RETURN TO BRIBIE ISLAND: 1953-57
Ian Fairweather, Pumicestone Passage, 1957. Gouache on cardboard. 48.5 x 56.4 cm. Gift of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, 2010. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane. © Ian Fairweather / DACS. Copyright Agency, 2019. (See letters 60, 132, 150.)
Marion Smith [?], Ian Fairweather’s first hut on Bribie Island, 1954. Gelatin silver photograph. Mary Turner Collection, Orange Regional Gallery. (See letters 85, 86.)
Ian Fairweather, [Two natives], 1954. Gouache, tempera and synthetic polymer paint on thin grey cardboard. 52.2 x 36.6 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Bequest of Lucy Swanton, 1982. © Ian Fairweather / DACS. Copyright Agency, 2019. (See letter 83.)
Ian Fairweather, Anak Bayan, 1957. Gouache on cardboard on hardboard. 96.8 x 227.3 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Bequest of Lucy Swanton. © Ian Fairweather / DACS. Copyright Agency, 2019. (See letters 105, 106.)
Letter (four pages), Ian Fairweather to Annette Waters (Queenie), 10 November [1957], with drawings of Fairweather’s hut precinct on Bribie Island. Fairweather collection. © Ian Fairweather / DACS. Copyright Agency, 2019. Letter 108.
1 SEPTEMBER 1953 – 20 DECEMBER 1957
FOLLOWING A bushfire that destroyed his tent and possessions, Fairweather built his first hut on Bribie Island. Using natural materials sourced from his immediate environment, he created what he hoped would ‘be home for a long time to come’. His chosen site was on Crown land, inland and away from houses, secluded in a grove of Bribie Island pines, but with no running water, electricity or sewerage. Fairweather carted water from a well half a mile away and painted at night by light from kerosene lamps. Local wildlife – kangaroos, emu, goannas, butcher birds and magpies – became his friends. After the old hut showed signs of falling down he embarked on a new construction with a separate kitchen hut adjacent. In his letters he described ingenious methods to fell trees, cart building materials, and design and make structures suited to his needs. To his sister ‘Queenie’, he delighted in the wonder of the natural environment as he combed the beaches for washed-up treasure and started a collection of driftwood.
Now settled, with more time to read, he embarked on the translation of a Chinese historical novel. His interest in the language was, he said, ‘just plain curiosity’. He admired the Chinese philosophy of duality or yin and yang, and the value ascribed to what is solid and void, material and spiritual. It was also a fertile period for painting. Over time he sent regular batches of works to Macquarie Galleries in Sydney, always anxious to know of their safe arrival. He had first exhibited there in 1949 and from 1954 the proprietors organised an annual Fairweather exhibition. There was criticism in the press of his working methods and use of materials, citing an apparent lack of concern for the survival and preservation of his paintings – which Fairweather himself disputed. In this period, important works such as Anak Bayan and Lit Bateau (both 1957) drew on his experience of life in the Philippines and the raft voyage respectively. Reluctant to see his way of life change, he became anxious about closer settlement and other developments on Bribie Island, especially a proposed bridge to the mainland that would bring his isolation to an end.
78. To Helga Macnamara
C of P.O. Bribie Island–Queensland–Sept 1 [1953]
Dear Pippa–The billy has just boiled–and tea is made–the fire still glows at the mouth of the tent–this is the first night in what I hope will be home, for a long time to come–There is a sort of pine tree just here and the ground is carpeted with needles–soft and dry. It is thick forest all round–untouched–though a road runs through here and the village is under a mile away1–they are trying to–have been ever since I can remember–make a good road of it–but never will I think–for poor Bribie has no stone–it is just a large sandbank–27 miles long and 7 across but it grows monster trees–Coming up the road tonight from the village–an emu walked across only a few yards in front of me and took no notice of me at all–there were pelicans down on the waterfront–new arrivals since I was last here–and coming over last night in the boat at sunset–a long line of black swans flew over all gave me quite a thrill–wish you had been there to see–it made it seem like homecoming–Your letter was handed me as I was landing from the Nelson Star–feeling very blue–and it cheered me up–though it was all so sparkling bright after London with whales spouting at the harbour mouth one couldnt be anything like as blue as in London–Sydney was looking so nice I thought I’d try and stay there–but finding a job seemed as far off as in London–and on top of that I couldn’t even find a room–so spent a terrible cold night in the Sydney railway station–there is a subway there to the underground where they have these electric train indicators–in lights–I discovered they shed a faint warmth–and so, standing by one [of] them all night–just kept my teeth from chattering Next day took train to Brisbane–the gallery had sent some money God bless them–some things of mine had sold in my absence–but waiting for the cheque to be cleared in Sydney took two weeks–The first night so tired and feet given out–just lay down on a bench in the park–to be woken up with a light in my eyes–and ‘On your feet fellow’–a cop–I might have known–he let me off with a caution–but I hightailed out of town as fast as I could make it–hoping to reach some bush–but that night couldn’t get free of the town and had to make do with a vacant allotment–However next night I remembered a place–a forest reserve I had been to once–and from then on slept in luxury–yes, really it was quite a wonderful experience–just on the ground among the trees–
Cars would come in every night and park for an hour or two–necking–I suppose–it’s a strange custom–and there would be other company–The first night I was woken up by something pulling at my coat pocket–where I had some bread–it was a possum–delightful creature with enormous eyes–but I dont think he can see very well with them–when I turned the torch on him though he was only a yard away he took no notice of it–but strangely enough when I turned it off–at once he was alarmed and bolted–He came every night–and before I left–would sit upon my knees–eating his bit of bread whilst I was eating mine–I would have pitched my camp there–I liked it so much and so convenient and near to town–and in fact, did put my tent up–but discovered a notice ‘£50 fine for camping’–So it had to be Bribie–though I came with many misgivings–the long distances to walk with sore feet–and camping now gone up to ten bob a week–It would have to be in the bush and now, without water–Somehow it never occurred to me to hole up just at the back of the village–for some reason there are no houses inland–all on the waterfront–so a little way back one has it all to oneself–and so far–cross fingers! I cant see anything wrong with it of course it is only a tarpaulin, a square tarpaulin hung over a pole–so both ends are open to the wind and the rain–and the side walls too but here about is plenty of bracken–so today have been cutting bundles–painfully slow with a pocket knife–tonight they will make a good bed and I’ll squeeze them flat, and tomorrow–they will form the first course of the wall–Going to be a long job–There is just one fly in the ointment, a sand fly–they have found me out–so I must close this tale of a tramp–which I fear may not be pleasing–as it is not quite lighthearted and amateur one should laugh at ones fortunes–and not be over serious–but I feel that to be here among the trees is really frightfully serious and important–Yes I must go and light a smoke fire–About Ella, of course I didn’t want you to contact in any way that crazy creature–I thought your Aunt Ethel was going there and could pass the darn picture on to you–but of course it simply is not worth the trouble and the sooner forgotten the better–well I do feel I’m off to a good start thank God–but now for that smoke fire–So long.
Yrs Ian
P.S. That is the snag–one spark here and the whole place would go up in smoke–more work yet to make a clearing, and no tools to make it with–
1 Fairweather describes a location close to Bongaree, possibly on the northern side of First Avenue, a small area of bush that is today part of the Bribie Island National Park.
79. To Lucy Swanton
C of P.O Bribie Is– [mid-September 1953]
Dear Miss Swanton– Thank you for your letter and glad to hear you are back–It was a little hard to leave Chelsea–which once was home–but it has gone respectable–there are no longer any welcoming tickets in the windows saying ‘rooms to let’–so many queer places I’ve walked into and lived in there–but now they check up on you and you check up on them through an agent–Ladies of course are no longer spoken of–the word has gone out of fashion–but to find that there were no more landladies even–I felt lost–and to hear onseself addressed as ‘dear’ by all and sundry–even men–put the world up ended–Yes I am very glad to be back in the sun–but nonetheless–have had a bad go of flu–because the cold winds got at me–so have started to make a hole in the ground–and put a thatch over–am glad you want me to send paintings–but have to dig my hole–will do what I can and thanks for the paper–Yrs sincerely I Fairweather
80. To Treania Smith
C of P.O Bribie Island Queensland 29 Sept/53
Dear Miss Smith– Am sending down herewith some paintings–8–
Been in a hurry to get them off–could not wait for material to pack them up properly–so am a little alarmed as to how they will travel–Should be glad to hear from you if they arrive safe–
Bribie– I dont know if you know it–is a very charming place–but to get anything here even remotely connected with painting is very difficult–Tools, wood–all mean going into Brisbane–unfortunately I came away empty handed–in a hurry–with only an axe–whose uses–though many–are limited–It is nice to be here under the trees–after the frozen fogs of London and the illusion of being Rip Van Winkle returning there after 25 years–that was sad–now its more like being Robinson Crusoe–almost gay–
Yrs sincerely
I Fairweather
81. To Jim Ede
C of P.O. Bribie Island. Queensland [early 1954]
Dear Ede– I’m wondering if you are still alive–and how things are with you. Tonight for some reason I want to exchange a word with someone–and there is no one–for I have managed to achieve almost complete solitude–I have been trying to think who I could write to–who wouldn’t be bored–and can think of no one–at least to you I haven’t written for so long–you may have almost forgotten me–So much has happened since I last wrote–I have been in England and now back again in the bush–It was a strange experience going home after 25 years–and it wasn’t a happy one
I was glad to be back in the sun–but no sooner settled here–than a bushfire came–burnt my tent and all my things in it–had to start again from the ground up–made a frame of poles–thatched it with grass–chairs and a bed–padded with ferns–tables of reeds–It is about finished at last–and to night can sit down almost in luxury–there are even no mosquitoes–there is only the forest, burnt black with the fire–not a sound–not even the wind–Every New Year I always listen for the first sound–it has so often had a message a sign of things to come–This year there was stillness–a blank–Don’t know what to make of it–I also used to look up every year in my dictionary the Chinese cyclical signs–the year of the fox and the cloud–or the cock and the east wind But that old friend the Chinese dictionary with everything else went up in the fire So one doesn’t know what to make of the future and looking back I’m hanged if I can make head or tail of the past either–that journey to Timor, did you hear anything about it–such a mystery hangs over that whole affair–and then my paintings–when I saw them at last I had to burn them all and having done it–I was no wiser–how they had got like that is still a mystery–Then there was the book–a London publisher–offered me £250 advance royalties for a book about the raft journey–with illustrations–well I wrote it and made the illustrations but all that came of it was the illustrations were stolen–Instead of arriving at some quiet arcadian fishing village on the coast of Timor as I had intended–I was borne through Indonesia on a wave of public hysteria–as the ‘immoralee’–the homosexual–bespattered by press and radio in Singapore–shunted off to England to save the stink–A Rip Van Winkle there–all the world grown old–and now back to the friendly bush much older–and utterly befuddled–and very much alone–P. S. if you are writing–tell me something to read–I like Koestler–Henry Miller–and Carson Maculler something like that–to brighten the wilderness and I shall bless you–1 So long. Yours
