Carving for the Screw

In the 1890s, a Chinese prisoner in Bathurst Gaol was entrusted with a carving tool and used it to create something of beauty. Applying either traditional ivory-carving skills or training received during incarceration, he created twelve delicate trinkets made of bone. Seemingly taking inspiration from Western symbols rather than Chinese motifs, some examples depict a […]

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Tools of His Trade

When 22-year-old Leslie Campbell Lupton (born 1896) returned from World War I to his family home in Bondi in 1918, having been shot in the back and had the fingers of his right hand crushed, he must have wondered what sort of occupation he could take up. Before enlisting, he had worked as an insurance […]

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Sticky Business

Before 1920 and the invention of synthetics, glues were either animal, vegetable or mineral. These natural glues were used for centuries, but animal glues were used to bond wood and were very strong and water-resistant. Aboriginal peoples from throughout NSW used animal glues for tool making, and European settlers brought with them their own glue […]

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