August 7, 2022 • 25 mins
Elizabeth Russell-Arnot is an inquisitive adventurer with academic credentials across multiple arts disciplines. Her Churchill Fellowship and 2 Masters Degrees in the Arts have led to a focus on our endangered environment expressed through creativity in writing, illustrating, painting and sculpture. Liz has always been aware of the world in which she lives and her artistic work became the voice which she used to express her love for the environment and everything in it: birds, animals, insects, plants and yes, even mankind.
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Elizabeth Russell-Arnot (00:03):
I only put my bins out once every 10 weeks.
Yeah.
So very little goes in.
It's only soft plastics.
I haven't found that gladwrap and things like that.
I haven't found another use for yet.
I may do, but not yet.
. Yeah.
Nat Grant (00:22):
Welcome to season six of the prima Donna podcast, Sonic
portraits of Australian artists.
This audio was recorded andproduced on Wurundjeri country.
I pay respects toelders past and present.
The second episode in this seriesfeatures sculptor and visual
artist Elizabeth Russell- Arnot.
(00:43):
To find out more about the projectand to hear more episodes like this
one, visit prima Donna podcast.com.
Elizabeth Russell-Arnot (00:55):
My name is Elizabeth Russell-Arnot.
And I am currently sculptingin the Anthropocene arts.
I, yes, I'm working in Tasmania.
Yes.
In Northern Tasmania, but I do travelright around the state to source
materials and inspiration for my work.
(01:16):
Yes.
The anthrop the termAnthropocene was coined by a
Dutch chemist called Paul Crutzen.
He's a, um, Nobel prizewinning chemist in Holland.
And he identified at a conference thefact that the period that we are living
(01:42):
in is one that has been influencedor the geological era that we're
living in has been influenced by man.
And it is the first era that hecan see that has been able to be
identified while it is forming.
So it's become very interestingbecause it's the effect of the ma of
(02:03):
man and his behavior on the planet.
Not just on the geology, but on thebehaviors as well, but it affects
just about every aspect of society.
All I would say every aspect.
Yeah.
(02:29):
The influence of that came quite sometime ago, I was doing some expeditions
with the Australian geographic and DickSmith had sponsored those expeditions.
And we were on an island calledTrefoil island, which is very well
known as a mutton birding islandfor the local Aboriginal people.
And.
While we were on Trefoil island
(02:51):
I was walking on the beach.
Oh, it was a little Rocky shore.
And I noticed a tiny littlebird, a little fairy prion.
And it was probably, oh, I don't know.
Only just out of the nest.
It was still furry, not feathered,but it had a piece of plastic
hanging out of its mouth.
(03:11):
And as I walked up toit, it didn't move away.
So I picked it up and tried toremove the plastic from its mouth.
And when I pulled the plastic out, it,the entire its intestines came with it.
And I was in that moment confrontedwith the effect of human behavior on
(03:31):
the wildlife and on the environmentand that began my commitment to making
other people aware of their behaviorand the things they're demanding
and using, and its effect that itleaves on the rest of the world.
(03:56):
I'm trying to change the conversationthat we have about things that we no
longer use and the terminology that weuse, because I believe it starts there.
And we infect those we speakto, with the effect of the words
we use about those materials.
So I'm reusing computer parts,television parts, electronic
(04:23):
parts from all sorts of, yeah,just all sorts of things.
And I am converting them andrevaluing them into probably I'd
say fairly high end art piecesand sculptures, but the narrative
(04:44):
in the work addresses the issues.
So you can read the narrative in thework and relate it back to the problem
or the situation of the anthropocene.
Hmm.
I did a series called by the book.
Once again, it focuses on humanbehavior, but it is primarily
(05:08):
focused on how the words in booksare taken by the people who read
them and they're taken as their own.
The people take them as if they'vewritten them and it's their idea.
And then they behaveaccording to those words.
And not only that, they treat otherpeople according to how those words go.
(05:30):
And that can become a verybig problem because they don't
research the person who wrote thebook and say, was he influenced
and by whom and for what reason?
And I know this is gonna becontroversial for some people, but I
did one of a prayer book and I take thepages out of the prayer book and then
(05:54):
I create figures out of those pages.
But I, I read the bookbefore I destroy it.