I Fairweather
1 Arthur Koestler, Miller and McCullers were notable authors of the period.
82. To Helga Macnamara
Dear Pippa– Nobody has told me any news for a long time–though a lot must have happened–in seven long months–Has your aunt Ethel gone to Africa yet–and I’m wondering has she taken my book with her or what the heck has happened to that–It should have been burnt for there is always the chance of its being lost and getting into the wrong hands–like that diary I had stolen–one really should never write down anything about oneself–it is tempting providence–the majority of people being fundamentally indifferent and the rest predatory–How I wish I could write like Arthur Koestler–his Autobiography ‘Arrow in the Blue’–the right attitude I think–detached analytic–he looks back over his life and tries to see a pattern in it–how one thing led to another–to make sense of it all–How much I would like to try that–the things that shaped ones life–a dream that one had as a child and that kept recurring–the old aunts and sickness that gave me–an unnatural aversion to old age and physical contacts1
But one would have to be detached–and write it just for ones own satisfaction and not for anyone to read–a soliloquy–but for me it is all soliloquy anyhow–there would be no satisfaction without a listener–I suppose in the last analysis–even the introvert is an exhibitionist at heart–Like the old White Knight in Alice in Wonderland–I would like to ‘dye my whiskers green–but always wear so large a fan that they could not be seen–’ 2 Which reminds me–I have my whiskers again thank God–And how much I wish I could have described that time in Exeter–got outside it and seen it, instead of getting sunk in it as I did–Across the island there is a small post office with a few books on a shelf–to lend–tattered westerns or old faded romances and I found amongst them George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier–life in a slum lodging–just as I had seen it in Exeter–in the dark–always the dark–and the cold–people like black beetles scurrying–in garbage–What a contrast these bright Autumn days here–so much light–strong glowing light–I should think myself lucky and I do–but it is very lonely–only the cuscus comes to speak to me–he comes outside my tent at night–but I must tell you about him another time
So long Yrs Ian
1 Three sisters of his father, James: Jane, Isabella and Mary Fairweather. In the 1911 Jersey Census their stated ages were eighty-four, seventy-seven and seventy-four respectively.
2 A quote, rendered with minor errors, from ‘Haddock’s Eyes’, a song in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871).
83. To Lucy Swanton
C of P.O. Bribie Is. via Brisbane [June 1954]
Dear Miss Swanton– Thank you so much for the news and the cheque1–I was getting a bit near the deadline–which is no place to be these cold days–It has turned quite bitter here–and at last the effects of that bushfire begin to be felt–It swiped all my warm clothes–So took to sacks–but thought I might improve of them by knitting a poncho–a blanket through which one sticks ones head–and wraps around one fore and aft–it was finished today–and I have been lost in admiration of my handiwork–for I did achieve a few passages of colour–that click Alas that it is for strictly utilitarism and has to be slept in right away even by tomorrow it will be grey The sand in Bribie being full of soot from bushfires–everything gets sooted up in no time–
You didn’t mention in your letter if you got the last lot of things sent–from here 2 June If you didn’t get them, let me know but otherwise I’ll take it they are O.K–Glad the Warriors have a home.2
Well, I hope your flu is better–and thanks again quite a lot
Sincerely
I Fairweather
PS–If you want names for things I will try and think up something probably very dumb–Sentimentally–one of those sent last represents or recalls the blessed island of Roti appearing on the horizon.3
1 ‘Ian Fairweather’, Macquarie Galleries, 2–14 June, 1954.
2 Lucy Swanton had purchased Figures 1 from the June 1954 exhibition at Macquarie Galleries. It was later bequeathed to the National Gallery of Australia and retitled [Two Natives].
3 This letter suggests a 1954 date for [Voyage to Bali] (1957).
84. To Helga Macnamara
Bribie Dec 7. [1954]– Hooroosh–and damn the work–I’ll take a night off–Your letter came smelling strong of carbolic–I tremble to think what my letters to you must smell of–They tell me my friend the Swamp Wallaby stinks–and is not welcome in polite society–so lets say its him–the poor old thing–I find him waiting outside my tent door every morning now–he’s been a good pal–Well I was glad to hear all the news–Too bad about poor Rosemary1–You know her father used to ride her all the time–gave the poor kid an inferiority complex I suppose Got her all snarled up in-side This awful apetite for domination–got to trample on someone to boost ones ego–Just been reading Adler 2–the artist he says makes up a world of fantasy–to make up for the world of reality–which he cant dominate–These psychiatrists!–always the poor neurotic on one side and society on the other–But what is this ‘society’–its a concept–its an animal–a figment of the imagination ruthless immoral utterly inhuman–The big bugaboo–we only know ourselves–beyond that there is no reality–Well–I went into town yesterday to stock up on paints–The first time I’ve been out of the bush for over a year–It seemed quite strange being in town again–The girls all looked so much alike I thought I must be seeing double–then I went into a cinema–it was about the American Civil War3–in 18–something or other–but all the girls in that looked just the same as the ones I had just seen out in the street–All very strange–but there was one magnificent exception–such a girl–no heels–large feet in black jim shoes–all nice and topped off by a close fitting cap of bright gold hair–German I think or Scandinavian–I wanted to take my hat off–in all that crowd of cheap sophistication–She was a benediction–Hey ho its sad to be 63–The redhead has gone–I’m hoping its only for a holiday–The place seems very dull without her–So much for these very distant contacts with the outside world–Inside its been mostly exasperating Sometimes exciting–and very hard work though I guess most people would say it was just mooning about–very tired trying to get off some stuff to keep the old roof up–So long, remember me to Santa–
Yrs Ian
P.S. I read about a young couple recently who went all around Australia picking fruit lived in a trailer–paid their way easily it seems and had a good time–Mostly in S.A. around Adelaide–which is the great fruit and wine growing district–And yes, Tasmania is another great fruit growing place–what I like about it best are the big fat crayfish they get there the best seafood in A–but it is mostly exported to America–and talking about food–read a book the other day about brewing–shows the way I’m thinking–? but there was a lot about growing yeast and the value of it as food–weight for weight it is more nourishing than meat and can replace it–and when you think that a pound of yeast can be produced in a matter of days–whereas a pound of meat takes years–it makes one think–Only thing is it has to be made palatable like the soya bean–thats a job for some good housewife with imagination–and really a worthy job–to help civilisation–for meat eating will have to go some day and the sooner the better. That American who crossed the Pacific on a raft recently–took with him a lot of barley flour4–which he just mixed with water and ate like that–I remember the barley flour scones the old Scotch aunts used to make for us children–nothing has ever seemed so nice since–on a farm in Canada where I worked they had a small grinder run from a motor–made cracked wheat–for biscuits–delicious–could make barley flour–too–never find it in shops
1 Rosemary Waters (1916–2005), daughter of Fairweather’s sister Annette (Queenie) Waters.
2 Alfred Adler who, with Sigmund Freud, was among the founders of the psychoanalytic movement.
3 Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), starring William Holden and Eleanor Parker.
4 In 1954 the American sailor William Willis made a solo expedition from Peru to American Samoa on his balsa raft Seven Little Sisters, accompanied by his cat and parrot.
85. To Marion Smith
C of P.O. Bribie Island [postmarked 18 May 1955]
Dear Miss Smith–Kind of you to remember me–and the photos were very welcome Something to send to friends who are interested–(not many)–Since you were here have started a new house–as the old one showed signs of wanting to sit down–I do hope when you return Bribie you will come and inspect–Been a great labour–the roof is nearly completed–the important part–with the rest–will go easy–as it leaves no time to paint and that is in arrears–and hope you will bring your camera as I would dearly love a photo of my new creation–it is made of paper and ti tree bark–Should look something like a small chapel when completed–temple to the unknown god–or say to Pan–Thought of calling it Panshanger–after a place at home–I once knew1–Sad about the wallaby–got large tumour under one arm–came and lay in the house all day–thought perhaps I could help him–and I could do–nothing–makes one feel bad
I think now he must be dead–long time no see–The butcher birds are still here–pipe up every morning for cheese–wouldn’t let me forget–but the goannas which were getting wonderfully tame have holed up for the winter–I envy them–I freeze in the winters too but cant sleep it away as they do
Well I can sympathise with you transmuting every day by train up to B[risbane]–always standing on the way home unless you are lucky to grab a seat only advantage–pay check at end of week–and one amongst many–art a lonely furrow and no pay check awaiting–if it turns up its a miracle one builds a house but one never knows if one will get to live in it–
So long cheers and all the best
Yrs I Fairweather
P.S. This drawing lying about–send it–souvenir–of B.B. [Bribie]
Marion Gwendolyn Smith (1938–2008). Brisbane-born stenographer who worked at the University of Queensland in the early 1960s. Keenly interested in art, she later formed a filial friendship with Fairweather, occasionally visiting him on Bribie Island. She was one of several who assisted him with the typing of his translations of Chinese tales published as The Drunken Buddha (1965). In the late 1960s she moved with her mother to Sydney, where she worked at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital.
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1 A large country house (now demolished) located between the outer edge of Hertford and Welwyn Garden City, likely visited by Fairweather during his time in Hertfordshire in the 1920s.
