Carrolup. We want them to be able learn about what we have discovered about Carrolup and the people who were there – if they so wish – and hopefully […]
12/03/2019

Revel Cooper’s Early Life

Revel Cooper became one of the most famous, if not the most famous, of the Carrolup artists. However, he lived a troubled life, despite his success as an artist. Revel spent many years in and out of prison in Western Australia and Victoria. He also suffered from a drinking problem, […]
26/02/2019

Mrs Florence Rutter Visits Carrolup

One of the fascinating elements of the Carrolup Story is that the Aboriginal child artists had an ‘ambassador’ for their work, a 71-year old Englishwoman, Mrs Florence Rutter. Mrs Rutter was given permission by the Western Australian government to exhibit and sell the children’s art, first around Australia […]
20/02/2019

Importance of the Carrolup Story

“The first step in re-establishing healthy communities is to acknowledge and understand the impact of the colonial legacy on the lives of Aboriginal people today and the various pathways necessary for healing from historical trauma, using both cultural and contemporary understandings and processes.” Pat Dudgeon, Helen Milroy and […]
26/01/2019

Our Carrolup Project

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, […]
22/01/2019

Mr Neville: Removing Aboriginal Children From Their Family

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

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 […]
16/01/2019

Carrolup: John Stanton’s 40-Year Journey

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 […]
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