Pictures 1955

Catalogue / Memoir
Introduction Pictures Objects Animations

PICTURES are both finished and ephemeral works made for animations.

1949----   1950----   1951----   1952----   1953----   1954----   1955----   1956----   1957----   1958----   1959----   1960----   1961----   1962----   1963----   1964----   1965----   1966----   1967----   1968----   1969----   1970----   1971----   1972----   1973----   1974----   1975----   1976----   1977----   1978----   1979----   1980----   1981----   1982----   1983----   1984----   1985----   1986----   1987----   1988----   1989----   1990----   1991----   1992----   1993----   1994----   1995----   1996----   1997----   1998----   1999----   2000----   2001----   2002----   2003----   2004----   2005----   2006----   2007----   2008----   2009----   2010----   2011----   2012----   2013----   2014----   2015----   2016----   2017----   2018----   2019----   2020----   2021----   2022----   2023----   2024----   2025----   2026----  

Talisman

I draw with my sister on walls around the house.
We use charcoal from hearths set around the central chimney.

I sometimes think that just as there is a real and primitive link between the memory and the sense of smell, so might there be a real and acquired link between the memory and the writing [and drawing, dancing] brain.

Carmel Bird, 2007
Writing the story of your life. p.267

Screen shot from Roget's Circular
Interactive CDROM (2001)
Co-authored with Melissa Smith

From age five to about nine I live in Talisman, Kallista, in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges. My family had sailed from Christchurch and arrived at Port Melbourne on my fifth birthday. In Christchurch I watched long coloured streamers dancing between the people on the boat and the people on the wharf. I remember it was very cold and windy and that many streamers broke.

At Talisman Nadya and I shared a bedroom. Our beds were narrow and set against the wall so there was only one side we could get in and out of. Heavy wooden bed bases supported wire mesh that sagged and squeaked as we wriggled and giggled before going to sleep.

My bed was against a wall with a window. I can't remember where Nadya's bed was but it wasn't far away because we could hear each other clearly. Even as a child Nadya's tone of voice was monotonic, deep, demanding and relentless. She must have gone to sleep before me because I remember my relief when she stopped talking and I was free to think and dream.

My father and his younger brother Dick said that after Lillie died, they used to stay at Talisman with Tom and his second wife Jean Boyes, and wrote letters to fairies they believed were in the garden and took their loose teeth. I still have a letter my father wrote when he was five. That letter was in an old oak chest among other family treasures. I would lie in bed listening to the old pear tree outside tapping on the window above me and imagine the fairies moving freely through the window glass.

Other treasures in the chest are books with messages and drawings by visiting adults and children. And photos. There's a photo of Talisman being built, with bullocks hauling loads of wood up the hill and a photo of the view I remember from the back verandah.

The weather boards outside the house were oiled and dark. The inside rooms were lined with honey coloured plywood. Fireplaces in the main rooms were connected to a central chimney. Each hearth was overarched with a lithographic stone embedded in red bricks. Each stone was etched to show a wide horizon of trees backlit. Tom's friend and neighbour Jessie Traille etched the stones. In 2006 my father said, 'of course, they were lovers'. But that's another story.

Talisman garden, Kallista
L-R: Nadya, me, Anne, Janice

This message arrives, Monday 31 Aug 2026:

I only have snapshot memories of Kallista - paintings and artworks especially the one in the fireplace surround, I think a high deck we would play on, a huge gooseberry bush, wrigglers in the bath, going to Emerald Lake where I found a 10 shilling note in a rubbish bin, walking to the shop to buy endless lollies with the 10 shillings, lovely juicy blackberries. I loved going there and I was so sad when you left it, but it was good to have you closer.

Anne
Kallista sister

Nadya and I with Mum's family
At Aunty Lucy's Ascot Vale, Melbourne

EVENTS

1955: The Lake Pedder National Park declared in Tasmania. It became the cause of bitter controversy between the Tasmanian Hydro-Electric Commission and conservationists.

1955: Sections of the Australian Labour Party split over party policy toward communism in the trade union movement.

1955: The Federal council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders was established.

1955: Barry Humphries created Edna Everage.

Ref. The Australian Almanac, Pub. Angus & Robertson 1985

Written by me, Lisa Roberts/Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill), on

19/04/2026