86. To Treania Smith
C of P.O. Bribie Island [May 1955]
Dear Miss Smith Thank you for the encouragement and I did need it–The new house is taking up so much time–But thank goodness the roof is nearly finished–it is made of ti tree bark–it has been hard labour collecting it in the swamps and then getting it up on the roof–very temperamental material to work with–Well if it is ever finished it should have some of the amenities–a large window of sheeting–the old grass hut was very dark inside and depressing at times–and a bunk up under the rafters which will be wonderful after that miserable tent which appears in the photo–only supposing the ti tree bark works–dont know about that yet–The photo was taken by some visitor who seemed to like the grass hut–but it is not showing its best profile–however thought might interest you1–Thanks for the press cut 2–
Yrs etc I. Fairweather
1 Likely the photograph thought to have been taken by Marion Smith (see letter 85 and photograph on p. 144).
2 ‘Ian Fairweather’, Macquarie Galleries, 4–16 May 1955 was reviewed in the Sun, Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Bulletin.
87. To Annette Waters
Dear Q Sunday again–and a visit from all the boys and girls from the village–to see the new house–It is not near finished but they seem to think it cute–Nice to have them come–but they will bring their darn dogs with them–Bribie is supposed to be a sanctuary for wild animals–by law–but in fact no one gives a damn–People from the suburbs come here–build their little gardens with a fence round them–what goes on outside doesn’t concern them–no country sense–one of the dogs today killed an echidna (ekidna) the marsupial porcupine we have here–quite rare and a most useful beast–eats ants–also unique amongst mammals–it lays eggs like the platipus–but it puts them in its pouch and hatches them there–a zoological marvel–and the damn dogs!–makes me mad–Well I’m very tired and bored with this new house–it’s much too large, and wading in the swamps this bitter cold weather Getting bark for it is one hell of a job. I’m wondering when I am ever going to get back to doing some work–So tired at night–cant even read a book and of course the library send the most interesting books–about cloud forests on the high mountains and seaweed forests in the depths–imagine seaweeds 150ft high–tantalising, I’ll have to send them back mostly unread–I bought some honey from our local storekeeper–very good–makes it himself–has batteries of bees dotted about all over the island–Got me thinking–what a pity it was Rosemary didn’t think of bees instead of chickens–no feeding–no work to speak of–and you can have them on other peoples–land–fruit growers are especially glad to have them–all you get from them is profit–and as a side line–German ginger bread made with honey–what could be nicer–Winnie tells me you have not been well1–so sorry old dear–but cheer up and have some ginger bread–do you good–
So long Yrs Ian
Annette Violet (Queenie) Waters (1884–1965). A sister of Ian Fairweather, born in Kapurthala in the Punjab in India. She was the sibling closest to him in age and in his affections. With some ability as an artist herself, she appears to have encouraged her brother’s talents. In 1908 she married Walter Waters, an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and accompanied him with their young son, Wynyard, on a tour of China, 1911–14.
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1 His eldest sister, Winifred.
88. To Lucy Swanton
C of P O Bribie Island [June 1956]
Dear Miss Swanton. Thank you for your letter it is most encouraging–I dont think of my own will I will be leaving here–it was such a labour to build the place–make a firebreak and then shake down–that the thought of doing it all over again–gives me pause–of course the old place may collapse any day–I didnt like to cut green poles–but used any lying on the ground–they were pretty rotten some of them–besides I only live here by the grace of the Bribians I’m squatting in the edge of the bush and should be paying camping rent–but so far they have let me get by with it–but I live in fear of their coming one day with a bill–and the skys will fall–Till then I’ll stay put as long as I can–though at the moment I am going through a frightful period of frustration–which puts the Stopper on any hope–
I read somewhere in the paper the other day of an Oriental Study Group having a dinner somewhere–and I’ve been thinking–You know the loss of my Chinese texts and dictionary in the fire has made an awful hole in my life–I can replace the dictionary but it is not much use without some Chinese texts to work on–and they are very hard to come by–I came across the other day Ezra Pound’s Confucius1–It has facsimile rubbings of the old texts–and of course being Ezra Pound, some ingenious deductions–Seeing them whetted my appetite again–and I feel I must try to get an interesting text to work on–It might even bring in a little cash–
The fact is that no body is really a Sinologue The characters not representing words but ideas–so they are open to the widest interpretation–there is no exact translation almost you might say one mans guess is as good as another–especially the old classical language which is so cryptic and divorced from the spoken word–one can apprehend it as it were–as a whole–as an idea–
It seems a pity really to put it into words at all–which makes it all very close to art So I think if there is any such study group in Australia–I’d very much like to get in touch with it–If you should ever hear of one and how to contact it–would you let me know–I’d be much obliged.
Yrs sincerely I Fairweather
1 Confucius: The Great Digest & Unwobbling Pivot (1951). The modernist poet Pound worked from the notes of Ernest Fenollosa and others to prepare translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry.
89. To Marion Smith
C of P.O. Bribie Island [postmarked 25 June 1956]
Dear Miss Smith– Thank you for your letter–Your mention that you were at the U. has given me an idea–I lived for some years in China–and began the study of Chinese there–I never tried much to speak it–it was the characters that fascinated me–they are something rather more than writing–it is why the Chinese have never given them up–and still struggle on in this modern world with a typewriter a yard wide–Off and on I have never given them up either–always had a dictionary–and a long 5 vol fairy tale I was trying to translate–lost both of them in a bushfire we had here and have felt rather lost myself ever since. There is a foreign book shop in Melbourne and I wrote them–they have a dictionary–but to buy it without seeing it first–like a pig in a poke–Read in the paper there is some oriental society or study group here–but failed to locate–wrote also a Chinese teacher night school at the U. but he never answered–I think Brisbane must be getting China-conscious–somewhere here should be possible to get Chinese dictionary and the U would know about it–So if you could make some discreet enquiries I’d be much obliged–You ask am I getting back to work–Yes thank goodness–last night just before the rain started–moved into the new house–still a good deal of fixing up to do–but how thankful not to be sleeping in that tent tonight–would have been flooded–For fishing I’m too busy–and tonight in this rain no cinema–though it is Saturday–I often wonder if the old man who takes the tickets is the parson–resigned to let the cinema do the talking for him for I never see any body going to church–would be a strange sign of the times if true–Well so long for now and thanks auf wiedersehen
Yrs I Fairweather
90. To Treania Smith
C of P.O. Bribie Is– [late June 1956]
Dear Miss Smith–
Glad to say that I am in the new house at last–and starting to do some work again–no I am not anxious to draw money in larger amounts–paintings materialize so uncertainly and slowly, that the chief consideration is to endure–long enough to finish something–Thank you for offering to send materials–but think I have all I need at the moment
Taxes hit me too now–Before I came here I never sent in any tax returns thinking that my income was below the taxable minimum–but an officious cop here–got my name on the rolls–so had to send in a return–and they have taxed me back about 5 years–big toothache.
Hope to send some work down this month
but doubt it
cold is back again–
Yrs sincerely
I Fairweather
91. To Marion Smith
P.O. Bribie Island Aug 12 [postmarked 1956]
Dear Miss Smith Thanks for writing I didn’t mean to give you any trouble looking around–Just if you should hear anything–about this elusive Chinese study group–at the U–
The book you mention wouldn’t be much use–I’m not exactly a beginner–
The only people who might help are the Chinese faculty at the U–but who they are and how to get in touch with them I dont know–If you should run across their trail anytime–I’d be glad of a word–Have you been to the show I wonder–always wanted to go but never do1–like fat bulls and horses and all–and especially the tree-felling contest–next year–sometime–maybe–Bitter cold here–new house is fine–but like living in a bird cage–in this west wind–
So long & thanks
Yrs I Fairweather
1 The Royal Queensland Show in Brisbane.
92. To Marion Smith
C of P.O. Bribie Island Nov 15 [postmarked 1956]
Dear Miss Marion– Thanks for your letter and glad to hear you may be coming to Bribie again–though better bring some mosquito dope–not that the mosquitoes are bad–there are very few so far–but its a real bad year for sandflies–
Was interested to hear your father was an artist1–Have you ever thought of trying it yourself–In a sense everyone is an artist–or could be if they took time out to think about it–I read in the paper Marilyn Monroe has painted and sold a painting for £402–From the description it might be in the manner of the American School now in vogue abstract impressionism3–or nothing from nothing–at least so interpreted by many–Actually I think our English Turner was the father of it–in his ‘Drawing room at Pepworth’4–But the Americans claim it a home grown production like Jazz–Boogy Woogy–Rock & Roll–Anyway its a free for all–and I think a good idea–You should give it a try–no knowing what you might dredge up–Well hope to see you if you come here–So long–
Yrs I Fairweather
1 Frederick Smith, from whom Marion was estranged, was an amateur artist.
2 The actor’s painting, of a nude woman doing her morning exercises, had been displayed in an exhibition of work by prominent people and purchased by the playwright Terence Rattigan. Courier-Mail, 15 November 1956.
3 Abstract Expressionism, a movement in painting that flourished in New York after World War II, producing large-scale non-figurative paintings that broke away from traditional process and included action painting.
4 J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), British Romantic landscape painter, who frequently visited Petworth House in Sussex, the home of his patron, the 3rd Earl of Egremont. Petworth: The Drawing Room (c. 1828) is in the collection of the British Museum.
93. To Annette Waters
Dear Q, The first night in a month without mosquitoes–So I’ll try and write as there may not be another mosquito free night for a long time Its curious–there is a clear sky–and then they never bite–how they can know–here inside the house–beats me–but as sure as a cloud comes over though they cant see it–they start in to bite–These are the dog days–the monsoon should have come by now with floods of rain–but this year it hasn’t come yet–Instead a cyclone has been prowling up and down off the coast and pushing a lot of hot humid air on top of us which is hard to take Almost rather have the cyclone come ashore–at the risk of being blown away–Perhaps the weather is to blame we have had a terrific murder1–At breakfast a man takes out a gun–shoots his wife and daughter–pours gasoline on them–sets them alight–crosses the road–family at breakfast–walks in shoots the lot–mother two daughters and a girl friend who dropped in on the way to school–pours more gasoline–sets fire to everything–shoots self–only escape a small baby–badly burnt–just rescued in time–Last year about this time–Wickham Terrace–our Harley St–man visits doctor–shoots him–goes next door–shoots another–and then one more–misses the fourth and then shoots self 2–Both of these refugee Poles–seemingly normal in every way–suddenly run amok–Just no knowing what is going on inside peoples heads–to look at both average even good looking types–Some days ago found men marking off distances and driving in pegs–all up the road that passes near my place–marking building lots to sell–badly scared–have spent days combing the bush looking for another place I could go–only made me realize how lucky I’ve been to find this place–there are plenty of other places but none with a convenient supply of timber and ti tree bark near at hand–and none with a natural firebreak–mean endless labour–Thank goodness I now learn that they are going to bitumen the road–the pegs are just to mark off distances–Vast relief–Only trouble at the moment–gone deaf in one ear–hope it is just a cold–for most depressing–cant go to cinema–bad enough at any time–but now squeaks–nothing but squeaks–Last lot of paintings very heavy–had to make crate–send by road–took a long time–very worried–but heard at last they have arrived–and they like them–This new lot should be much better–but terribly lazy–terribly slow–have to wait and wait and wait–If only all my pencil jottings from Peking and the islands had not been eaten by ants or burnt in the flames–Even the merest scribble of an experience is enough to start the ball rolling–but without it so difficult–Just to make a beginning–Well there must be a cloud over head–the darn mosquitoes have started to bite again–must stop–Only event to report–Sudden invasion of brown moths always a few live in the thatch hut but suddenly the other morning–completely filled–most startling sight–they park with wings spread–wing to wing they covered the walls–a coat of brown velvet–alas the next day all gone again–must live in these pines here–see them nowhere else–Well, signing off–all the best–my regards to the ancient roman et all–
Yrs Ian
P.S. Curiosities of note–A Mme Voisin in the fashion world in New York
A Fairweather Art Gallery–in Chicago3
1 On 18 February 1957 Marian Majka, a Polish immigrant, killed his wife and their five-year-old daughter, set alight their house, then shot his neighbour’s wife, two daughters and a friend, and set that house alight before killing himself.
2 On 1 December 1955 an aggrieved German immigrant, Karl Kast, had murdered two doctors in their rooms in Brisbane. He then wounded another doctor and a patient who had rendered assistance before shooting himself.
3 This chance reference reminded Fairweather of the Voisin family haberdashery business he had known during his years on Jersey. The Fairweather Hardin Gallery was established in Evanston, Illinois, in 1947.
94. To Annette Waters
Dear Q–One of these clear rain washed evenings–when the light seems more bright and sparkling–as though new born–went for a ramble under the trees and took a long swing around into the centre of the island–For a mile or so inland–there are big trees–the bark is white like our silver birches–but they grow to a great size–like old gnarled oaks–Beneath them is grass like a parkland–Many are huge white skeletons–for they are hard wood and never go rotten–So, the green grass and these big white trees–all is light–for in this dry climate the leaves dont spread to catch the sun–they hang vertical to spill the light–so all is bright–there is no shade–only a mist across the blue at the top of the white branches–You can imagine–the sun going down–striking all these white branches–But its nice to get out into the centre too–flat heathland with the sky going down over the edge of the world–on the way back called at some rubbish dumps–and found some useful bits of wood and an old tin can–always like to come back with something–Last week had quite a haul–had not been to the South beach in over a year–and the track was so overgrown I lost it many times but arrived at last found a nice little dingey washed up by the storm–I didn’t take it–no time to go fishing–but further on one of these glass globes the Japanese use to float their nets–quite a treasure It has found a place up against the sheet window–it looks swell–A nice weekend And there was a good cinema too–Bob Holden–whom I like very much–Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn–a high powered cast–Audrey is new to me–She can be very nice1–Not much from the library–a book on Buddhism which like most of our expositions of the orient goes round & round and comes out where it started–Gleaned one magic saying from it–‘Om manipadme hum’–say that and all is well2–
They are having an exhibition of D.H. Lawrence paintings in New York–which created quite a furore and were banned in London–the police closed the show–That was back in 19253 They look very harmless these days when people are a bit more used to nudity–but perhaps nakedness rather than nudity would describe them–He is dead now–I dont know if you have read him at all–He really can write–even if one doesn’t like what he writes about–and of course is a writer and not a painter His description of his first attempt at painting–is so good I enclose it–and his verse about his show–which goes to show–as I said before the painting is one thing–the subject quite another–any resemblance–as they say before a novel–to persons etc–is entirely coincidental–
om manipadme hum
Ian
1 Billy Wilder’s 1954 romantic comedy Sabrina starred William Holden, Bogart and the young Hepburn.
2 Om. man. i padme hūm. , the six-syllabled mantra of the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara, means that with practice one can transform the impure body, speech and mind into the pure exalted body, speech and mind of a Buddha.
3 An exhibition of paintings by the English writer opened in London in June 1929. In a police raid thirteen works were seized and declared obscene. After the death of Lawrence’s widow in 1956 the paintings were purchased by Saki Karavas in Taos, New Mexico. Karavas then exhibited a selection, claiming it was the only time they had been shown since their confiscation. See Hubert Crehan, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Painter: The Banned Pictures of D. H. Lawrence’, Art News (55), February 1957.
95. To Annette Waters
Dear Q I think I told you of the visitation of the brown moths and how next day they were all gone–I’m glad to say they are coming back and there should be quite a few wintering in the old thatch hut–Some days ago there was the march of the caterpillars–I came on what I thought was a snake–incredibly long, some soft–it was a chain of caterpillars–head to tail and moving along like a line of railway trucks–and there was a line too–a silk thread that the ones in front must have laid down–and all the rest clung to–where they came from and where going a mystery–I came on the head of the column rolled up like a big ball of wool but still all head to tail–Some hours afterwards they had somehow got unscrambled again–and were off on their endless and seemingly hopeless journey–the blind leading the blind–I suppose that silk thread is something like our human understanding our science and religion–probably all wrong but something to cling to–
In France–in despair and frustration the idea of existentialism has been born the thread is broken–and at last the individual is faced with reality as it is–somehow out of chaos and absurdity a new kind of logic is born–a leap–they speak of–it is curiously like Zen Buddhism–by acceptance of opposites beyond good and bad–lies enlightenment It was a group of painters in Paris who originated the idea of existentialism1–and it does–if anything can–explain modern art–Was interested to see in ‘Time’ which someone has sent me–(is it you?) that Zen is taking root in America and most of the converts are artists 2–Well it just happened that this week my detective magazine stopped and having Time in mind I ordered it instead–I have long wanted it–but thought I would have to plonk down a years sub–never thought before I could get it by the week so took the leap–so long Yrs Ian
P–S– Hope it works–but how come you too have run across Time
1 French Existentialism developed as an intellectual movement in the 1940s with the writer Jean-Paul Sartre one of its most prominent advocates.
2 ‘Religion: Zen’, Time, 4 February 1957. The article refers to lectures by Alan W. Watts in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and activities of the First Zen Institute of America in Manhattan.
96. To Marion Smith
Dear Miss Smith–You have sent me a copy of the worst picture in the world–with the best intentions–I am sure–What can I say–the Archibald Prize is a tragic millstone round the neck of Australian art1–Before the invention of photography it was still possible for an artist to paint a portrait–and be an artist–he can now only be a camera the photographic image is too strongly implanted in his consciousness for him to escape it–result–Namatgira2–Result also that we are some 100 years behind the times–in art–which is the visual expression of world thought today–and world thought is completely bushed–yet such as it is it is our only hope of going forward–The Archibald Prize rewards the artist for sitting down and contemplating his navel–
So long Yrs IF
1 This annual portrait prize, judged by trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was first awarded in 1921.
2 The artist Albert Namatjira (1902–59) was the subject of William Dargie’s 1956 Archibald Prize-winning portrait.
97. To Marion Smith
Dear Miss Smith–Your letter finds me terribly busy–Sorry I blew my top last time but bad art or what I think bad art always raises my hackles–especially when it passes for good–I’ve got a lot of stuff cooking down here but nothing finished–and time presses–To keep from the jitters–am doing Chinese morning noon and night–Got a dictionary at last and some Chinese magazines find I am very rusty–forgotten a lot–been several years–but the characters are coming back fast–This time, if there are no upsets–I aim to reach the 2500 mark which is about the minimum for a Chinese school leaving certificate–Instead of goldfish you should try collecting Chinese idea-graphs–or both–they are really frightfully interesting and will last you all of your life–because you never really know what they mean–and you never get to the end of them–Just a few are more or less translatable in a word–but most need a sentence–The famous character for a house, a home which always amuses foreigner is 家 chia [jia] which is made up of a roof 宀 and a pig 豕 So a pig under a roof means home to the Chinaman–The pig sign gets quite a lot of work in many other ways–for instance 逐 means to expel–also step by step, slowly–the pig is getting pushed out of doors reluctantly–To learn them you have to try and see the picture–then it sticks in your memory–but for many of them the meaning is lost in the mists of antiquity–and its hard to dig it out–but interesting–
Here is an easy one 東 the east–日 the Sun rising behind a 木 tree–West is 西 the sun sinking below the horizon–
Well it is raining at last–
here is the character for rain
note the rain drops–雨
Good bye now–regards.
Yrs
I Fairweather–
98. To Annette Waters
Dear Q.
Waiting for the kettle to boil–wrapped in blankets–The cold has really come with these vile west winds we dont usually get till August–We missed out on the rain this year everything is terribly dry–the worst drought they say in a century–Well anyway–got warmed up by a really tops cinema–‘Come back Little Sheba’1–the best show I’ve seen in a year–even three years–one of those surprises–all unknown actors–no publicity–and an empty house–Strange that the only other good play I’ve seen was also about alcoholics–The star Clair Boothe–ever heard of her?–middleaged–Seem to remember there was a Clair Boothe American Ambassador to Italy–got poisoned by arsenic from the dye of a wall paper–probably no connection 2–Well, the Chinese magazines have arrived–the one from Hong Kong–(Fragrant Port) is the best–A long play called 楊娥 (willow beautiful) which I have started to translate–laboriously but interesting3–I incidentally discover the 楊 (willow) is the same character as the old Yangtse river–So it is really the Willow River–The tse is untranslatable but can mean a character–So ‘Willow pattern’ river would not be far out–and also explain the origin of willow pattern china4–Also been reading another play from the distant Chinese past ‘The Circle of Chalk.’ Two women claiming a child–The judge puts it in a circle drawn on the ground with chalk–and says to the two women–Go ahead and pull–the vixen pulls the child out of the circle–the real mother refused to pull for fear of hurting the child–not bad psychology for 200 A.D. or is it? What do you think?5
Well my letterbox seems to have been empty for a long time now–since you went to Jersey–You’re not going to hang up on me are you–? have I done something I shouldn’t?–Enclosed a few peek-a-boos of Bribie–my road marked with an arrow is bitumen now–but the village green is still there–though browned off a bit around the edges from the drought–not a good selection of peeks6–I fear–but just to say I’m here
Yrs Ian
1 Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) starring Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth; apparently a late Australian screening.
