Thursday, 17th November, 2005
We didn’t really surface too early this morning; sorted out the packing yet again and then loaded the car and hit the road for a few hundred yards in to the town centre. We didn’t have a lot of time to spare as I had arranged to meet Doug for a half hour or so at his work at 10 o’clock, just to meet up and to get a bit of an insight into the structure of the college course and the student work.
I wandered up onto the first floor of TAFE. There was a small exhibition of current sculptural work with a fantastic Koala carved from a type of pumice stone. I walked along a couple of corridors noting various ‘imaging labs’ on the way but noting that mentioned ‘Spowart’ on the door. I had just resolved to stick my head in somewhere and ask when the next person coming along happened to be Doug Spowart who had just finished a lecture and was not on the look out for a lost soul in the corridor. He guided me back to his inner sanctum where we had a few minutes introductory and then a tour of the labs and a chance to meet a few of the students currently on the course.
It was a useful meeting at which we could both set out our respective stalls and we resolved to continue the discussion later in the afternoon.
I rejoined Anne outside a bit later than anticipated as the meeting had run on for much the better part of an hour. But we nipped back in to town for a look around the art gallery. Quite a nice space with an impressive track record of exhibitions, commissions and acquisitions.
Just down the road there was a blacked out shop front which at first impression was an arcade but it was actually masquerading as a cyber gaming hall and there were over fifty computers with people of various ages in knocking seven bells out of each other in cyberspace. We got on to a couple of computers and caught up with e-mail. Sadly there just wasn’t the time to update the web page so I made do with leaving a short message on the board.
We lunched at the old GPO for which we had been given a 10% and a buy-one-get-one free coffee voucher from the motel … the food was very good. I just had a Caesars salad; Anne had some form of toastie. At just after 2 we went along to meet Vicky Cooper, Doug’s partner and a recognised photographer in her own right specialising in pinhole work and increasingly in complex montage work on special paper. It was a good afternoon and as a chunk of here thesis work at the moment is water-related, there was a lot to talk about, alongside quite a bit of philosophical discussion on place and connection; which is an interesting angle.
Doug had earmarked a few books for me to look at from his extensive and very impressively catalogued library. His library is predominantly photographic related, mainly Australian, but also containing various odd references of magazines and clippings.
There is surprisingly little in fact from Australia; a few photographers have dabbled at the edges but to be honest, Doug’s work has to be the most innovative and perhaps the largest quantity
Doug pitched up at about 4 and we had a cup of coffee and a bite to eat outside under the shelter of a tin lean-to and a rambling old wisteria bush. The rest of the back yard was covered by the extended arms of a Hills Hoist (note; must get hold of one of these!) they are a huge rotary washing line gadget made of galvanised steel and incorporating a crank handle on the side so the whole washing rack area can be cranked up out of the way.
Afterwards we went into the holiest of holies; the garage just across the yard which had been kitted out as a darkroom, but if now more usually used as a computer lab, and work room where Doug and Victoria put together their artists books and collate their past work
We had a about an hours review of portfolios of Doug’s work going back to the early 80s; really innovative stuff and I am surprised that it isn’t more widely known or recognised. His work incorporating postcards into a view and his perceptions of tourism are innovative and at the time, well ahead of the game.
Dinner was a grand affair set round a long thin, dining room table, very Zen in its concept. Great food and good conversation all evening. We eventually retired to the living room and finally fell onto the sofa bed at about midnight.
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