Well, I don't think I'm, I don'tthink of it as being destroyed.
It's just reshaped and
the words that have created theproblem that people have taken as
gospel or taken as their own arethe ones I coat the figure in.
(06:18):
So I'm saying when you read thebook, it dresses you in its words.
Yeah.
And the people who then look atthe sculpture can read those words.
Yeah.
An example would be the prayer book.
I made a figure carrying the bookon its back, and it was stooped as
(06:39):
if it was a very weighty burden.
Another one off that serieswas important to me as an
enforced adoption baby.
And I was taken by the salvationarmy and I won't go into all the
(07:01):
details at the moment, but I took thesalvation army songbook and made a
baby out of the pages and a shackle andchain, and then chained to the book.
And what I'm saying with that is my life
is for ever until the day I die and thelife of my children been affected by
that action of taking me from my mom.
(07:22):
Yeah.
I was doing a masters of contemporaryart at the university of Tasmania
and sculpture from the skip wasa two week unit that you could
do to add credit to your masters.
(07:44):
And I thought, oh, thatsounds really interesting.
I'd always fiddled with 3d.
I have a, I have a, a love ofthe feeling of, of my work.
I like to be able to feelwhat I'm doing and painting
doesn't give me that.
There's a barrier, the paintbrushes between me and the work,
whereas sculpture I'm right into it.
(08:04):
So.
I thought I would like to try that.
And I went and I randomly pickedup all this metal and plastics and
things, and I picked them up from thetip face or from the, the metal pile,
because Longford is not a, where I live
the tip is not ag landfill.
(08:24):
It's all shipped out.
So I picked all this up and tookit back and used it to create a
garden in the desert if you like ofmetal swimming pool sides, kitchen
items of plastic kitchen items.
(08:46):
And I started as I was working tofeel that I was able to speak through
the work and tell people my ideas.
And I created a, a desert gardenout of the metal in Aboriginal
colors, as much as I could.
And from there, I went on to usingplastics and I made a very big fish,
(09:12):
probably about a meter wide meterlong and made it out of soft drink
bottles and filled it with rubbish.
So you could see through the fishand it had all the plastic, unwanted
plastic inside of it and some hangingout of its mouth, because that
reminded me of the bird that I found
(09:37):
I've been influenced very, very stronglyby that little bird and forevermore.
I think it really changed my direction.
I always loved nature.
And I was trying to expressthe depth of my love of nature
through the work, but I couldn'tquite be happy enough with it.
I could make my paintingsas perfect as I could.
(10:00):
And I was, I had a big career doingit, but that, wasn't what I wanted.
I wanted to say more, want to talkabout ideas rather than objects.
I went into OPSM one day and justsaw a pile of lenses in a bag.
(10:22):
And they were throwingthem in the rubbish tin.
And I said to them, whereare they going from there?
And they said, oh,they going to landfill.
We don't save any of them.
And we don't reuse any of them.
So I said, I think that's inappropriate.
I'd like to be the place where they go.
So I.
Get to all O PSM shops, but I dohave two that I go to and they
(10:44):
said, yeah, we'll keep them for you.
So I go in there every three monthsand pick up the lenses and I've
been using them to make sculptures.
The first sculptures were, I foundsome acrylic curtain rings at the
tip and I straightened them withheat and then attached the lenses
(11:08):
like leaves, branches, and leaves.
And then I had to putsomething on the leaves.
Didn't I . So I wanted itto tell a story about those
materials and the importance of
putting them in the ground.
And so I created some bugs andthat was the beginning of the bugs.
(11:30):
That piece.
Yeah,
the first one to a littlegrub like creatures.
And then I thought OPSM eye glasslenses, let's try a flying bug.
So.
Gave the first bug somelenses, made a few mistakes.
Nothing I do is designed to go together.
(11:53):
The parts aren't designed to match.
So I have to create ways and experimenta lot to find ways of making them match.
So, you know, drilling, screwing,riveting, nuts, and bolts, you
name it and gluing some of them.
Although I don't like gluing,I'm not confident of the,
(12:13):
of the longevity of glues.
So I try to make them a morepermanent fixture if I can.
And with the bugs Ihave now made over 500.
The new form of warfare that thegovernment is using is swarm warfare.
And it's a technological warfare.
(12:36):
And I see these bugs asbeing a euphemism for that.
And the bugs made outof computer material.
People call them bugsand they see them as.
But they're not becausethey're computer parts.
And so I like confusing their brainand sending it to another place.
(13:06):
I did two years of a degree atthe university, but in the middle
of the degree, I was awarded aChurchill fellowship for my work.
And so I traveled to England, theUnited States, Germany, Austria, Italy,
and then came home via Indonesia.
(13:27):
Yeah.
And it was very interesting because I,I was studying the natural history arts
and the preservation of artworks thathad been done and, and the teaching
of natural history art becausein America it's a degree
(13:48):
subject and it wasn't even asubject anywhere in Australia.
And I was in England at the Britishmuseum of natural history and they,
they were just walking in and I wasmeeting them for the first time and
they said, oh, what are you here for?
And I said, I've arranged tomeet with da, da, da x people,
and to look at such and such.
(14:09):
And they said, oh, you'refrom Australia, aren't you?
And I said, yes.
And they said, You know,we don't even look at the
illustrations in Australian papers.
They're so bad.
I was so ashamed.
Oh, I was so embarrassed.
And so it was a very intense journeyand I wrote a handbook when I came
(14:33):
home on natural history illustrationand it's lodged in Canberra with
the Churchill fellows association.
And I never anticipated this alteration.
It was finding that littlebird that changed it.
I knew I was looking for another wayof expressing my thoughts in my work,
but I hadn't realized that I wouldcome across this little key moment in
(14:56):
my life that turned me right around.
Yeah.
And I hardly paint now.
Yeah.
I think I'm getting older and myhand's not as steady as it was.
I'll do looser stuff and I have acouple of pieces to do, but I've
got a house full of artwork andI've got to do something with it.
Yeah.
So anticipating an exhibition comingup yet to be organized, but it's
(15:18):
already all the artwork's ready.
Yes.
Well, that's.
That's the bugs.
Yeah.
And the, and the, um, pieceson the stands and everything.
There's about gee, I've producedabout 25 major pieces and
then the 500 smaller pieces.
(15:41):
The arts is an interdisciplinary.
It has the ability to cross acrossdisciplines and to be useful and have
an effect on the other discipline.
It can, it can be useful to it.
I did a project with the Tate andone of the Scottish universities,
(16:03):
and we worked on the project that.
Saw the trainee doctors using art toimprove their communication skills
with patients through learning,to explore concepts and ideas.
(16:23):
It actually had was really very,very successful on the part of
the date that Tate still run.
Units like that members of thehealth professionals can go into the
Tate and actually do that course.
And it's quite amazing.
(16:43):
I want my art without havingto speak about it to have an
influence on people's thinking andthe way they see the materials.
It's so important to me that thisconversation changes that the language
we use changes because it currently,we devalue things we don't want.
(17:09):
So I need to take the words that devaluethe materials out of my conversations
and call them something else.
So the people who hear me areinfluenced by a different word.
The moment I say trash,it devalues the word.
(17:32):
I used to go in an annualexhibition every year.
And.
I worked very hard and I did put thoseoriginal flowers in, but because the
word trash was used for the exhibition,people didn't mind knocking into the
artwork and knocking it over, not justmine, but other people's and there
were artworks smashed because of it.
(17:54):
And the value of that work was not seenbecause of the name of the exhibition.
And I think it's really importantthat we change the conversation
and the terminology we use.
Yeah.
In order to create more awareness, adifferent awareness, because at the
moment we can say it's made from trash.
(18:16):
But people immediately go, oh,well it's not valuable art.
There's no value in it.
I don't need to go and see it, orI don't need to buy it, or I don't
need to have anything to do with it.
I'm not gaining from seeing it.
Yeah.
So I want them to change that.
Yeah.
(18:38):
It was a little tough.
I was an adopted child,but not very happily.
So, and my adoptive parentswere deeply religious.
My adoptive mother was, and she had asaying in the old Testament, Deuteronomy
chapter 23 versus one and two.
(19:00):
And those two verses wereher mantra for her life.
And I won't recite the first oneit's about men and their value,
but the second one was about
bastards.
And it said a bastard shall notenter into the kingdom of the
Lord nor to their 10th generation.
(19:24):
And so those words, and this iswhat created the book theories.
Those words caused my motherto assume that I had no value
because I was illegitimate.
And so I wasn't allowedto achieve anything.
I wasn't allowed to say what I thought Iwasn't allowed to demonstrate intellect.
(19:45):
And so I used art todo it, art and music.
And so I started playingthe piano at age five.
And did I play, I thumped it.
I composed, I, I was good at it.
I remembered everything I everplayed after the first playing.
So I didn't need to practicewhen I was playing, I was
playing, I wasn't practicing.
(20:07):
I was playing because I enjoyed it.
Not because I neededto learn it anymore.
So I found the arts was thevoice that couldn't be silenced.
And it started at a very young age.
Very young.
Yeah.
I was about five, probablyearlier four and a half.
(20:28):
Five.
I have nothing from that periodbecause she used to burn all my art.
I think I used to draw things thatmade her uncomfortable so I was
sent to boarding school when I wasfive and anything I did at home.
(20:49):
When I went back home at the end ofthe year, there was nothing there.
So she had destroyed itand I'd make more things.
So by eight, I wasgoing into the workshop.
We were on a farm and I found a bigsheet of copper delicious, lovely
copper, which I started making footjewelry and I made foot bangals.
(21:12):
And ring toe rings andall sorts of things
I got into a little bitof trouble for using the
copper , but I really enjoyed it.
So I taught myself to solder on anold, ah, I don't even know what you
call it, you know, the forge thatblacksmiths used to heat their tools.
(21:34):
I used to heap the solderingiron, a big, big wedge shaped tip
on it in the forge, and then runover to the copper and weld it
together with flux and everything.
Yeah.
I didn't continue with that, butI don't think from those years
(21:55):
there has been a time when Ihaven't, when I've been idle.
I needed to make something or seensomething I want to reconstruct.
It became very serious after findingthat little bird, I cried so much
(22:17):
and it was the first time I'veever been aware of the fact that
I was ashamed to be a human being.
I like really deeply shamed atthe effect of human behavior,
doing that to an innocent little.
When I went to university to dothe masters in order to work in the
(22:41):
sculpture studio, I had to be ticketed.
And so I had to demonstrate proficiencyon about 13 different things.
And so there was a chap in the studio.
He ran through them all withme and he was happy enough
with my proficiency on them.
So that was good.
I think my favorite thing in therewas a plasma cutter, which was
(23:02):
just like delicious, you know,water cutting through metal.
And I hadn't experienced that.
That was lovely.
Yeah.
So I learned a few new things.
I already knew a lot ofthem like metal rolling.
I didn't know, things like that.
I had to demonstrate safety aspects.
So when I started working with theplastics, I had to write a health
(23:23):
and safety manual for working withplastics in order to be allowed
to continue working with plastics,which was really interesting.
So I did a lot of research for that.
I produced a sheet, a condensedsheet for public consumption.
(23:44):
And when I finished, I then wasinvited to give talks at rotary,
um, prob and a lot of otherorganizations about the plastics.
And I would hand this sheet outat every one of the talks and
say, you need to be aware of yoursafety when you are using plastics.
You know, you shouldn't heatthis one, you shouldn't touch
(24:06):
that without gloves and so on.
Because it is quite frightening.
They're all benzine based andquite toxic and they release
the toxins under, heat.
It's interesting.
At what level of knowledge we have,that the fear starts to emerge.
(24:30):
You know, I've had a lot of peoplemake changes because of what I've
talked about or what they've seen.
And they've actually contactedme and said, thank you.
I've got rid of, they report back to me.
It's really quite funny.
They report back about how good they'vebeen and about how many things they've
thrown out and what they did with them.
And I, of course, I have tosay, don't throw them out.
(24:51):
That's the problem.
You know, you need to repurpose them orcontain them in some way without putting
them in the ground, don't reuse themwith food or, or anything that you might
ingest or that any animals might ingest.
(25:12):
So reshaping them is what, what I do.
I mean, I've probably been in dangerworking with them for a long time,
but you know, I'm getting old now.