2 Clare Boothe Luce, ambassador to Italy, 1953–56, had fallen ill with arsenic poisoning caused by paint dust falling from her bedroom ceiling.
3 The Story of Yang E, about a female warrior, was written by Qian Xingcun in 1941. It is the third in a cycle of patriotic plays written during the Sino-Japanese War and set in the mid-1600s, when Ming loyalists were resisting Manchu-Qing forces.
4 Yang 楊 is a surname and also means ‘poplar’. Yangliu 楊柳 means ‘willow’. The Yangtze or Yangzi River 揚子江uses a different character for Yang. Fairweather also confuses two Chinese characters for ‘tze’ or ‘zi’, 子 and 字, which can mean ‘son’and ‘word’ or ‘character’ respectively.
5 Hui Lan Ji 灰闌記, a Yuan dynasty (1259–1368) zaju verse play and crime drama by Li Qianfu. It was used as the basis for Bertolt Brecht’s play Caucasian Chalk Circle (1948).
6 A set of colour images of Bribie Island cut out from a magazine or tourist brochure with printed captions and handwritten annotations by Fairweather, including ‘Village & road to chez mois’ and ‘View towards jetty, from near “Shay Glen”’; held in the Fairweather family collection.
99. To Treania Smith
Dear Miss Smith It has rained here for 3 days now–cold rain–definitely I am not sitting in the sun but it was cheering to get your letter I am rather doubtful though about the unfortunate title Ave Maria1–in Perth–as I remember it–I was only there 3 days–it was a place of Salvation Army bands–and anti evolutionists–fundamentalists or something–They might get some wrong ideas–As you know the title was an afterthought, and had little to do with the intention of the painting–However I dont feel I am a complete abstractionist–I still like–perhaps mistakenly in this age of collectivism–to retain some relic of subjective reality–I think that I could never feel quite at home living at 51st and 47th St. or very happy in the chilly anonimity of composition No. so and so–I still like names–but can see I must not again pick on a cliché Will try to do better next time–Work here was coming on well till the cold set in–then everything froze up–Must confess I have been playing hookey with a Chinese dictionary and a tale about the beautiful Yange é of the Ming dynasty–who tried to murder Wu San Kuei–(Wu three cinnamon trees–)–such names 2
Well many thanks and regards.
恭喜 易安翡3
Goon See Yan Fei
1 Ave Maria (1957).
2 Wu Sangui, a Chinese military general who was instrumental in the fall of the Ming dynasty and establishment of the Manchu-Qing dynasty in 1644, regarded as a traitor. The story was likely based on the patriotic play The Story of Yang E, written by Qian Xingcun in 1941.
3 ‘Greetings, Yi’an Fei.’ Fairweather transliterates his name using Chinese characters and renders it in a romanised form as Yan Fei, following Western rather than Chinese name order, with his given name first.
100. To Annette Waters
Dear Q Some gleanings from the Chinese–
To stimulate anti communist feeling in Taiwan (Formosa)1 a Chinese general has made over the Game of Bingo–which is popular there and known as ‘Stepping stones across the waves’ 泵波拿 a nice name I think 2–and renamed it 反共勝利棋–Anti Communist hate increasing chess3–which stinks Nevertheless it is de rigeur and the mode and played by the diplomatic body–including the American Ambassador–Instead of the numbers they use the names of Chinese towns on the tallyboard–when taken they cover the name with a Chinese nationalist flag amid great rejoicing–
Bad–very bad–But in Macao they have invented a new kind of Chinese boxing according to Confucian principles–no gloves–but no broken noses either–
Quote [in margin] ‘no victor no vanquished–no stricken field’ not bad–much more Chinese–the doctrine of the mean–they just go through the motions–Confucius said the best music was seen and not heard–It has been interpreted that he liked to watch musicians playing but with his ears stuffed with cotton wool
Do you remember the little cages with covers they carry about and hang up beside them in the tea houses4–to hear the music and not see the musician or do birds sing better under cover–I never knew–one thing I do know–there is something wrong about orchestra leaders gesticulating conductors–either the music or the acrobatics but not both together–Confucius was right–Always with us the accent is on the individual–Always with them–there is the dualism the 陰 and the 陽 the Yin and the Yang–We must have a point of focus–our perspective requires a vanishing point–Their art never needed one–it is expressed in the symbol you must often have seen [drawing of Chinese yin/yang symbol] The principle of relativity–our art has only just begun to grasp it–theirs has known it all along–or something–
Well it is still beautifully warm though we are into the dreaded months June July and August–The days grey and already most unusual–but a welcome change from the bitter clear nights which I dread–I’m still wearing the poncho I knitted the first winter here–and rejoicing in it–it was a most lucky accident–started as a broad scarf–but made it much too–broad nearly 4ft–so made a hole in the middle for my head–it foldsover double thickness–hangs down fore and aft to about my knees–buttons down the sides–a complete garment I live and sleep in it–cant imagine a more comfortable garment– [drawing of design and indicating ‘buttons’, ‘fold back here’ and ‘button holes’]
Despite the clouds it still never rains and things are getting a bit desperate–In 1951 about 50,000 sheep died in the drought–So they have fitted aeroplanes with silver iodide guns and are going to try to shoot the clouds down5
Well the weeks go by and my letter box is mostly empty–I’m having a drought too–Somebody needs some silver iodide–
So long Yrs Ian
1 The Republic of China was established on the island of Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party took full control of mainland China, proclaiming the People’s Republic of China.
2 Bengbo’na or Bingo.
3 Literally ‘Anti Communist Victory Chess’.
4 In China particular species of birds are valued for their song. In winter it is customary for bird fanciers, usually men, to take their pet birds in their bamboo cages with padded covers out into the sun.
5 Cloud-seeding experiments using silver iodide to stimulate rain had commenced in a program developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in 1947.
101. To Annette Waters
Dear Q– Well glad to hear from you at long last–I dont want to burden you but do keep on writing–I miss your letters a lot. Before I forget it will you have a look at those two ancestor pictures in the mag I sent you–I am wondering if they are the same names as in a tale I have just been reading, explaining the origin of these two old bozos–Shen Shu and Yu Lei or Lu I make them here–what were yours called?1 Afraid I am playing hookey from painting doing too much Chinese–squinting through a magnifying glass till I begin to see double but it begins to come back fast and I feel I’m getting somewhere–Have located at last two books in London which they are sending me–Mystical revelations of a Taoist Monk of the 10th Century–and a modern novel–So I shall have plenty to go on with–But I have come across an ad–a correspondence course for overseas Chinese to learn their own language–they send one a whole library–but the price is away beyond me–perhaps one day–Well, you say I so much like the Chinese–but I dont at all–it is just plain curiosity–There is some kind of common ground between us and Indians for instance even to Negroes–musically–emotionally there is a link–but the Chinese are an enigma first and last–Well the cold has really set in–I have been cursing my piles of old newspapers but now they are coming in handy–Sewing them in between blankets lining my poncho with them–stuffing them down all around my mattress and putting boards at the side–its a war–just cant take any more shivering teeth chattering nights. The end of September seems a long way off–Well, so much for now–Glad you are back in old Highgate–You seemed lost in Jersey Cant place the Cocorite you mention–is it in St Aubin–or where2–Think I told you I had a new wallaby–comes every night for supper–and the butcher birds are always around–every time I put my nose out of doors–they give me a winkle twinkle–You know, its all rather wonderful–But oh the cat! stole a whole bullocks heart the other night–There had to be that–So long
Yrs Ian
P.S. Another letter from you today–feel mollified–warm courageous–Will beat this picture now that has been giving me hell–P.P.S. What is Arthurs new address? he hasn’t written for ages also Ian’s address again3–lost the one you sent
1 According to legend, Shen Shu and Yu Lei, two brothers who lived on Mount Tu Suo under a peach tree, were said to have power over all disembodied spirits. On New Year’s Eve their coloured portraits are pasted on the doors of houses as a talisman against evil spirits. They are known as door gods and differ from ritual ancestral portraits that commemorate the dead.
2 Cocorite is near Port of Spain on the northwest coast of Trinidad and Tobago.
3 Arthur Duprè Fairweather, Ian Fairweather’s older brother, the sixth-born in the family and the third son. Ian Alister Fairweather, second son of Fairweather’s eldest brother, James Fairweather.
