Tag Archive for: #bernicebarry

The Arum Lily Story

There’s one question I get asked more than any other and it’s whether there’s any truth in the very longstanding rumour that Georgiana Molloy is responsible for the Arum infestation we have in southwest WA.

I’m sometimes told it’s ‘a historical fact’ but I’ve never found one piece of evidence to uphold it in fifteen years of research.  My own view is that, rather than keeping a focus on blame, we should use our energy and resources in trying to combat the spread of these invasive plants that cause devastation for our native species. Even so, after recently finding another item that adds to the historical jigsaw of the Arum story, and being told once again that Mrs Molloy was to blame, I decided it was time to offer my own research in a public forum.

Here’s a link to a short clip from this year’s annual “Georgiana Molloy lecture” in Augusta. I was talking about the early days of the settlement and this is the section where I shared what I’ve found out so far about the introduction of the Arum into the southwest.

ERGA Georgiana Molloy Lecture  2019

Through a different lens

This image is a photograph of a letter seen through the magnifying lens of the Reading Room camera at the Battye Library. I chose this one because I wanted to write today about different ways of looking and different ways of thinking.

I’ve been bent over my keyboard for weeks trying to complete some writing by the end of May. It’s been a challenging activity. Some days, my mind has been blocked, twisted into knots with uncertainty. Other days, the words pour out easily and I can’t stop the flow.  When writing feels difficult, I treasure the solace, empathy and support that come from talking with friends who are writers. I know I’m not alone in that. I also find guidance and inspiration in reading. The words on the pages are the building blocks of stories and noticing the way other writers put those words together, sit them next to one another along the lines, that always helps me. But lately, I’ve realised that staying with what I know, the familiar and the comforting, is not the only way to learn and grow in my own work.

I’ve had lots of opportunities in the last couple of months to enjoy the creative outcomes of artists in a range of different media. That’s been a reminder that there are many, many ways of looking and many ways of telling stories. The freedom from words feels a bit like walking a new path that connects two places you know well. You arrive by a different route and the journey is different. You see things you’ve never seen before along the way. Whether the new track you’re taking is music, photography, sculpture or painting, or any other medium, seeing things from a different perspective can shed light in remarkable ways on your own viewpoint when you sit down to write again.

Today I visited the studio of Elisa Markes-Young, a local artist, as part of the wonderful Margaret River Region Open Studios annual event. I’d been in touch with Elisa and her partner, Christopher Young, last year when they held a joint exhibition that included some pieces inspired by the life and work of Georgiana Molloy. MRROS draws in such a wide range of artists in this region that it’s impossible to see everything. It’s an amazing privilege to see creative people working in their own environment so we always try to visit a few studios we haven’t been to before. I heard that Elisa is exhibiting one of the Georgiana works this year so her studio was at the top of my list.

She talked to us about the thinking behind the piece, and last year’s exhibition, and described how she had first come to the idea of representing the journey into botany as Georgiana’s refuge following the death of her eighteen-month old son by drowning. After thirteen years of research, I thought I knew everything there was to know about Georgiana Molloy and perhaps I do know most of the facts but what Elisa showed me was a completely different, new way of looking at the life of a woman I know well.  Something to do with a different viewpoint. Something to do with the life experiences of Elisa herself. Something to do with personal memories and emotions. Something to do with working in a medium that does not rely entirely on words. It was refreshing, inspiring and very moving. And I learned a lot.

One of the images here is from that piece which includes black mourning ribbons, embroidered with words from a letter Georgiana wrote in 1837 about her little boy’s death.

MRROS is on for another week and I’m definitely planning to stretch my mind and heart again over the next few days by exploring artists who work in different media.  If you’re around, or just down this way for a while, don’t miss out!  The list of contributing artists is HERE. Elisa and Chris are number 73 in the list and their delightful studio is close to Margaret River town centre.

 

 

 

The skating minister: how I found a protagonist

This is the story of a protagonist and how he found his way into my imagination.

In late 2014, I had the bare bones of a new book, the themes and basic structure. I had the main characters too, but I still knew very little about them. I was really challenging myself when I suddenly decided to make the main character a man. Would I be able to look at the world through his eyes, think his thoughts and speak for him through the dialogue? How would I get to know him well enough to write convincingly?

On a visit to the National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, I was blown away by the amazing collection but there was one portrait that I didn’t want to walk away from. The moment I saw ‘the skating minister’ I knew I’d found the man I’d been trying to picture in my imagination for weeks. Everything was right: the subject was the right age, born in the right year, and he was painted in Scotland. I thought about that painting for months and when I looked at it again on the Internet, back at my desk in western Australia, I began to get to know my fictional character better.

I was spending time randomly doing research for the book while I worked on self-publishing and marketing ‘Georgiana Molloy, the Mind That Shines’ and I was still not sure whether or not to start work on a new piece of writing that would keep me busy for at least a year.

In November 2015 Mike and I went to Sydney for a few days and I met with Alex Craig at Picador for the first time, to finalise details of the new publishing contract for ‘Georgiana Molloy’. Right after that meeting, I walked with Mike across the park to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see an exhibition I’d read about and was really keen to see. It was called, ‘The Greats’ and all I knew was that it included some of the most famous paintings in the world. As we walked into the foyer, I went cold, on the hottest November day in Sydney for twenty years. The skating minster was everywhere around me, on enormous posters, on every display area and on the front cover of the exhibition catalogue. I’d had no idea, until that moment, that all the paintings had been loaned by the National Gallery of Scotland, and that the painting by Sir Henry Raeburn that had captured my imagination had been chosen as the main iconic image.

The Reverend Robert Walker, skating on Duddingston Loch, had followed me from Scotland to Australia and I stood in front of him once again and stared even more closely. I bought his face on a T-shirt, on a bag, on a postcard and even on a case for my glasses.

I knew then, without any doubt, I had to write the story of my fictional David Dennisoun Sinclair. The portrait gave me most of the important characteristics of the man I came to know well over the next two years. He had once studied to become a minister of the church. The black clothes he wore for the rest of his life would contrast well with another main character who dressed very differently. The painting itself gave me one of the most important scenes in the story, too. And there was much more.

While I was writing and redrafting and editing, I looked at the skating minister every day, pinned next to my computer. Writers work in so many different ways and what works for one doesn’t work for another. I know that, for me, a character that has its roots in something real – even just a place, a name, a face – is what makes me want to write. If someone is real to me, they matter.

Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch
Sir Henry Raeburn c1795 Attribution:Henry Raeburn [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons