Pictures 1981
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----
Le Mer (the sea)
1981. Rehearsing, pregnant
Dance: La Mer (the Sea)
Choreography: Barbara Weiss
Music: Debussy
Margaret Lasica Studio, Melbourne.
Photo: Barbara Weiss
STORY
One of my husbands was a business man who loved sailing
He was really wrapped up in this sailing business. Today my son X (from another marriage) and I did our own thing once again. While he did the King of the Derwent race, we saw a grand parade, went to the museum and gallery, then swam at the hotel.
It's a funny holiday - another world - luxury hotel, idle rich. He returned and we went to a dinner to celebrate the end of the race. I felt really depressed, unsure if I wasn't over-reacting to his "rough and ready ways". Sex, money and brute force seem his main interests at times and I find it hard to see another side to him. Particularly when I see other couples who seem to glow with tenderness for each other. What have we got? I left early and slept. He came back later, drunk."
Euphausia superba / Lisa Roberts
1981 diary, Friday January 2. Hobart
I give birth to a girl.
Photo: Lisa Roberts
I call her Kate. Her father calls her something else.
As she grows she calls herself by other names.
Today I look into this photo and remember my feeling of seeing Kate in her father's arms. My child. His child. Today I remember that feeling of her. Her heat, her breath, her gestures. This poem comes as a gift. In this poem I recognise feelings and thoughts, simultaneously separate, familiar and different. Necessarily unique in man, woman, child. Necessarily hopeful creatures.
These are not
the hands of the blind
Shielding from, and reaching for,
Things unknown.
Like soft breaths on my shoulder,
They touch without intent.
I wonder what demands they'll find
when you and they are grown.
I'll ask you,
When you're older,
Just what those gestures meant.
Alison Handmer. 1987
From the poem Reaching (for Casey),
in From the Garden of my Soul 2024. p. 13.
1981. 25 July: Tonight, Kate seemed to focus on my eyes for the first time..
1981. 18 Sept: House & Garden magazine people photographed our new kitchen.
1981. 22 Sept: Joe home sick. Swollen glands, general lethargy. Took him to doctor.
1981. 25 Sept: Kate started hitting a mobile consciously with her hands.
1981. 29 Sept: Kate noticed her feet.
1981. 2 Oct: Kate began looking at her hands. Also began blowing bubbles.
1981. 1 Nov: Joey's Eggshell People book launch St Vincent's Place Albert Park.
1981. 4 Nov: Kate rolled over on the floor by herself.
1981. 7 December: Felicity here (cooking lesson) - terrine, sauces.
1981. 9 Nov: Kate began holding things and putting them in her mouth - plastic rings, bell rattle, dress, piece of celery.
Euphausia superba / Lisa Roberts
1981 diary, Tuesday August 25. Melbourne
1981: March 06. Daffodils and crocuses out in Highbury Fields
1981: March 07. Birthday card from Jenny and Bruce!
1981: March 08. NJR [Nora] rang (for birthday!)
1981: March 16. 2 letters from Lisa
1981: March 17. Besotted with colour TV!
1981: March 22. Bad night - no sleep
1981: March 23. Half awake all day! Sent letter to NJR [Nora] Early bed. (1 1/2 MOGA) for sleep
1981: March 24. Break in at SAIT [where Noel worked] then filing room windows
1981: March 25. Pay cheque too late to cash. Shopping Sainsburys 1900 (for party Friday. Jean rang. Back from London. (2 VALL). [Jean - Mum - visited London but did not meet with Noel.]
1981: April 14. US space shuttle returns (TV). Scrabble again. C. wins
1981: April 15. 1 x mogadon. Sleep OK
1981: April 18. Deal. Locked key inside! (Got on car roof and in window!)
1981: April 20. Deal. Walk to castle... couldn't sleep. 2 vallium 0200
1981: April 22. Deal. Eagle in the Snow. Wallace Breem [book] - Romans in England.
1981: May 5th. London. Left jacket at Hazlemere [Christine's mother's place] with money and season ticket - @.50 pound day returns rto Barking
1981: June 07 Cuckoo singing 0830!
1981: June 23 Posted letter and baby present to Lisa
1981: October 08 Letter to Lisa and Joey! Press cutting re Noel Counihan in France painting
1981: October 20 Took car to work. (I hr too early!) WET DAY. Set up G4JZF - no antenna yet! Doreen came for supper. Early to bed and good sleep with vallium and mogadon.
1981: October 22 Borrowed soldering iron .
1981: April 01. Letter to Lisa
1981: July 13. Bomb scare in London
Lisa has a 6 1/2 pound daughter.
Sleepless
1981: Nov 10. Letter for Lisa (introspective!)
1981: Nov 11. King King on TV
1981: Nov 21. Letter from Lisa
Noel Roberts / my father
1981 diary, London
EVENTS
Ronald Reagan is shot after leaving a hotel;
Pope John Paul II is wounded in an assassination attempt in St. Peter's Square;
Anwar Sadat is assassinated in Cairo;
the 1981 Iranian Prime Minister's office bombing kills 8 Iranian officials;
the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City kills 114;
MTV launches;
STS-1 sends the Space Shuttle Columbia on its first flight;
the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer;
the IBM Personal Computer debut.
From Wikipedia
Written by me, Lisa Roberts/Euphausia superba (Antarctic krill), on
19/08/2026