102. To Annette Waters
Dear Q. At last I can boast of a psychic experience–one reads or hears of so many people who foresee events in dreams–Never to have had such an experience makes one feel among the underprivileged–Usually they are about relatives or close friends in accidents or critical circumstances–My dream was just about pelicans–It was a beautiful dream–The pelicans high up riding the currents of the air with motionless wings–and then one of them gets into a downdraft–and floats down to land with a plop–right on top of a chimney pot–Absurd–and yet so clear I remembered it on waking–Well next day when I went down to the beach there were the pelicans–They come and go–follow the fish–they have been away for over a year and I’ve missed them–but you see, they let me know when they came back–Birds are strange creatures These ones I feed here really show some kind of affection–Whenever I go into the grass hut they come and sit by the door and warble at me–Unfortunately they are not good singers–mostly ear-splitting bugle notes–The ones I wanted to attract were the magpies–marvellous cheeky birds that even attack children sometimes–but everybody loves them for they sing like angels–Of course they are not magpies at all–but as they are black and white–So magpie they are–I feel rather jealous of our local butcher–as I passed the other day, there were 4 kookaburras–and 2 ibis on his lawn–I dearly love the kookaburras–The laughing jackass–Such a bubbling champagne noise you cant be depressed with kookaburras around–it is an oversize kingfisher–
Our butchers family are real strange a bit of the gipsy in them–lived most of their life on the road with horses and animals–Now retired and with a large house1–his wife still prefers to live on the lawn in an old broken down caravan but surrounded by the most beautiful flowers a really remarkable woman–When I first saw her–I felt inclined to laugh–cadaverous and thin as a skeleton–with withered cheeks brightly rouged–and gay dresses suitable for a young girl–but as I’ve come to know her better she is the person here I am most ready to take my hat off to–she is an artist her colours are never wrong–We have a new butcher now–but there is never a vase of flowers on his counter–
And talking of pelicans–I had another look at an old piece of water worn wood I picked up a long time ago–and saw that it looks like a pelican–or bird at any rate and have set it up on top of an old milk can–the pelican on the chimney top–My first bit of sculpture around here–In Cairns I had some lovely pieces and took photos of them which I sent home but you all say you never got them–which is sad–but now I have started here I think I am going to make another collection–brought up the first piece yesterday–nearly broke my back–at least these ones will last–they are iron wood–the ones in Cairns were mostly parasitic fig–and soon rotted away in that climate
The sea here is always eating away the land and the trees get undermined and topple over onto the beach–then the roots get worn into wonderful strange shapes–There is material for a good collection–also I found a band saw someone had lost–I’ll make a frame for it–and then I’m set–make a whole collection of pelicans–Well–there is a thick fog over everything this morning the first I have ever seen in Bribie–
There is one of my paintings–on view in a gallery here in Brisbane2–The critic says–painted in tree bark colours–think he must have heard about my tree bark house and got things a bit scrambled–Wrote Aunt Kate to have a look at it3–cant manage to get up to town just now–too cold–Well bye bye– Yrs Ian
PS Aug 3
Your letter just came–Glad you got the views of Bribie–Tomorrow hope to bring in another pelican–about as large as a man so heavy can only carry it a short distance and then have to leave it in the bush till another day–Tomorrow should bring it in–Begin to see that I can make these things into crazy chess pieces–to stand about on a flagstone checker board–like Alice in Wonderland–You remember the Red Queen who ‘beat him when he sneezes’ etc–Could be a lot of fun–but think I have scoured all the coast within walking distance–have to get a small boat–there are endless islands and water ways to explore–Sad you cannot be along–They have just discovered some wonderful prawning grounds here–prawns 10 in long–Think–fried prawns–in the moonlight–Somewhere up along the Bribie passage or in that maze of islands and water ways south of here–What fun one could have–and come home with some more pelicans–Cant we do something about it–?
1 Likely Benjamin (‘Tex’) and Muriel Parcell.
2 An exhibition organised by the Johnstone Gallery of Queensland Art Gallery Society members’ works, which included paintings by Fairweather, Brack, Molvig, Blackman and Pugh. Courier-Mail, 21 July 1957.
3 Catherine Thorp, widow of Fairweather’s maternal uncle Sydney Hood Thorp, who lived in Townsville. She was the daughter of Murdo Cameron, a pioneer of South Townsville, hotelier and mayor of Townsville. Known as Aunt Kate, she took an active interest in Fairweather’s welfare, sending him money at Christmas as well as tobacco and painting board. Based on extant letters from Kate Thorp to Fairweather, they appear to have ‘met’ on paper in early 1948, when Fairweather was living in Cairns. Her presence likely drew Fairweather to Townsville in 1950, where he stayed for a short time before hitchhiking to Darwin.
4 Here Fairweather follows Chinese usage, with his surname ‘Fei’ first.
Yrs Fei Yan4
103. To Marion Smith
Bribie [postmarked 3 September 1957]
OK– Marion it is–and how about calling me Yan–it’s my Chinese name by adoption–Prefer it to Ian which makes me hiccup–though I chose that one too knowing no better at that early age–I was the tail end of a large family and they had run out of names–so gave me a hat at the christening–full of maybes and not so goods–and had me put my hand in and fish–I came up with Ian–and that was that–and I couldn’t blame anybody for I had chosen it myself–Your letter finds me prostrated with overwork–believe it or not–trying to catch up with things–after the cold weather stand still–finding it exhausting–but hope in a few days to finish some things and then relax Yes I think I have seen the name of the painter you went to see–but dont know his work–did you like them–Noticed the other day in the C’Mail–one of my things on view here–couldn’t go myself–unwisely asked my aunt to have a look see–she didn’t at all like leaving her nice warm room (she is 80 or so) and liked still less what she saw when she got there–I was never the apple of her eye–now I guess I’m scratched from her visiting list–Not that I dont like her–but she is so large–twice my size at least–that she just naturally dwarfs my ego–How long do you reckon it will take you to learn to drive I cant drive either but always hope to learn one day–One day I tell myself I will get me a scooter and scoot up to Bris–tank up all the way down Queens–and roll home–happy–Always intend to have a celebration sometime–but the occasion doesn’t arise–still pie in the sky–Well I’m tired of cold potatoes
and men that sow to reap
and aunts and old tomatoes
and everything but sleep1–
Bye Bye Yrs
Yan Fei
1 A satiric adaptation of lines from the poem ‘The Garden of Proserpine’ (1866) by Algernon Charles Swinburne.
104. To Annette Waters
D Q. Been lying in bed–Seeing visions It all started–with a grey dawn through your sheet windows–There is so much sunlight here that a grey dawn is something remarkable in itself–This one made me think I was back in Norway–grey leaden skies–the arctic wind howling–the snow blowing and the windows white with frost–Thinking of the pictures I tried to paint there and never could paint–even one–It was tragic–I tried very hard–but no soap–but just now lying in bed I could see at least three of them–completed as pictures–a kind of psychic experience clairvoyance–your windows have given me–The only other time something like that happened to me was lying on the raft at night–my eyes were strained I suppose from keeping them open so long–in fact very sore indeed–and I’d been seeing a good many things that certainly weren’t there–amongst other things there were lines joining up the stars into all sorts of shapes of people and things–when I landed in Koepang I asked for paper and a pencil and tried to make a note of them while the memory was still fresh–but mostly had no success–only a drawing I made for that book–(one of those stolen) had something of it–it was night on the raft–me lying there–a bundle of clothes–and the big bird nearby–asleep with its head under its wing–It stayed with me for days and nights–a large kind of cormorant–it would go off fishing–but always I would see it winging back and come fluttering down on the raft The raft was so unsteady that it was toppling over all the time but it seemed to like that better than resting on the water–and maybe getting snapped up by a shark–Just at the moment I’m trying to paint that picture–my first stumbling steps through the looking glass1–and I must have a shot at those Norwegian paintings before the memory fades–They were extraordinarily vivid–not as a thing you know but as a picture–through the looking glass–Well that’s something–I was going to write and say a lost weekend–There was rain–the first in three months made the swamp walk very dull–Then had to cut out the usual Saturday night cinema–Peggy Cummins–gives me goose flesh 2–but I really think your windows have given me a psychic experience–
S.L.Y I.
P S.Have just received a most official looking document from the Sydney Gallery–to be signed before a witness consigning to them copyright–rights of reproduction etc–of the picture of mine they bought3–This must be the result of Roualt’s lawsuit in Paris.4 His was the other picture5 bought by the Tate at the same time as my Bali picture–So always been interested in him–getting very old now and religious conscience bothering him about his paintings–wants to have some back that he has sold–so he can alter them took it to the courts and the courts upheld him–the artist retains rights to his paintings–unless he signs them away–so now the Gallery isn’t taking any chances–
1 Lit Bateau and Barcarolle (both 1957).
2 Peggy Cummins, Irish actor who appeared in the British horror film Night of the Demon (1957), probably the film alluded to here.
3 Roi Soleil (1956–57) was purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in March 1957.
4 In 1947 Georges Henri Rouault (1871–1958) successfully brought a case against the heirs of his dealer Ambroise Vollard to reclaim some 800 unfinished and unsigned artworks held in Vollard’s possession at the time of his death.
5 La Mariée (1907). See Duthuit, ‘A Famous Art Society’, Listener, 24 July 1935.
105. To Annette Waters
Dear Q. Feeling at a loose end–packed up and sent off the paintings yesterday–and now an empty house–shall be very bored till I can get started again–The box was so heavy I only managed to stagger with it a hundred yards and then had to drop it in the bush–got 2 long poles like the shafts of a cart–bound it on those and then harnessed myself to it–pulled it the rest of the way–very tired indeed Afraid they have taken so long to finish I have grown sick of them–dont like any of them too much–Still, they are finished thank heaven–One is quite large about 10ft–might do for a mural somewhere I hope–It is the street where I lived in Manila1–and there has been a sort of hoodoo on it–Went broke trying to do it in Manila–took it to Brisbane half finished–and then one day it came out I was entranced–but tried to clean it up a little–and lost it–ran out of money again–couldn’t buy oil paints so tried to finish it in powder colour and water glass In the end gave what remained of it to the carpenter who had made a box to put it in I was too broke to take it away–That was just before the war–After it–painted it again–another version–but it was too abstract–I couldn’t believe in it–abstract painting in those days hadn’t yet come into its own–so threw that one away Another version in that batch I sent to Ella–which all went bad somehow–So its had a history–But this last version I dont like as much as the ones that were lost–It was one of the back streets of Manila houses crowded together–built on posts like the houses are here–people use the under part as a garage–there–a Chinaman had made himself a shop underneath–and he was a real lousey Chinaman–he hated me for no reason–he had the water cock down there and when I went to take a shower–he’d wait till I was nicely soaped and then switch off the water–even filling a kettle–it would switch off half way–one day I went in and broke a lot of his bottles and threatened to break one over his head. It wasn’t a happy time but it was a wonderful scene–crowded with children the richness of life–that is the theme of the painting Another I’m glad to have got done at last something at last from that ill fated raft journey–painted the raft with self and bird at night–called it ‘lit bateau’ and a small one of the same by day called ‘barcarolle’ rather pleased with the names–at least So they are off–and now to start some more–Thanks for remembering the birthday it was quite a day–of desperation–finishing things off–There have been two invitations to send paintings–Hobart Museum (Tasmania) is putting on a show–and a new idea–a lending library of paintings is starting in Canberra (the Australian Washington) they hire out pictures by the month or years–to decorate the homes of the diplomats–who come and go–It is being opened by the Italian ambassadors wife 2–So I was anxious to have something done to send
Well I’ve been trying to have a holiday–but tomorrow–6 months washing has to be faced–quite hopeless without hot water–but summer is coming its warm thank heaven–So long
Yrs. Ian
1 Anak Bayan (1957), now in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Anak Bayan is a street in Malate, Manila. It was renamed in honour of the Katipunan, the revolutionary organisation that instigated the Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1896. The organisation’s full name in Tagalog ends with the phrase ‘Anak ng Bayan’ or ‘Children of the Nation’, from which the street derives its name. A large painting of the same title was exhibited in Fairweather’s 1948 London exhibition at the Redfern Gallery and later destroyed.