So, you know, I won't say it's okay,but it's not frightening because
something will come and get me anyway.
so I think I'll dothis till a day I die.
(25:34):
Yeah.
Nat Grant (25:39):
You've been listening to the prima Donna podcast.
To find out more about this projectand to hear more episodes like this
one, visit prima Donna podcast.com.
I only put my bins out once every 10 weeks.
Yeah.
So very little goes in.
It's only soft plastics.
I haven't found that gladwrap and things like that.
I haven't found another use for yet.
I may do, but not yet.
. Yeah.
Nat Grant (00:22):
Welcome to season six of the prima Donna podcast, Sonic
portraits of Australian artists.
This audio was recorded andproduced on Wurundjeri country.
I pay respects toelders past and present.
The second episode in this seriesfeatures sculptor and visual
artist Elizabeth Russell- Arnot.
(00:43):
To find out more about the projectand to hear more episodes like this
one, visit prima Donna podcast.com.
Elizabeth Russell-Arnot (00:55):
My name is Elizabeth Russell-Arnot.
And I am currently sculptingin the Anthropocene arts.
I, yes, I'm working in Tasmania.
Yes.
In Northern Tasmania, but I do travelright around the state to source
materials and inspiration for my work.
(01:16):
Yes.
The anthrop the termAnthropocene was coined by a
Dutch chemist called Paul Crutzen.
He's a, um, Nobel prizewinning chemist in Holland.
And he identified at a conference thefact that the period that we are living
(01:42):
in is one that has been influencedor the geological era that we're
living in has been influenced by man.
And it is the first era that hecan see that has been able to be
identified while it is forming.
So it's become very interestingbecause it's the effect of the ma of
(02:03):
man and his behavior on the planet.
Not just on the geology, but on thebehaviors as well, but it affects
just about every aspect of society.
All I would say every aspect.
Yeah.
(02:29):
The influence of that came quite sometime ago, I was doing some expeditions
with the Australian geographic and DickSmith had sponsored those expeditions.
And we were on an island calledTrefoil island, which is very well
known as a mutton birding islandfor the local Aboriginal people.
And.
While we were on Trefoil island
(02:51):
I was walking on the beach.
Oh, it was a little Rocky shore.
And I noticed a tiny littlebird, a little fairy prion.
And it was probably, oh, I don't know.
Only just out of the nest.
It was still furry, not feathered,but it had a piece of plastic
hanging out of its mouth.
(03:11):
And as I walked up toit, it didn't move away.
So I picked it up and tried toremove the plastic from its mouth.
And when I pulled the plastic out, it,the entire its intestines came with it.
And I was in that moment confrontedwith the effect of human behavior on
(03:31):
the wildlife and on the environmentand that began my commitment to making
other people aware of their behaviorand the things they're demanding
and using, and its effect that itleaves on the rest of the world.
(03:56):
I'm trying to change the conversationthat we have about things that we no
longer use and the terminology that weuse, because I believe it starts there.
And we infect those we speakto, with the effect of the words
we use about those materials.
So I'm reusing computer parts,television parts, electronic
(04:23):
parts from all sorts of, yeah,just all sorts of things.
And I am converting them andrevaluing them into probably I'd
say fairly high end art piecesand sculptures, but the narrative
(04:44):
in the work addresses the issues.
So you can read the narrative in thework and relate it back to the problem
or the situation of the anthropocene.
Hmm.
I did a series called by the book.
Once again, it focuses on humanbehavior, but it is primarily
(05:08):
focused on how the words in booksare taken by the people who read
them and they're taken as their own.
The people take them as if they'vewritten them and it's their idea.
And then they behaveaccording to those words.
And not only that, they treat otherpeople according to how those words go.
(05:30):
And that can become a verybig problem because they don't
research the person who wrote thebook and say, was he influenced
and by whom and for what reason?
And I know this is gonna becontroversial for some people, but I
did one of a prayer book and I take thepages out of the prayer book and then
(05:54):
I create figures out of those pages.
But I, I read the bookbefore I destroy it.
Well, I don't think I'm, I don'tthink of it as being destroyed.
It's just reshaped and
the words that have created theproblem that people have taken as
gospel or taken as their own arethe ones I coat the figure in.
(06:18):
So I'm saying when you read thebook, it dresses you in its words.
