Blog

17/09/2019

The Child Artists Assert Themselves Through Their Art

Too often, adults in many societies tend to view ‘children’ as ‘immature’, naïve’ or ‘child-like’. The Carrolup children’s drawings demonstrate an entirely different side to what it is to be a ‘child’. For not only were they part of the Stolen Generation, taken away from their parents, and […]
10/09/2019

Little Black Fingers

Mrs Florence Rutter, a 71-year old Englishwoman, visited Carrolup twice—in July 1949 and January/February 1950. She returned to England soon after her second visit, having received permission from the West Australian government to exhibit and sell the Carrolup children’s artworks (mainly the boys’ drawings). A Trust Fund had […]
29/08/2019

Talking About Cliff Ryder’s Family

NB. If you haven’t previously read my previous blog posting about Charon Ryder, please do so before reading the present post. It provides important background. I recently blogged about my initial discussions with Charon Ryder, eldest child of Cliff Ryder, one of the outstanding Carrolup child artists. John […]
27/08/2019

Carrolup Artist and Father: Cliff Ryder

Last month, Charon Ryder emailed me saying that she was the eldest child of Carrolup artist Cliff Ryder and requesting that I get in contact with her. I had previously been contacted by Charon’s sister Judy, who had written a lovely comment which I included in a previous blog. […]
22/08/2019

Walking Alongside As Equals

In my last Healing blog Do Things With Us, Not To Us: Chris Sarra, I posted the words of one of the country’s leading educators talking about the interaction between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. Here are three key paragraphs: ‘I can assure you that we as Aboriginal people […]
15/08/2019

‘We Are Going To Tell That Story’

I’ve been thinking about my good friend Noelene White, daughter of Carrolup school teacher Noel White, today. It’s hard to believe that I’ve known Noelene for over three years now. Where has that time gone? As for John, he has known Noelene for nearly 35 years! Noelene White […]
06/08/2019

Carrolup Child Artists: Competition and Encouragement

Soon after we started our Carrolup project, I interviewed my colleague John Stanton about a variety of elements of the story. In this film clip, John describes how the boys were rather secretive whilst doing their drawings. However, once they had finished a drawing, there was a collegial […]
30/07/2019

1948 Carrolup School Football Team… and Art Display

Last year, I posted a blog about the ‘never ever beaten’ [1] Carrolup School Football team, describing their trip to Perth in September 1949 where they twice beat Thomas Street School at Subiaco. Here is what we know about the Carrolup School football team from before 1949: There […]
23/07/2019

Thinking About the Carrolup Boys: Noel White

In my last blog posting, I talked briefly about how teacher Noel White helped the children of Carrolup overcome their fear and inspired them to create beautiful landscape drawings that gained public acclaim in South West Australia. During 1949 and 1950, 71-year old Englishwoman exhibited the art in […]
16/07/2019

Child Artists of Carrolup: Reflections

Mary Durack Miller, in association with Florence Rutter, wrote a book about the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup entitled, Child Artists of the Australian Bush, which was published in June 1952. Florence Rutter met the child artists through her two visits to Carrolup in 1949 and 1950 and exhibited their artworks […]
09/07/2019

Identifying the Children of Carrolup

An important aim of our project has been to connect people today with ‘content’ relating to family members who were at Carrolup all those years ago. This content may take the form of photographs, the children’s drawings and letters, or documents from various sources. Last week, I posted […]
04/07/2019

‘The Carrolup Story’ YouTube Channel

I just wanted to remind people that we have a YouTube channel for The Carrolup Story which contains a variety of film clips on various topics. Over time, we will post blogs about these clips, but I thought it was good to remind you of the channel’s existence. […]
02/07/2019

Carrolup Drawings Tour Australia and New Zealand

In an earlier blog, I described how 71-year old Englishwoman Mrs Florence Rutter visited Carrolup in July 1949. Whilst there, Mrs Rutter bought £5 worth of Carrolup drawings and designs. I found it hard to make a choice for all were so attractive in colouring, so perfect in […]
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 […]
19/06/2019

Meeting Parnell Dempster

I first met Parnell (‘Parnie’) Dempster in mid-1985 at the town of Williams, when I was commencing the Carrolup Project. He was living there at the time. Pat Nunn at the Marribank Family Centre had told me that he was one of only two surviving child artists of […]
17/06/2019

The Carrolup Story: Our 100th Blog Posting

This is the 100th blog posting that John and I have written for our Story Blog (65 so far) and Healing Blog (34). We thought we would celebrate the occasion by showing you the most viewed blog postings since we launched the website in November 2018. Here’s the […]
11/06/2019

Carrolup Drawings Return to Katanning: A Story of Stories

The blogs that John and I write for the website are stories that form part of the fabric of the story of Carrolup, past and present. In our early days of development, John wrote a number of blogs about the ‘rediscovery’ of Mrs Rutter’s collection of Carrolup drawings […]
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