2 A lending library of paintings organised by the Canberra Art Club to open with an exhibition of paintings was announced in the Canberra Times on 20 August 1957.
106. To Annette Waters
Bribie Oct 16 [late October – 3 November 1957]
Dear Q. Been for the usual Sunday walk my private path through the bush–the loneliest walk, for I dont suppose any human foot but mine has ever trod it–I started it after the big bushfire two years ago–now it is grown up–in parts it is like a tunnel–Always carry a sickle and always find something need cutting or trees or branches fallen down–Today there were a lot–for I haven’t been for a long time–Sat on the old fallen log, where I always sit and smoke a pipe–and watch the big bull ants–as they call them–they are a firey red like small lobsters about an inch long–with huge nippers–and also a most painful sting–they are the morticians of the insect world–dispose of all the dead insects–and maybe do a bit of murder on the side–I think the sting is to embalm the bodies–to store them–What always intrigues me is their sense of direction–they travel great distances from their nests–and the country to them must be covered in huge mountains ravines and forests–but they keep a B line–although their road, must be a lot more difficult than a bee’s–Well the walk was not entirely without incident–Came on a giant Yucca flower (the grass tree I have often spoken of)–Sends up a spike 4 or 5 ft with a flower like a spear head on it, about a foot long–this one–the flower alone was 9 ft long biggest I’ve ever seen–So brought it back and it has gone into the studio–Well–I’ve read some of the book you sent and will be returning it with this–it puts up a good argument alright–but I dont feel I need any argument about that–and from your Mrs Wills notes–she seems ready to start an argument at the drop of a hat–I used to think that arguments could clear up a situation–but I begin to rather like the Buddhist idea of suspended judgement or rather no judgment at all–an acceptance of opposites–for all things are both–the Yin and the Yang–and the truth is both and neither–(I’m enclosing an article re modern art–) which I think has a lot of truth in it–if you can wade through it [X written in margin] correction, not sending it–not your cup of tea–Am rather disappointed with the Chinese books–one, the print is so small have to use a magnifying glass which is a bore–the other is clear enough but so old fashioned many of the characters are not in the dictionary–and its in the old classical language–though one may know the meaning of all the characters–one still doesn’t get the meaning of the whole–only by reading it again and again–something vague begins to emerge–not very satisfying–but keep on plugging–at least I’m learning characters
At the moment still waiting to hear if the paintings have arrived in Sydney–will finish this letter when hear–
P S– This wretched thing in the paper today–the long talked of bridge is going through and there is a rush for land1–To me it amounts to an eviction notice–I am near the road from Bongaree to Woorim–It will be the first land to be sold–I was just beginning to feel settled–and now–goodness knows–the thought of going back to Cairns or Darwin starting all over again–has got me down–I love Cairns, but its an awful tough life–the most sensible thing I suppose would be to stay here but move further into the bush–but know no place as good as this–and anywhere will mean digging a well–an awful prospect–curious this eviction notice should come just after a bushfire–looking back–a fire has preceded nearly every move Ive made right back to Manila in 1937
P S. Well–feeling a little more hopeful–been away investigating that bush walk I have often spoken of–there was a place there that had possibilities but I found today a bit off the track a place like an enclosed park–flat grass with magnificent old trees–a [diagram] horse shoe with the swamp across the ends–Tomorrow I’ll start on the well–Should be a month or two yet before the rain starts–after this long dry spell a good chance to get it dug deep–
P S–Started the well–and liking the look of the place better than ever–its too good in fact–there is land fever in the air–passed two old men sitting in a vacant lot discussing chances–and at the post office–the butcher’s wife–the one who loves flowers–rushed in to put an urgent call through to the Lands Office–She owns a lot of land up the passage–the most beautiful part of Bribie The other day she asked me to look out for a tree fern–a small one–to plant in her garden So went into the swamp where they grow as high as a house under the shade of the big trees–found a nice little one–but got badly damaged bringing it back–however she tells me today it is growing–sending out a shoot–she has a green thumb–Yes afraid if I put my house in the [diagram of horseshoe shape] it will look too good–someone will want to grab it–so must put it back a bit in the bottlebrush which forms the [diagram of horseshoe shape]–The bottlebrush are like old gnarled apple trees–with [drawing] brushes instead of apples they grow in the driest places where no other trees can grow.
P S–Nearly a month gone and no news to say the paintings have arrived in Sydney–Getting a bit worried–those particular paintings seem to have a hoodoo on them–The Anak Bayan has been done and lost time and again and the drawing for the Lit bateau–stolen from Ellas–Oh well–they are the last attempt I shall make to describe a personal experience–been drifting towards abstraction for a long time–from now on like the satellite I’ll stay away up in the air–They say it is still visible at 3 a.m–but no longer from Brisbane–moved west 2–
P S. Got down to water at last–so thats something Was there at sunset today–If you could have seen the gold sun on those silver tree trunks and the green lawn–circled by the dark bottlebrush–and the wall of the swamp–tall thin ti trees crowded together–Yah if you could have seen it–and plenty of roos–the bush fire has driven my wallaby away–
P.S. Well started making a clearing in the bottlebrush–going to be a big job–between the trees–thick with bushes of broom–like stuff–and those cursed bracken–which nothing will kill–shoots up in a night–and is the worst fire hazard of all–mean have to be working at it all the time however discovered a grand old grass tree [drawing in margin] which will be an ornament near the house few of them have any trunk to speak of–this one is about 4ft high–
also delighted to find that one of the old bottlebrush has a hole through the trunk [drawing in margin] –many of them do for some reason–always think its lucky–
P S. A book about astrology from Arthur today suppose you must have told him–but there is nothing in it but horoscopes of film stars–Note Eleanor Roosevelt birthday 11 Oct same as Mother–Seems a big business there–but of course doesn’t let out any secrets of the trade–Just Blah–
P S. So worried had to write Sydney today about the paintings–The long drought has broken at last with floods of rain–So cold I am back in my filthy winter garments–Just as well I got the well dug in time–Thanking God for that woolen poncho I knitted only garment that suits the climate–Either it is bone dry–or suddenly like now the air gets so damp–matches wont strike and old garments cling to one–soaking wet
P S–Run into another snag–there is plenty of timber at the
new place–for the frame work of the house–but I need a lot of slats thin straight sticks–and I think the only place on the island–within 10 miles where they grow–is right here–and the bushfire has taken most of them–mean cutting them here and carrying them over–2 miles a long weary job–
P–S– Took a long round in the bush–and how dumb can one be–I’ve been walking through a thicket of thin sticks every day and never noticed them–so that’s disposed of–Village shop windows full of squibs and crackers for Guy Faukes day–How these old customs linger on and how nice–Read, in red China they have a new day to celebrate with crackers and bonfires–the birthday of United Asia–the date of the conference at Bandoeng3–And just south of us–this Russian base in Antartica–only 2000 miles has been discovered to be much larger and better equipped than anyone had supposed not so nice4–Well I’m all in–this clearing job is backbreaking–have to root up everything as well as cut it down–here there was no work, it is a natural clearing
To bed–to bed–
P S.one wall of the old grass hut has fallen in I have been using it as a kitchen and to keep food in–so the mice and rats and cats wont bother me in the new house–cant have food in here–only thing must build another grass hut–think I can use the paper still in the old one–so will cost nothing–but work work work–and when will I ever get any painting done?–
P S.Down in the old swamp–cutting posts for the new kitchen–and skinning them–most important or else they go rotten–but a tiresome job–and then to the post–and at long last–news–the paintings have arrived–they are giving me a one man show–end of month–So can finish this long letter. I think you must have been pulling for me–the big picture began to take shape last night at long last–This morning–Sputnik II is aloft5–feel in this picture–if it is a picture–I too take my first step into space–
Blessings–Ian–
P P S–Went to look for Sputnik II but mosquitos too bad and got rather a shock–Venus had a black spot in the middle–and a cockeyed halo–so [drawing] The moon and car lights looked like this [diagram] Too much exercise perhaps–definitely not whiskey–would that it were Tonight would like to get cockeyed but not this [man]
1 The Bribie Island Bridge linking the island to the mainland would eventually open in 1963.
2 Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, was launched by the USSR on 4 October 1957.
3 A meeting of Asian and African states, most of them recently independent, 18–24 April 1955, Bandung, Indonesia.
4 Vostok Station, a Russian research station, was established in 1957.
5 The second Sputnik was launched on 3 November 1957.
107. To Marion Smith
Bribie–Guy Faukes [postmarked 6 November 1957]
Dear Marion–But after that lovely word ‘Jubious’ I feel I must call you Juby–So You are Jubious au sujet de Dobell–Yes, I saw a small photo of the painting you mention–I think I like it as well as anything I have seen of D.s Trouble is–in an age of mecanism–Art has to remember that it is hand work–human hand work–the living hand–it cant compete with a machine–and no artist wants it to–but the big prizes, offered in Vanity Fair for portraits–weight the scales–so D. is Jubious–more credit to him1–Well, your friend (didn’t get her name) contacted me–with your regards–sad you were not along too–think when you come the old grass hut will be no more–one wall started to cave in–Desperately building a small one to take its place–Must have a kitchen–But this news about the bridge is like an eviction notice–I’ll have to start moving further out in the bush–how things pile up–oh well–at least the paintings have arrived at last in Sydney–time almost to celebrate pie–but still in the sky–So long
Yrs Ian
1 William Dobell (1899–1970) had studied briefly at the Slade School in London under the teachers Fairweather had known. He was a finalist in the 1957 Archibald Prize with his portrait of the poet and journalist Dame Mary Gilmore.