Yeah.
And the people who then look atthe sculpture can read those words.
Yeah.
An example would be the prayer book.
I made a figure carrying the bookon its back, and it was stooped as
(06:39):
if it was a very weighty burden.
Another one off that serieswas important to me as an
enforced adoption baby.
And I was taken by the salvationarmy and I won't go into all the
(07:01):
details at the moment, but I took thesalvation army songbook and made a
baby out of the pages and a shackle andchain, and then chained to the book.
And what I'm saying with that is my life
is for ever until the day I die and thelife of my children been affected by
that action of taking me from my mom.
(07:22):
Yeah.
I was doing a masters of contemporaryart at the university of Tasmania
and sculpture from the skip wasa two week unit that you could
do to add credit to your masters.
(07:44):
And I thought, oh, thatsounds really interesting.
I'd always fiddled with 3d.
I have a, I have a, a love ofthe feeling of, of my work.
I like to be able to feelwhat I'm doing and painting
doesn't give me that.
There's a barrier, the paintbrushes between me and the work,
whereas sculpture I'm right into it.
(08:04):
So.
I thought I would like to try that.
And I went and I randomly pickedup all this metal and plastics and
things, and I picked them up from thetip face or from the, the metal pile,
because Longford is not a, where I live
the tip is not ag landfill.
(08:24):
It's all shipped out.
So I picked all this up and tookit back and used it to create a
garden in the desert if you like ofmetal swimming pool sides, kitchen
items of plastic kitchen items.
(08:46):
And I started as I was working tofeel that I was able to speak through
the work and tell people my ideas.
And I created a, a desert gardenout of the metal in Aboriginal
colors, as much as I could.
And from there, I went on to usingplastics and I made a very big fish,
(09:12):
probably about a meter wide meterlong and made it out of soft drink
bottles and filled it with rubbish.
So you could see through the fishand it had all the plastic, unwanted
plastic inside of it and some hangingout of its mouth, because that
reminded me of the bird that I found
(09:37):
I've been influenced very, very stronglyby that little bird and forevermore.
I think it really changed my direction.
I always loved nature.
And I was trying to expressthe depth of my love of nature
through the work, but I couldn'tquite be happy enough with it.
I could make my paintingsas perfect as I could.
(10:00):
And I was, I had a big career doingit, but that, wasn't what I wanted.
I wanted to say more, want to talkabout ideas rather than objects.
I went into OPSM one day and justsaw a pile of lenses in a bag.
(10:22):
And they were throwingthem in the rubbish tin.
And I said to them, whereare they going from there?
And they said, oh,they going to landfill.
We don't save any of them.
And we don't reuse any of them.
So I said, I think that's inappropriate.
I'd like to be the place where they go.
So I.
Get to all O PSM shops, but I dohave two that I go to and they
(10:44):
said, yeah, we'll keep them for you.
So I go in there every three monthsand pick up the lenses and I've
been using them to make sculptures.
The first sculptures were, I foundsome acrylic curtain rings at the
tip and I straightened them withheat and then attached the lenses
(11:08):
like leaves, branches, and leaves.
And then I had to putsomething on the leaves.
Didn't I . So I wanted itto tell a story about those
materials and the importance of
putting them in the ground.
And so I created some bugs andthat was the beginning of the bugs.
(11:30):
That piece.
Yeah,
the first one to a littlegrub like creatures.
And then I thought OPSM eye glasslenses, let's try a flying bug.
So.
Gave the first bug somelenses, made a few mistakes.
Nothing I do is designed to go together.
(11:53):
The parts aren't designed to match.
So I have to create ways and experimenta lot to find ways of making them match.
So, you know, drilling, screwing,riveting, nuts, and bolts, you
name it and gluing some of them.
Although I don't like gluing,I'm not confident of the,
(12:13):
of the longevity of glues.
So I try to make them a morepermanent fixture if I can.
And with the bugs Ihave now made over 500.
The new form of warfare that thegovernment is using is swarm warfare.
And it's a technological warfare.
(12:36):
And I see these bugs asbeing a euphemism for that.
And the bugs made outof computer material.
People call them bugsand they see them as.
But they're not becausethey're computer parts.
