Blog

14/01/2019
Proclamation of Prohibited Area issued under the 1905 Aborigines Act.
Author: David Clark on 14/01/2019
Categories

The Control of Aboriginal People: 1905 Aborigines Act

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
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]
Author: John Stanton on 11/01/2019
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
10/01/2019
Author: David Clark on 10/01/2019
Categories

The Impact of Colonisation on Aboriginal People

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
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]
Author: John Stanton on 08/01/2019
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
07/01/2019
My daughter Natasha meets colleague and close friend John Stanton for the first time. I was thrilled to see them chatting away like old friends over lunch.
Author: David Clark on 07/01/2019
Categories

Happy New Year… And Some Reflections

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
14/12/2018
Some of the Carrolup young artists. Front row: Reynold Hart (Far Left), Parnell Dempster (Middle) and Revel Cooper (Far Right). Back row, 2nd Left: Barry Loo. Do you know who the other boys are?
Author: David Clark on 14/12/2018
Categories

Thank You, A Break, Best Wishes and…

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, […]
Do you like it?
Read more
13/12/2018
The building that was the Matron's House at Carrolup Native Settlement. Photographer: John Stanton, 26th November 2018.
Author: David Clark on 13/12/2018
Categories

Our Visit to Carrolup

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
12/12/2018
Down to Drink by Parnell Dempster, pastel on paper, 58.6 x 76.4cm, 1949. The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University.
Author: John Stanton on 12/12/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
10/12/2018
Ezzard Flowers speaking at the Official Opening of Koorah Coolingah exhibition, Katanning, with MC Norelle Jacobs in the background, 24th February 2006. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, The University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 10/12/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
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.
Author: John Stanton on 09/12/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
07/12/2018
The children's dormitories at Carrolup today. Photograph taken by John Stanton on 26th November 2018.
Author: John Stanton on 07/12/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
05/12/2018
Photographs of three of the Carrolup boys. Sunday Times , 7th July 1945. Retrieved from Trove, National Library of Australia.
Author: David Clark on 05/12/2018
Categories

The Arrival of Mrs Elliot at Carrolup

In my last blog, I wrote how Michael Liu and I found a ‘letter’ written by Carrolup artist Revel Cooper in 1960, which described how the children were ‘running wild’ at Carrolup Native Settlement during the first half of the 1940s. Revel went on to say: After the […]
Do you like it?
Read more
03/12/2018
First page of a description of life at Carrolup Native Settlement written by Carrolup artist Revel Cooper in 1960. Doreen Trainor Collection, J. S. Battye Library of West Australian History. [Click the image to see the full page. The letter continued, '... were of the very lowest standards' on the second page.]
Author: David Clark on 03/12/2018
Categories

Running Wild – Revel Cooper’s Memories of Carrolup

When close friend and filmmaker Michael Liu and I were researching the life of Carrolup artist Revel Cooper, we came across an important ‘letter’ he wrote that was in the Doreen Trainor Collection at Battye Library. Revel wrote his memories of Carrolup Native Settlement from the time he […]
Do you like it?
Read more
02/12/2018
The Golden Road by an unidentified child artist from Carrolup, c1949. The image is from the Colgate University Flickr account described below. The drawing is part of the The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University.
Author: John Stanton on 02/12/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
30/11/2018
Mr. and Mrs. White with some of the Carrolup boys and the Peet family. Back row: Barry Loo, Mr. Peet, Noel White, Adrian Allen and Mrs. Peet. Middle row: Lily White and the three Peet girls. Front row: Parnell Dempster, unidentified boy and Reynold Hart. Photograph taken in 1949. Noel & Lily White Collection.
Author: David Clark on 30/11/2018
Categories

Farewell Albany & Project Importance

Good morning. Today, John and I head back to Perth this morning after a very enjoyable week staying with Tony Davis in Albany. We’ll drop into The Kodja Place in Kojunup to meet John Benn, who as a youngster was taken to Carrolup by his mother, a local teacher. […]
Do you like it?
Read more
29/11/2018
Carrolup School, a healing sanctuary during the time that Noel White was teacher, May 1946 - December 1950. Photographer: John Stanton, 26th November 2018.
Author: David Clark on 29/11/2018
Categories

Adventures in the South West

On Monday, John and I travelled down to Albany to stay with my good friend Tony Davis. We stopped at The Woolshed in Williams,  where John ate a tasty savoury muffin and I gorged on a lamb and rosemary pie.  John reflected on how he had stopped at […]
Do you like it?
Read more
28/11/2018
The names of the 59 boys at Carrolup Native Settlement School as shown in a book of their schoolwork given as a present to school inspector Charlie Cook in 1950. Noel & Lily White Collection.
Author: David Clark on 28/11/2018
Categories

Keeping Up With the Jones’s

Before I moved to Australia at the end of 2008, I lived in a beautiful area of South Wales (UK) for 16 years. In Wales, the most common surname is Jones. I didn’t know any Jones’s! Since starting to investigate the Carrolup Story, Jones’s have started ‘appearing’ in […]
Do you like it?
Read more
27/11/2018
Ezzard Flowers and Athol Farmer (right) standing outside the Colgate University Guesthouse where they and John Stanton stayed when visiting Colgate University, Hamilton, New York State, 13th April 2005. Photograph taken by John Stanton. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia.
Author: John Stanton on 27/11/2018
Categories

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 […]
Do you like it?
Read more
123456789101112
Translate »