108. To Annette Waters
Dear Q. The enclosed cutting–not about me but they have stuck my photo in–so send it The young Sweede whom it is about–was picked up next day–by a passing steamer–luckily for him–for he hadn’t even a sail. A friend in Darwin sent it me–Dont know where they got the photo from–it is off my old Indian passport–Well I’ve been looking for the two Sputniks–people have seen them here but there have been a lot of hoaxes–fireworks sent up–haven’t seen them myself–
Also great excitement the other night–a total eclypse of the moon–and it was rumoured the Russians had planned to plant an A bomb right in the blacked out moon–another canard–but thousands sat up to watch it–The new kitchen is beginning to take shape–posts driven into the ground and some cross pieces should look something like this with the thatch on–there will be 3 buildings now–so [diagram of new kitchen, plus map showing ‘undergrowth’ surrounding the ‘studio’, ‘kitchen’, ‘old building’, ‘Alpine hut’, ‘fire path’, and ‘pines’, sand’, ‘ferns’ and direction to ‘Bongaree’]
The bushfire has made a terrible mess of my little thicket of pines–except those round the house from which the underbrush had been cleared–they are all just blackened stumps Building the darn kitchen is a terrible bore–I ought to be getting on with the painting–Just cant do both–With me its always one or the other–a bad mixer, I guess–envy those people who can have a bit of both worlds. Seem to have a new cat now–I told you of that grey ghost that comes after dark and I have fed for 3 years–without ever getting a miao out of it–nothing but a malicious glare at 10 paces distant–Well he brought a kitten and foisted it on me–a robber and I believe it has killed one of my birds–but at least it can talk–tonight it said miaou–so Ive christened it Mao–tse–tung and gave it supper–like a sucker–Oh well–it can talk–the old grey reprobate having stuck me with a juvenile delinquent–has gone off it seems–
The birds are having their annual family–brought up on cheese–but think there is only one parent left–Have hung up the water pot they use–out of reach of the cat Brought up 8 poles today and skinned them a record–find with a sickle they skin quicker than with an axe–
Another record today–if this was the Soviet Union–I would get a workers medal–Taking the cover off the water pot today–a big tarantula–ran over my hand and up my arm horrible prickly feeling–they must have very sharp claws–He jumped on to the ground They move terribly fast for a short distance but on the ground they look a bit silly if there is nowhere to hide–they go in jumps like a kangaroo–This one soon got tired and pretended to be dead–let me flick sand at it with my toe and even turn it over on its back–Just rather be dead than do any more galivanting. Nice in the old swamp today–the smell of the fresh peeled bark in the hot sun and these ti tree leaves when they are crushed give off a strong odour–rather pleasant and antiseptic–I rub them on my face and hands–think they help to keep off the mosquitoes–An interesting item in the paper today. Prof. Picard–of balloon and underwater fame–predicts that space travellers will leave the earth for 10000 years or more and return not one day older1–according to the Einstein theory time is left behind–always felt there is something wrong with our idea of time–even going around this world you gain or lose a day somehow–
Lit a fire to burn some rubbish tonight–the firelight lit up a skull I have nailed to a tree–and some of the strange pelicans (driftwood) leaning against the trees–an old dead tree is in the middle of a circle with the birds water pot hanging from it a few more strange pelicans to stand around and there will be a witches circle–also another circle of trees where there is always a cool shade am putting a table and bench–Why all this? I think I’m a fool–Tomorrow–who knows–oh well–reckon this will reach you near Xmas.
be happy–have a good Xmas–So long Yrs Ian
[Drawing of his precinct showing ‘studio’, ‘kitchen’, table and bench, ‘old Base hut’, and ‘witches circle’]
1 Jean Felix Piccard (1884–1963), Swiss-born American chemist, engineer and high-altitude balloonist.
109. To Annette Waters
Dear Q. Sunday is always a tough day–no break for shopping–and the blessed bottle of milk–that I drink through a straw on the beach outside the grocery–smoke a cigarette and peruse the days paper–Become a ritual–but not on Sundays–must work all day–Well the rafters are up on the kitchen–and next for the first load of rushes for the thatch–There used to be a wonderful patch of them–with a kangaroo trail that led through the middle of them but that was 4 years ago–for a long time couldn’t find it–the bushfires have killed all the undergrowth and it has fallen [diagram] criss cross–a terrible tangle–but found it at last and I think the roos will thank me have cleared all the obstacles for them–with a heavy load of reeds–cant do much fancy stepping–I call them reeds–but wish I knew what they really are–They grow about 3ft and have tufts of green hairs at each joint [drawing of reed in margin]–ought to make a good thatch if thick enough–This time making it good and thick–you cant afford more paper underneath–Well I’m real tired and the first load of reeds has only covered about ½ sq yard at that rate it will be months to finish–The pace gets quicker all the time–no time to relax–that threatening flood of tourists–It’s like my famous Noahs Ark dream again–fleeing the deluge–and the kitchen will look very Noahsarkey–Reading a very fascinating book by a Frenchman–about skindiving.1 I had no idea that only since the war–skindiving had made such advances–now any amateur–with an aqua-lung–can safely go down to 300ft–the old bugaboo of pressure is bypassed by a simple valve–that automatically equalises the pressure of the air inside and the water outside–I remember lying on the surface over a coral reef and peering down with some pearl divers goggles–but they are really useless–even if you can keep the water out of them–the two lenses for some reason give you bi-focal vision under water–now they use a single window in a rubber mask that fits tight over the face and nose–You hold the end of a pipe from the compressed air cylinder–in your mouth–The strange thing is you breathe back into it–and that is the secret of how pressure is kept constant–You would think you would breathe your own breath again–but it escapes somewhere–In a whole rubber suit–your spent breath inflates the suit before escaping–strange but true–how I envy these young fellows–surfriding and now exploring under the sea–we had none of these things–Of course the Mediterranean is the home of the sport–crystal clear water and no sharks–They say it is a wonderful feeling–You have no weight–like flying & with the flippers on your feet–you glide–rise or fall with little effort–
[Diagrams of carrying method with stick and hod]
This is how I carry a bundle of reeds the two hands holding a stick that goes across the top of the bundle. You can imagine the arms Soon get very tired–So all day trying to make a hod–like the Swiss peasants use–but when it is loaded you cant lift it off the ground Someone must put it on your back or you must find a tree stump–and then it mostly falls on top of you and squashes you flat–
[Diagrams of design and carrying method]
So today invented a hod with a tail–so can stand it up–carry it on my back–rest it on the tail–and have a smoke–
[Diagrams of forked stick, carrying method with bundle and house]
But the hod is too heavy–too many sticks–so find one fine forked stick–bind the bundle both sides–and at last carry it home–happy–
[Drawings of insects]
One does come across the strangest insects here–one tonight–shaped like a bantam cock–the other with antennae coming out from the middle of its body–and it walks backwards or sideways never forwards–
Terrible hot today–and the stew had gone bad though I only made it last night–it was bubbling but boiled it up and ate it–horrible–but so far no ill effects–thank goodness
So hot today–98º–had to give up climbing on the roof to thatch–invented a sort of loom–do the thatching sitting down– [diagram of seated figure thatching]
Irish Guards here–in red and bear skins tried to give a concert in the park–metal instruments got too hot to hold–
Today my show opens in Sydney–and I’m not there to see it–might have been nice to drop in incognito to see it 2–was thinking if you had been here we might have had a little celebration–as it is had the usual bottle of milk on the bench at the grocer’s and then so tired–lay down flat under one of those trees you saw in the photo of the village green–they are parastic figs–originally some other sort of tree was standing there–but some bird dropped a fig seed on a branch–it grew like mistletoe but sent down snake like roots, which grew to python size and soon strangled the tree–nothing of it now remains–the parasite blooms in its place–Well there was a cinema–thought perhaps to get a lift out of that–though it was English–it was indeed–after 5 minutes had to walk out in disgust–What makes me so wild–they are not bad by accident–and what we get here would never be shown in England–they are made for export–to make a mockery of England abroad–We have a parasitic fig living on us–visibly strangling us–and people sit there and dont seem to see it–I get terribly depressed–for a lot of it is true–We are smug–we are pretty rotten–but I just hate to see us getting smeared and sneered at in public–Hey ho–not a happy evening for the opening of the show–
I’m out of chipboard and paints–and daren’t buy any more–till I hear about the show–Just thatching–thatching–very tired and bored so sign off now–till I got some news–
This should be reaching you about Xmas time–by way of a Christmas card and greetings–not very cheerful but wishing you the best
Yrs Ian
1 Likely Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure (1953).
2 ‘Ian Fairweather’, Macquarie Galleries, 20 November – 2 December 1957.
110. To Annette Waters
[Bribie Island] Dec 20 [1957]
Dear Q. The thatch is better than I thought–it really keeps out the rain–without any paper to help–I’ve thought how to make a ti tree bark thatch in the same way–out at the new place–for there is only ti tree out there–no reeds or grass So feel encouraged–at least it wont cost anything in money–but a lot of labour Have started collecting poles and skinning them–They grow thick together in the swamp–and one walks about and finds a nice straight one–trouble is when one cuts one down they are so close together–it doesn’t fall but stays–held up by the ones around it–Today a bad jam–thought I would have to cut six trees before I could get one down–that is when things get dangerous So many trees cut and ready to fall–and there is no quite saying which way they will fall–also a lot of labour for I only have a small hand axe–which is none too sharp–it lost its temper in the bushfire–The sickle however is a great discovery–the bark comes off with half the labour that way–I’ve decided to be bold and not hide the new house–but place it out on the grass amongst the big trees–it is more cheerful out there–and easier to keep a fire break–Those ferns that grow amongst the bottlebrush–are terrible–they spring up in a night–almost you cant kill them–I’ve burnt off a little patch in the grass–quite successfully–without starting a bushfire–So things are started–Well its Christmas week and our foreshore is lined with tents–soon there will be a small town on the village green–The birds have had two large families–its becoming quite expensive in cheese–they give me a real concert every morning for breakfast–the wallaby has been back–he and the cats turn up at supper time–the goannas are on hand all day when the sun is out–It is not often I have a meal alone–
Been reading a book ‘Experiment in Depth’ a study of Jung (the psychiatrist) Elliot (the poet) Tonybee (the historian)1–uses the word ‘agape’ from the new Testament–never heard of it–means a kind of harmony & unity–I think
Will you ask your padré friend
Happy Christmas. Yrs. Ian
P.S. Have you any Quaker friends?–have an idea there is much in their way of thought you would find agape.
1 P. W. Martin, Experiment in Depth: A Study of the Work of Jung, Eliot and Toynbee (1955).
