- earliest works on record

Recently  my paternal grandmother’s estate was settled, and my parents returned to me these two little pastel paintings which had been well preserved, considering that they did not even have glass.

They were some of the works sold in my first group exhibition (I found out at age 24 that it was my grandmother who started the ball rolling and inspired more sales when I was 13.) She did, I might add, further fuel my desire to spend my life painting and travelling.

At age 13, they were created along with many works of horses and aboriginals which had
long been of interest. At the time I was invited to join an exhibition which was really exciting as art was my passion but strictly allocated to the separator shed (country girl) in my spare time and NOT to interfere with the more academic pursuits of perceived value. My maths teacher’s wife (Jan Dean) and my school friend’s dad (Bert Brooks) exhibited regularly and asked me to participate. Jan’s husband,Phil,  framed her works so he offered to show me framing (in return I excelled at maths, not something I would have naturally done I am sure). She worked in oils, so glass was not included in these frames (all of that gold was hand applied, and the linen inset as well, framing supplies were more basic than now, that is for sure). 

The first thing I did after receiving them was to add some conservation glass and re-attach a few peeling corners of linen inset. The pastels themselves had no signs of damage from not being behind glass. That was a surprise. I think my aunty must have kept them wrapped well and tucked away.

I did not start to properly archive my art works until after I returned from living in Brasil, so every other one in pastel is lost, as I gave many to admirers, encouraged by my parents to do so, as the concept of even thinking of a career in art was discouraged.(which I appreciate) as it allowed me to study, “get a real job”, travel, buy property and do all of those other things that struggling artists find hard to do.

Update, Aug 2019

My Maths teacher from High School (Phil Dean,mentioned above) has been in touch again recently, apparently, I gave hime this gift for helping me with my first frames. I

love seeing works from earlier non-archived days, sometimes it even feels like someone else did them.

I definitely was just constantly painting either indigenous australians or horses at age 13,

when I gave him this. This elder is from the Pilbara region in WA, where my uncle was

working (sent me books of landscapes and locals).