And so I like confusing their brainand sending it to another place.
(13:06):
I did two years of a degree atthe university, but in the middle
of the degree, I was awarded aChurchill fellowship for my work.
And so I traveled to England, theUnited States, Germany, Austria, Italy,
and then came home via Indonesia.
(13:27):
Yeah.
And it was very interesting because I,I was studying the natural history arts
and the preservation of artworks thathad been done and, and the teaching
of natural history art becausein America it's a degree
(13:48):
subject and it wasn't even asubject anywhere in Australia.
And I was in England at the Britishmuseum of natural history and they,
they were just walking in and I wasmeeting them for the first time and
they said, oh, what are you here for?
And I said, I've arranged tomeet with da, da, da x people,
and to look at such and such.
(14:09):
And they said, oh, you'refrom Australia, aren't you?
And I said, yes.
And they said, You know,we don't even look at the
illustrations in Australian papers.
They're so bad.
I was so ashamed.
Oh, I was so embarrassed.
And so it was a very intense journeyand I wrote a handbook when I came
(14:33):
home on natural history illustrationand it's lodged in Canberra with
the Churchill fellows association.
And I never anticipated this alteration.
It was finding that littlebird that changed it.
I knew I was looking for another wayof expressing my thoughts in my work,
but I hadn't realized that I wouldcome across this little key moment in
(14:56):
my life that turned me right around.
Yeah.
And I hardly paint now.
Yeah.
I think I'm getting older and myhand's not as steady as it was.
I'll do looser stuff and I have acouple of pieces to do, but I've
got a house full of artwork andI've got to do something with it.
Yeah.
So anticipating an exhibition comingup yet to be organized, but it's
(15:18):
already all the artwork's ready.
Yes.
Well, that's.
That's the bugs.
Yeah.
And the, and the, um, pieceson the stands and everything.
There's about gee, I've producedabout 25 major pieces and
then the 500 smaller pieces.
(15:41):
The arts is an interdisciplinary.
It has the ability to cross acrossdisciplines and to be useful and have
an effect on the other discipline.
It can, it can be useful to it.
I did a project with the Tate andone of the Scottish universities,
(16:03):
and we worked on the project that.
Saw the trainee doctors using art toimprove their communication skills
with patients through learning,to explore concepts and ideas.
(16:23):
It actually had was really very,very successful on the part of
the date that Tate still run.
Units like that members of thehealth professionals can go into the
Tate and actually do that course.
And it's quite amazing.
(16:43):
I want my art without havingto speak about it to have an
influence on people's thinking andthe way they see the materials.
It's so important to me that thisconversation changes that the language
we use changes because it currently,we devalue things we don't want.
(17:09):
So I need to take the words that devaluethe materials out of my conversations
and call them something else.
So the people who hear me areinfluenced by a different word.
The moment I say trash,it devalues the word.
(17:32):
I used to go in an annualexhibition every year.
And.
I worked very hard and I did put thoseoriginal flowers in, but because the
word trash was used for the exhibition,people didn't mind knocking into the
artwork and knocking it over, not justmine, but other people's and there
were artworks smashed because of it.
(17:54):
And the value of that work was not seenbecause of the name of the exhibition.
And I think it's really importantthat we change the conversation
and the terminology we use.
Yeah.
In order to create more awareness, adifferent awareness, because at the
moment we can say it's made from trash.
(18:16):
But people immediately go, oh,well it's not valuable art.
There's no value in it.
I don't need to go and see it, orI don't need to buy it, or I don't
need to have anything to do with it.
I'm not gaining from seeing it.
Yeah.
So I want them to change that.
Yeah.
(18:38):
It was a little tough.
I was an adopted child,but not very happily.
So, and my adoptive parentswere deeply religious.
My adoptive mother was, and she had asaying in the old Testament, Deuteronomy
chapter 23 versus one and two.
(19:00):
And those two verses wereher mantra for her life.
And I won't recite the first oneit's about men and their value,
but the second one was about
bastards.
And it said a bastard shall notenter into the kingdom of the
Lord nor to their 10th generation.
(19:24):
And so those words, and this iswhat created the book theories.
Those words caused my motherto assume that I had no value
because I was illegitimate.
And so I wasn't allowedto achieve anything.
