After making a series of artworks in 2010 which captured the performance of a circus girl, Anna Culliton (1966-) was on the hunt for a new subject. It was during a visit to the Taralga Rodeo that inspiration struck the potter. A nineteen-year-old quarter-horse rider was about to perform when his name was announced: Clay […]
An egg is indeed a treasure, especially when it shimmers with a thousand points of light as it does in Nell’s (1975-) mixed media work, Treasure (2003). Nell, an artist known only by her first name, works across a range of mediums encompassing painting, installation, ceramics and performance. Treasure is an object that embodies her […]
The time is now, declares Nell’s painting. Time to awaken to the present moment, time to awaken to enlightenment. Nell (1975-), an artist who is known only by her first name, invokes the spiritual traditions of Buddhism in her multi-disciplinary works. She works across immersive installations, paintings, ceramics, mosaics, neon light works and music videos […]
The stockman’s quart pot – a billycan (kettle) with a cup that fits inside it – was a popular kit carried by bush men and women to brew and drink tea. Whether journeying on horseback or by foot, travelling in the dry Australian ‘bush’ was a very thirsty business. A cup of leaf-tea, brewed on […]
Head III (2007) is a profile, a sculpture and a drawing at once. It’s a work by William Kentridge (1955-), a South African artist who is interested in transformations between materials, and differences in perspectives. Kentridge works across many mediums, ranging from drawing, printmaking and animation to theatre set and costume design. He was born […]
These napkin rings belonged to the Wilson family of Berry. James C Wilson (1834-1901) emigrated to Australia in 1857 and found work on the Berry Estate, before co-founding Wilson and Co. Store, establishing other business interests that included coal mining, and becoming Berry’s first Mayor. Around 1880, with wife Robina nee Tait (1849-1918), the Wilsons […]
The first butter factory in Australia was established at Kiama, on the NSW South Coast, in the early 1880s. Until then the trade of dairy products occurred directly between the farmer and buyer. Butter was made in small quantities using centuries-old techniques to separate the cream from cow’s milk and churn it into butter. It […]
The budding gardener in this photograph, Gustav (Gus) Friedrich Wagner (1881-1950) was the third of the six children of Peter Christian Wagner and his wife, Johanna Hermina ‘Mina’ (nee Rosler). Gus would become a mainstay of Jindera society, operating Wagner’s store for 36 years until his death and was reputedly the subject of Russell Drysdale’s […]
One glimpse at the map illustrated on this pamphlet would suggest that if a hydrogen bomb were to be dropped on Newcastle, the effects would extend beyond Maitland, Cessnock and Lake Macquarie, making the chances of survival slim. Luckily for the citizens of the Greater Newcastle area, the Cold War era local civil defence organisations […]
Silver spoons were very nearly Alexander Dick’s (c.1791-1843) undoing. A free settler who arrived in 1824, he was a working silversmith with a prospering business in Sydney in 1826 when he made a deal that cost him dearly. Anxious to produce an order of silverware for a client, he knowingly bought a set of ‘old’ […]
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