Gorn but not forgotten ... forgotten and turned up



It's not quite Shakespearean immortality, but an article I wrote nearly two decades ago is being reprinted in the March edition of The School Magazine, and not only that: it's up on the magazine's web site, along with a "teaching session" from the magazine's Teaching Unit. If you're keen to find out what I thought was worth saying about Pompeii to 11 year old readers in 1990, you can download a PDF here. I enjoyed (re-)reading the article, and it's beautifully presented. It's been through a number of incarnations, beginning with Joan Saint drawings suggestive of Rider Haggard -- here's the cover. I think, though, that I prefer the present clean, photographic look.



While I was writing that little piece of self-indulgence, there was a knock on the door. A man stood there with a bulky parcel, much longer than wide and mysteriously unsuggestive of anything in particular. I though to take a photo when I was part way through the unwrappng:



It had almost faded from memory, but in January we visited the Shoalhaven City Art Centre in Nowra, and both fell in love with the work of Jim Walliss, who the people at the desk told us is an elderly local white man who has studied traditional crafts, including Aboriginal crafts, to the stage where he now teaches them at TAFE, including to Aboriginal learners. We overcame our White anxieties about appropriation, and bought these:



The photo doesn't capture them very well. They've got tremendous personality, individually and as a group, beautifully crafted little baskets, each with a freight of stones, all wispy and eminently touchable.

Posted: Fri - February 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM           |

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