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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BLACKTOWN ARTS AND

CRAFTS GROUP

Blacktown Mayoral History Competition, 2017

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A Brief History of the Blacktown Arts and Crafts Group

The Arts and Crafts movement in Blacktown appears to have begun in the 1930’s when a single, unemployed English woman named Pamela Green moved into the area. This brief history sketches the story of Pam Green, the Garribee Art Group which she helped to establish, and the beginnings of the Blacktown Arts and Crafts Group which followed, and which is still in existence today.

Pamela Thayer Green arrived in Adelaide from England in September 1924 1 and became known for her pottery and art in that city, winning a medal for pottery, and demonstrating and exhibiting her work in various places. Her works included many Australian animals, birds and plants.2 She moved to Sydney in 1931, settling in Doonside after joining the United Associations of Women.3 They were the most radical feminist group of mid 20th Century, being very political and forceful and were extremely active throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s.4 One of their objectives was to help unemployed single women settle on the land, farming and keeping cows and chickens. The initial number of single women applicants was 100, but quickly grew to 300. The Department of Lands eventually nominated various locations and Pamela settled on the Doonside Estate, 5 leasing an approximate half acre herself, along with sixteen other women, living in a tent and carrying water by hand to her plot.6 She eventually built a simple bush hut to live in and continued to work on it, naming it “Eureka”. She then commenced construction of a rough, small workshop to use for her art and craft interests.7

At the age of 55 years Pam retired from her local job because of ill health and was able to devote more of her time to creative activities, taking a pottery course in 1954 at Westmead College and then participating in a series of classes at East Sydney Technical College. The series of classes involved drawing, still life and portrait painting and she joined the Parramatta Art Society where she was thought of as a peaceful, private woman.8 In her later life Pam painted a self portrait, which is today displayed in her honour in the Trevor Toms Hut at Blacktown Showground.9

In October 1969, one month before her 73rd birthday, the Garribee Art Group was formed due to Pam’s efforts to encourage local Blacktown people to enjoy arts and crafts. Garribee, in the language of the local aborigines, means Cockatoo, and William Campbell was granted land at Doonside, naming it Bungarribee. Pam commenced art and craft classes for interested adults and children, using the workshop on her property. Later, exhibitions were held at the Blacktown Civic Centre in Campbell Street, Blacktown.10

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On 4th June 1972, aged 76 years, Pamela Thayer Green passed away at Blacktown Nursing Home, Stephen Street Blacktown. She had been a pioneer of the women’s movement, sustainable living and arts and crafts. She had never married and her friend Olive Thacker arranged her funeral and internment in the Church of England Cemetery at Prospect.11 Prospect Heritage Trust’s St. Bartholomews records state that Pam’s grave is in Section 6, Row 7 with a headstone and inscription.12

Self portrait of Pamela Green.

(BACG Archives)

For many years there have been stories passed by word of mouth that Pam Green inherited a house and gave it to Blacktown Council in return for the Pam Green Hut in the Blacktown Showground. There is no evidence of this, in fact, according to her will, Pam only owned her property in Bungarribee Road and bequeathed the property and her entire estate to two women friends. Pamela Green, by the time of her death owned her land outright. She had purchased Lot Q RMB 1022 Bungarribee Road Doonside. (Resubdivision Portion 286) 13This portion of land was on the north side of Bungarribee Road and was over 1 acre. A lot plan held by the local history section of Blacktown City Library shows that Lots 286 and 287 were in Pam Green’s name.14 Another reason to discount the verbal story of her offering an inherited property to Council is that the huts were not moved from Wallgrove Army Camp and installed in the Blacktown Showground until three or four years after her death.15

Blacktown Advocate reported in 1983 that her “Historic home crumbles as Council waits……” The land in 1983 was owned by the Housing Commission and they wanted to quickly finalise a lease with Council to avoid any further vandalism of the property, but Council deferred their decision. The newspaper article reported “….contains a workshop and a two bedroom cottage, which has been suggested could be used as a community centre….craft workshops.” It was also reported that it

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was “the only surviving example of live-in, make-shift accommodation and was more significant because it was built by a woman”.16

Pamela Green’s bush house and workshop survived for over 50 years, but what eventually became of the buildings is unknown, although her vision of local residents enjoying and creating arts and crafts still lives on. She encouraged and taught many people pottery, portrait painting, still life and many more of the arts and crafts in the years she lived at Doonside, and today a street on the site of her old home bears her name.

Lots 286 and 287 Bungarribee Road, shown here, were in the name of Pam Green.