I wasn't allowed to say what I thought Iwasn't allowed to demonstrate intellect.
(19:45):
And so I used art todo it, art and music.
And so I started playingthe piano at age five.
And did I play, I thumped it.
I composed, I, I was good at it.
I remembered everything I everplayed after the first playing.
So I didn't need to practicewhen I was playing, I was
playing, I wasn't practicing.
(20:07):
I was playing because I enjoyed it.
Not because I neededto learn it anymore.
So I found the arts was thevoice that couldn't be silenced.
And it started at a very young age.
Very young.
Yeah.
I was about five, probablyearlier four and a half.
(20:28):
Five.
I have nothing from that periodbecause she used to burn all my art.
I think I used to draw things thatmade her uncomfortable so I was
sent to boarding school when I wasfive and anything I did at home.
(20:49):
When I went back home at the end ofthe year, there was nothing there.
So she had destroyed itand I'd make more things.
So by eight, I wasgoing into the workshop.
We were on a farm and I found a bigsheet of copper delicious, lovely
copper, which I started making footjewelry and I made foot bangals.
(21:12):
And ring toe rings andall sorts of things
I got into a little bitof trouble for using the
copper , but I really enjoyed it.
So I taught myself to solder on anold, ah, I don't even know what you
call it, you know, the forge thatblacksmiths used to heat their tools.
(21:34):
I used to heap the solderingiron, a big, big wedge shaped tip
on it in the forge, and then runover to the copper and weld it
together with flux and everything.
Yeah.
I didn't continue with that, butI don't think from those years
(21:55):
there has been a time when Ihaven't, when I've been idle.
I needed to make something or seensomething I want to reconstruct.
It became very serious after findingthat little bird, I cried so much
(22:17):
and it was the first time I'veever been aware of the fact that
I was ashamed to be a human being.
I like really deeply shamed atthe effect of human behavior,
doing that to an innocent little.
When I went to university to dothe masters in order to work in the
(22:41):
sculpture studio, I had to be ticketed.
And so I had to demonstrate proficiencyon about 13 different things.
And so there was a chap in the studio.
He ran through them all withme and he was happy enough
with my proficiency on them.
So that was good.
I think my favorite thing in therewas a plasma cutter, which was
(23:02):
just like delicious, you know,water cutting through metal.
And I hadn't experienced that.
That was lovely.
Yeah.
So I learned a few new things.
I already knew a lot ofthem like metal rolling.
I didn't know, things like that.
I had to demonstrate safety aspects.
So when I started working with theplastics, I had to write a health
(23:23):
and safety manual for working withplastics in order to be allowed
to continue working with plastics,which was really interesting.
So I did a lot of research for that.
I produced a sheet, a condensedsheet for public consumption.
(23:44):
And when I finished, I then wasinvited to give talks at rotary,
um, prob and a lot of otherorganizations about the plastics.
And I would hand this sheet outat every one of the talks and
say, you need to be aware of yoursafety when you are using plastics.
You know, you shouldn't heatthis one, you shouldn't touch
(24:06):
that without gloves and so on.
Because it is quite frightening.
They're all benzine based andquite toxic and they release
the toxins under, heat.
It's interesting.
At what level of knowledge we have,that the fear starts to emerge.
(24:30):
You know, I've had a lot of peoplemake changes because of what I've
talked about or what they've seen.
And they've actually contactedme and said, thank you.
I've got rid of, they report back to me.
It's really quite funny.
They report back about how good they'vebeen and about how many things they've
thrown out and what they did with them.
And I, of course, I have tosay, don't throw them out.
(24:51):
That's the problem.
You know, you need to repurpose them orcontain them in some way without putting
them in the ground, don't reuse themwith food or, or anything that you might
ingest or that any animals might ingest.
(25:12):
So reshaping them is what, what I do.
I mean, I've probably been in dangerworking with them for a long time,
but you know, I'm getting old now.
So, you know, I won't say it's okay,but it's not frightening because
something will come and get me anyway.
so I think I'll dothis till a day I die.
(25:34):
Yeah.
Nat Grant (25:39):
You've been listening to the prima Donna podcast.
To find out more about this projectand to hear more episodes like this
one, visit prima Donna podcast.com.
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