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| Beautiful morning light filters through the old front windows |
Ive just returned from a month artist
in residence at Hill End, staying at Haefligers Cottage, where
artists Jean Bellette and Paul Haefliger lived on and off during the
1940s, 50s and early 60s. Hill End became an artist community in the late 1940s and the isolated landscapes inspired many Australian artists including Russell Drysdale, John Olsen, Donald Friend and Margaret Olley (to name a few). The cottage was built in the 1860s during the first gold rush in the area, part is built with wattle and daub construction (mud and sticks) and the kitchen is slab construction.
I arrived just on dusk. It had been
raining all day and the road from Bathurst was steep and windy.
Beautiful scenery, amazing hills that look down into deep valleys,
but I did not have time to stop and look, wanting to get to Hill End
before dark.
Thankfully I did. I was advised to
arrive early so that I could get to know the quirks of the house.
There are a few. One of them is that there are no overhead lights in
the cottage. Lamps illuminate everything, in the corners, near the
front door, there is even one in the kitchen.
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| I love the old door handle to the loo |
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| The loo |
This means that at night (in winter
5.30pm) its dark outside. The lounge and bedroom (a wall has been
removed so that the bedroom is raised a step and part of the main
room) is illuminated by lamps which throw a lovely light, but are not
so good to work by. There was also no electric lights in the purpose
built studio. I quickly learned to adapt to the house, waking early
to make the most of the day, and then settling down in the evening in
front of the fire. This was when I read information relating to the
pioneering history of the area, knit or simply to gaze at the fire
and think.
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| View of the bedroom from in front of the fire place in the lounge room. |
Another quirk is that the house has
absolutely no reception for mobile phones or internet. Before I
arrived I was planning to do all sorts of things on the internet, not
to mention my morning ritual of getting up, making a coffee and
catching up on my emails before the day gets underway. All this changed and I relinquished my grasp on the outside world. I
discovered that this was a good thing and gave me time to focus. The
house also has no clocks, and since I only have my mobile phone,
which in the city is many things as I can check maps, emails, time,
temperature, not to mention make calls, in the bush it was just a
clock - and even it stopped working!
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| View from the studio looking down the valley at the Post Office |
The countryside was timeless and
without the constant interruptions/diversions provided by technology
I observed the world around me. I began to learn to tell the
time by looking at the sky and shadows..... I could almost accurately
guess how cold it is... (we had a serious frost one morning and to
tell how cold it was I walked on it. The grass crackled underfoot and
my guess was it was about -4 to -5 degrees, which was later verified
through chatting the with locals in the village). Another thing was the stillness. There was hardly a noise in the valley with the exception of the abundant bird life. I could hear the geese honking across the town common and the chattering of magpies out in the garden.
I enjoyed all these things.
It was quite liberating and I think it was the cottage's way of
saying 'slow down, take time out and relax. Enjoy and notice your
surroundings'...
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| The kitchen - the ceiling is so low that I could easily touch it. The cottage is gorgeous with loads of character especially being full of beautiful old furniture belonging to Jean Bellette and Paul Haefliger. |
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| Lovely soft light filters through the kitchen windows |
One afternoon I was doing a lino cut in
the kitchen with the wood fire oven going to warm the room. The
wiring in the cottage is so old that if you plug any two appliances
into the one socket, ultimately the fuse blows. And of course, I was
trying to use the iron and lamp at the same time. The lights went,
which took all the electricity in the room. I was left wishing I had
an old iron that could be heated on the stove!
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| In the studio - note the little pot belly fire in the corner |
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| The entire place is magical and full of inspiration. |
A big thank you to
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery for selecting me to participate in this most amazing opportunity and an experience of a life time. I have so many ideas they will continue to inspire me for many years.
Further information if you are interested:
- An
article other Australian artists who were inspired by Hill End.
- Textile artist Julie Ryder wrote a great article about her
residency in Murray's cottage - the other cottage in the residency program.
