Pictures 1957

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----  

Eucalyptus and lavender

Down the road from Talisman, paths of crazy paving dance between the native bush and European gardens. Winter sun warms my pleated woolen tunic. My bare legs beneath feel the heat. There's a photo of me standing there on the crazy paving. When I find it I'll put it here. Just thinking about that photo takes me back to feeling crazy, swirling on currents of eucalyptus and lavender scent.

Bill Onus (centre) outside Aboriginal Enterprises in Belgrave (established by him in 1952), pictured on Page 25 of Flying with my Sister, the picture book I co-authored with Claire Sives. Bill stands next to his wife, Mary McLintock Kelly, a Scot. Their son Lin Onus stands at the bottom far right of the page. Lin and I used to play outside while our parents worked in the studio.

CLICK on the Bird to download the picture book, Flying with my Sister:

Aboriginal Enterprises was in Belgrave, down the hill from Talisman in Kallista. Some days I would watch through the workshop door as Mum burned designs into wooden boomerangs. Other days she would cut stencils for silk screens and print onto paper and fabric. Bill's son Lin was about my age and we would play outside. Not so much together as side by side, on our own. I felt his eyes on me just as I imagine he felt my eyes on him. At the time his look struck me as surely. Maybe he was simply shy and wary.

Mum would bring work home. At Talisman, our home, she would sit at the kitchen table and draw on wooden boomerangs. She drew with an electric 'red hot poker', pyrography machine that my father Noel bought for her. He seemed to enjoy keeping it working well for her, just as he seemed to enjoy maintaining other electronic things. Mum showed me how to use it. I now have one of these machines. I love how the smell of burning wood takes me back to sitting happily with Mum, watching her and her teaching me to draw with fire myself.

Tom's studio in the garden
at Talisman, Kallista. circa 1925.

As far as I know, Tom's studio is still in the garden of Talisman. One day Mum, Nadya and I sat together on the studio floor and cut out bits of coloured paper from magazines. The idea was to paste the coloured paper onto glass jars, and paint between the piece so it looked like stained glass. Mum made a smooth clear paste by quickly mixing cornflour and boiling water, and we stuck the bits of coloured paper onto the jars. When that dried we painted the black lines between the bits.

Dusty old canvas stretchers and tubes of oil paint were scattered about. One day I got Alizarin Crimson oil paint on my fingers and spread little red marks on the doorknobs all through the house. I still love that colour.

Since childhood I was told that Indigenous ways of connecting are available to everyone, and that the most powerful ways of passing on knowledge come from listening and responding directly to country your own way, through the arts.

Screen shot: Lisa Roberts
of Tiriki Onus, son of Lin Onus
in the First Peoples exhibition,
Melbourne Museum.
December 31, 2016

Years later in the Melbourne Museum I watch a video of Tiriki explaining that Bill made art not just to carry himself, but 'to carry everyone forward'.

"The 'dreaming' is not a set of beliefs which is being lost because it is nolonger valid, it is rather a way of talking, of seeing, of knowing, and a set of practices, which is as obtuse, as mysterious and as beautiful as any poetry... it depends on people living in the country, travelling through it and naming it, constantly making new stories and songs."

Benterrak, K., Muecke, S., Roe, P., 1984, Reading the Country, p. 14, Freemantle Arts Centre Press

1959 poster for Aboriginal Enterprises

1957: Albert Namatjira, the Aboriginal artist, goaled for six months with hard labour for supplying liquor to fellow Aboriginals.

1957: On the Beach by Neville Chute published.

1957: Margot Fonteyn toured Australia as the guest of the Borovansky Ballet.

The Australian Almanac, Pub. Angus & Robertson 1985

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

17/04/2026