[Parish map courtesy Local Studies, Blacktown City Library]

There is little known about the cultural creative activities of the members of the original Garribee Art Group Pam had founded in 1969, no paperwork has been found to give a full story of their activities before or after Pam Green’s passing. Members of the Garribee group may have been foundation members of the now Blacktown Arts and Crafts Group (BACG) which formed in January 1975, three years after Pam Green’s death.

The inaugural Blacktown Arts and Craft group (BACG) meeting was held on 21 January 1975 at the Blacktown Civic Centre, Campbell Street, Blacktown, with 18

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members attending. An interim committee was elected and a draft Constitution was adopted.17 Various activities took place before the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in the April of 1975. The first Pam Green Memorial Day with a BBQ was held, and art and craft demonstrations were held to create an interest in the community of the group. The first AGM was held at the Poultry Research Station, Seven Hills with executive committee members being elected and the BACG logo designed by John Curtis adopted. The first executive were: President: Ross Macindoe, Vice President: Rodney Judd, Secretary: Brian Wild, Treasurer: Neil Edwards. 18

The newly formed Blacktown Arts and Craft Group were meeting in Pam Green’s original workshop in Bungarribee Road Doonside early in 1975, and it is said that the group members were delighted when they first opened up the workshop and found it full of Pam’s pottery and paintings. But by November of the same year the new owners of the property requested that the group vacate the workshop by the end of the same week. 19

Since the group’s inception only months earlier, the committee had been very busy with the commencement of many different arts and crafts classes and workshops. These included activities such as spinning, weaving, pottery, sculpture, kite making, silk screening, copper enamelling, candle making and painting. A Pam Green Open Day incorporating a BBQ and demonstrations was held at Pam Green’s workshop in Bungarribee Road and plans were in hand for a series of weekend workshops. An approach was made to the Arts Council of NSW for tutors in kite making and embroidery and a formation of a Regional Arts Committee was proposed. The Regional Arts Committee was to explore a residential school in art and sculpture, a regional newsletter, exhibitions of national works of art and visits to exhibitions and workshops outside the local area.20

It was imperative that the newly formed arts and craft group find a permanent home, after vacating Pam Green’s Doonside workshop they were using a room or rooms at Blacktown Hospital for their craft workshops and meeting at the Poultry Research Station, Seven Hills. The Secretary wrote to Blacktown Municipal Council’s Town Clerk requesting use of the showground huts.21 Earlier, in April 1974 Council proposed to purchase and re-erect six ex-army buildings from the Wallgrove Military Camp and resite them in the Blacktown Showground for community purposes. They were of substantial construction, timber frames sheeted with weatherboards externally and hardboard internally with galvanised iron roofs and some internal partitioning. 22 The huts were resited at Blacktown Showground in early 1976 and Council allocated them to various interested groups.23 It took a number of months for their new premises to be fitted out with taps, sinks and drainage, power points, benches, shelving and bench tops.24 The exact date of BACG moving into their new home at Blacktown Showground is unknown but at the October 1976 general meeting they were organising the Official Opening of Hut 45 as “The Pam Green Memorial Hut”. 25

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It is obvious from their ideas and professional way the group was being guided that the executive were visionary and creative. Applications for various grants were submitted and for their formative years the group relied on this financial help to pay for tutors and equipment such as kilns. BACG were, and still are in 2017, involved with the Blacktown City Show each year. In the early years, they also were heavily involved with the Crafty Bunyip Festival, demonstrating and exhibiting different crafts to the local residents.

In 1975/1976 the President was Brian Wild, Secretary Ross Macindoe and Treasurer Bill Davies.26 Brian Wild had University degrees in teaching art, art history, philosophy and photography, he was President of various groups and was a delegate to the Blacktown Community Council for the Arts.27 Bill Davies studied art through the Department of Education (NSW) and privately with artists Frank Cullen and Jan Riske. He travelled throughout Europe visiting art galleries and museums. In 1979 he was awarded the first Australia Day acquisition Art Prize conducted by the City of Blacktown Council. He was also a delegate to the “Blacktown Community Council for the Arts.28

It is important to note here that one of the founding members of BACG in 1975 was Patricia Parker OAM. She later became the first local government based Community Arts Officer in Australia and was employed by Blacktown City Council. Pat initiated the Blacktown Crafty Bunyip Festival in 1975, which later became known as the Blacktown City Festival. She encouraged members of BACG many ways, and liaised with the group in her time as Community Arts Officer. She is honoured for her distinguished pioneering contribution to the development of community arts in Blacktown by a funded Memorial Residency Program at the Blacktown Arts Centre. 29

Pat Parker, OAM. Photo: BACG Archives

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After settling into the Pam Green Memorial Hut in the Showground, the group continued to programme more varied arts and crafts. In 1979 batik, tye dyeing, glass moulding, self sufficiency crafts, puppetry, basket making, cane weaving, woodcarving, creative embroidery and jewellery making were offered. Another initiative named “A Workshop in Crafty Living” was conducted for 50 participants, as a four day workshop at the Huts during the Easter weekend of 1979. Activities included fibrecrafts, leathercrafts, survival and eco crafts such as candle and soap making. Some of the more unusual activities were bee keeping, how to use and sharpen a scythe, care and milking of goats. The participants stayed overnight at the Showground with a BBQ provided for people to cook their own food. Breadmaking was another craft taught in the workshop and therefore a variety of breads were available at mealtimes.30 The workshop in crafty living was held for a few years, always on Easter weekend.

In 1979 the group was still applying for and receiving grants from The Australia Council (Crafts Board), The Premier’s Department and Blacktown Community Council for the Arts (Blacktown City Council).31 In May 1979 Patricia Parker, who was Blacktown City Council’s Community Arts Co-ordinator, applied to the Crafts Board for Vivienne Binns to represent Blacktown in the “Artist-in-the-Community Program”. Vivienne was engaged for the project “Mothers Memories-Others Memories”. She was an artist who enjoyed community arts and was recognised with the award of an Order of Australia Medal (OAM). BACG supported the project and Vivienne as it could only be beneficial to them and they would have an artist in the community for some time. The participants of the project were predominantly wives and mothers of a broad age range and it forged a “coming together” of ordinary women, drawing on their lives and stories and their creative skills – a community based project with a feminist platform. The Minutes of the General Meeting of 2 June 1979 records that all objects made would remain the property of BACG. 32

“Mothers Memories-Others Memories” was a project where the women were tutored by Vivienne to make enamelled steel “postcards” which incorporated photos, drawings, personal inscriptions and captions. They were taught screen printing of photographic images onto the steel plate to be enamelled. The “stories” told on the postcards were of their families, including the many hardships, losses and good times.33 The Trevor Toms Hut in the Showground was used for the project, BACG had outgrown the one hut they were in and had been allocated an additional hut, the Trevor Toms Hut. The project had an extended life until toward the end of 1981. The enamelled postcards were exhibited in various towns as well as Blacktown. The exhibition travelled to Penrith, Windsor and as far away as Tasmania.34

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Vivienne Binns with the enamelled postcards. Photo: crossart.com.au

A new, unique, and experimental craft was introduced by BACG, the weaving and making of garments made from dog hair. This most unusual craft caught the imagination of some BACG members, and they found the most successful hair was from Samoyed, Shih Tzus, Bichan Frise, Keeshounds, Sheepdogs, Golden Retrievers and Afghans. Potters began knitting and sewing along with artists and leatherworkers.35 A “Wag Time” Fashion Parade was held at Blacktown Workers Club on 28 November 1979 to demonstrate the new craft, where dogs and the garments were on show. It was a culmination of more than two years work by the members using a floor loom the group had purchased from fund raising.36

Car coat woven by Joan Fisher. Photo: BACG Archives

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The Festival of the Crafty Bunyip on 7th June 1980 showcased a Fibre Coat competition, providing an opportunity for local weavers to take part in a fashion parade. First prize was awarded to Hilda Saunders for a woven and dyed dog hair coat, and she also demonstrated broomstick weaving with dyed dog hair at the Festival. It was reported in the Craft Clarion magazine that “Blacktown has a strong and vital community sense and craft is a central focus for its expression. Much is due to the initiative and enthusiasm of the community arts officer, Pat Parker and her team of helpers…… the Festival of the Crafty Bunyip is a superb expression of people doing their own thing as part of a vital community.”37

During the BACG Christmas party of December 1980 four Totem Poles were “planted” outside the Pam Green Memorial Hut. The project had taken a couple of years to complete but there is very little information about them. They were made from PGH clay pipes from the local clay quarry where the suburb of Woodcroft stands today.38 The faces built in clay on the pipes are reminiscent of tribal carvings.

Totem pole outside the BACG huts in Blacktown Showground, 2017.

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From 1975 to the early 1980’s the number and type of crafts introduced to the local community by BACG was enormous. There are so many more crafts not mentioned here which the local people tried. Community projects were also popular, BACG

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applied for a grant to employ a cartoonist artist to tutor an unusual workshop – a mural on the wall of the Seven Hills Bridge. A community wall for the Rooty Hill School of Arts was made from Raku fired bricks (raku being a type of kiln firing), which was then painted by members of local families which had been in the area since the hall was built. The community wall in the old building is still insitu.39

Raku fired bricks on the wall of Rooty Hill School of Arts, 2016.

During the period of around 1982 and 1983, the impetus of the group waned for various reasons, but over later years the Blacktown Arts and Craft Group gradually became stronger, when aims and focus shifted to more specific areas of craft.

Today, in 2017 members of BACG are still heavily involved in the annual Blacktown City Show, assisting with the Arts and Crafts Competition and exhibiting projects. The Fibre Group make and provide many quilts for raffle prizes for Inner Wheel, and Blacktown Show Society where proceeds are donated to Cancer Groups. Quilts are made and donated to “Wraps of Love” (pre-term babies) “Bear Cottage” (for terminally ill children), “Blankets of Love” (for the homeless) , humidicrib covers and knitted bears for Blacktown Hospital and “Fiddle Mats and Cuffs” for the Dementia Unit at Blacktown Hospital.

BACG classes and workshops are now smaller and fewer, crafts are mainly pottery, silk painting, painting with different mediums, paper machete, jewellery and fibre

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crafts. Fibre craft has many facets to it such as patchwork, felt needlework, hand embroidery and machine embroidery, knitting and crochet.

Blacktown Arts and Craft Group has come of age, able to support and fund itself rather than relying on grant funding. The long standing success of the group is because of the vision of the founding members and the executive committee members. Today’s executive committee, led by President Brenda de Smid, Secretary Anne Kennedy and Treasurer Irene Adamson with the support of the present enthusiastic and dedicated members, continue their efforts to keep the group strong and healthy into the future.

Recognition and thanks are also due to Blacktown City Council for its continuing support of BACG over the years.

It would be remiss not to mention other smaller craft groups of today in Blacktown, such as the various Church and Senior Citizen groups. These are smaller groups who meet in Community and Church buildings, providing self help in crafts and social interaction for their members.

Pam Green’s dream some 50 years earlier, that people of Blacktown would come together in arts and craft groups, to learn, educate and socialise, and to benefit their community, continues to this day.

Acknowledgements: Jan Herivel and Rav Gill at Blacktown City Library, Local Studies Section; Blacktown Arts and Crafts Group Committee, Blacktown City Council, Prospect Heritage Trust.

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REFERENCES

1. Passenger shipping lists, National Archives 2. The Advertiser and Register Adelaide 29 July 1930 and 27 March 1931 3. The Life of Pam Green – unpublished - author Jennifer Saunders 1981 4. People and Organisations-Biographies-Trove website–nla.gov.au/nla.party

728076 5. The Life of Pam Green, author Jennifer Saunders 1981 6. Sydney Morning Herald 4 July 1931 p7 and 17 October 1931 p14, Port Macquarie News 24 October 1931

p6 7. The Life of Pam Green, author Jennifer Saunders 1981 8. Ibid 9. Lyn Tod’s observations – member of BACG 10. The Life of Pam Green, author Jennifer Saunders 1981 11. Pam Thayer Green’s death certificate – State Archives and Records NSW –Series 4-740536 12. Conversation with Mrs Jill Finch, Secretary Prospect Heritage Trust in 2016 13. The late Pam Thayer Green’s will & probate – State Archives and Records of NSW – Series 4 740536 14. Blacktown City Library – Local Studies Section 15. Blacktown City Council Minute Books 3 April 1974 p2, p9, 7 August 1974 p137 16. Blacktown Advocate,10 August 1983, p2 17. Blacktown Arts and Craft Group (BACG) inaugural meeting minutes 21 January 1975 18. BACG Annual General Meeting Minutes 4 April 1975. 19. BACG General Meeting Minutes 1975 20. BACG General Meeting Minutes 7 February 1975 21. BACG General Meeting Minutes 4 April 1975 22. Blacktown Municipal Council Minute books 3 April 1974, p2,19, 7 August 1974 p137. 23. Blacktown Municipal Council Minute book 21 July 1976 MER15768, p118 24. BACG General Meeting minutes 6 August 1976. 25. BACG General Meeting minutes 6 August 1976, and October 1976. 26. BACG AGM Minutes 4 April 1975 27. Linkedin website 25 October 2016 28. Notes written by Bill Davies, held by BACG 29. Obituary by former Mayor John Aquilina, NSW Parliament 15 November 2007, Mr Mossfield parlinfo.

aph.gov.au, Blacktown Arts Centre 2016 Guidelines. 30. Ross Macindoe’s report in booklet form – BACG files 31. Presidents Report BACG Annual General Meeting 7 April 1979 32. BACG General Meeting minutes 2 June 1979 33. BACG General Meeting minutes 3 November 1979 34. BACG General Meeting Minutes 1 December 1980 and 3 February 1981 35. BACG Report undated, author Joyce Reilly 36. Blacktown Advocate 29 April 1981 37. Craft Clarion July 1980 p12, author Peter Emmett 38. BACG General Meeting Minutes 1 September 1980 39. Mayoral History Competition entry 2016-Rooty Hill School of Arts: History and Humility