Is it possible? Back to the future? Happy 2009!!

After all thos years........

.........the main subject of what seems to be the second-most popular of the paintings that I've done, was suddenly there, a few days ago, on _Friends Reunited_.
She had seen the class photo, which she and the other boys and girls (below) were in, in 1975.

So.....I was able to let her know how much I'd enjoyed doing that painting, at Hazelhurst, for the _Inspired by Rembrandt_ Competition.
In a somewhat minor ironic twist of fate, I'd painted two (Rembrandt) boys behind her.
People who have looked at the painting have regularly asked: Why was she crying?
I always explained that she was sitting beside me, in the playground and perhaps the boys had been teasing her but she was not crying.

Just now when I went to look for photos that she was in, I realised 33 years too late, that the boy, sitting in front of her was being a little bit naughty, _looking as *innocent* as possible_ while leaning back into her and also being cheeky to the girl in front of him.

*NOW* I noticed it. Cannot tell him to stop it now! I was absorbed taking the pictures and the school photographer was getting her camera ready.
.
I could name names, young man! But I do remember young B. as a good-humoured, mature, young lad. A really nice kid!

I KNOW, ONE of these people!!

My exhibition, at the Tap Gallery

Photobucket Album

Jo Mulholland Exhibition at the Tap Gallery

Photobucket Album

Remembering - Jo Mulholland

Tap Gallery 6-12 October - Jo Mulholland

Photobucket Album

6 to 12 October. Tap Gallery. Jo Mulholland - Remembering

Come help me celebrate my birthday!
Jo Mulholland – Remembering, an anthology.

Dutch-born, Jo Mulholland, is celebration his 65th birthday, with an exhibition of 60+ paintings, remembering people and places that he has liked.

Fulfilling the life-long ambition to paint, in retirement, he has produced these more than sixty paintings, within the last three years.

Each painting is a “snapshot”, in oil on canvas, of a friendly face, or a favourite location, encountered, during 52 years in Australia.

Partly completing an Art Teachers Conversion Course, in the early 1970s, he chose to remain a teacher, in the NSW primary school system, enjoying the enthusiasm and energy of his students.

At that time, the Waratah Festival, was a wonderful way to allow the pupils to exhibit their art works, in Sydney’s Hyde Park.
In addition, enthusiasm for coaching school soccer teams; teaching dancing; and simply the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic, was a deciding factor.

In recent years, there was also an enthusiasm for genuine naturism, as recreation, also reflected in a number of the works.

Active in the Dutch community, of NSW, Jo Mulholland is a member of the boards of the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre and the NSW Federation of Netherlands Societies.

6 - 12 October 08

The nude, in art. (My art)

 

 

It's true. Perhaps you can check it.

 

 

 

Whenever I have put something on my redbubble site(s) about nudity, there have been a lot more visitors.

 

Well. Let's hope they come to the Tap Gallery, in Palmer Street, Darlinghurst, (Sydney, Australia) in the afternoons between 6 October and 12 October, to look at the places and people, whom I have known and liked.









Not that naturists (or nudists) instantly turn into nice people, when they are naked in each others' company. But there is a bit of truth to the idea of clothes making the man and the woman and the body being a bit of a leveller.









The irony is that I am now having an exhibition of my paintings, only a few streets away from the institution which was known as East(Old) Sydney Tech, where I was failed in painting and told by another teacher that my drawing was all wrong because, obviously, the body underneath the clothes of the models, shaped the cloth.

 

Surely I should know what the body underneath would look like?



Well. Actually, it wasn't until about 15 years ago, that I got serious about naturism.









Sure! Now I have a better idea. But, then, whether _textiles_ believe it or not, when a naturist is talking to a naturist, they (we) are not doing a body-search!

(These drawings I did, in the drawing class, during that Art Teachers Conversion course, in the very early 70s.)







Happiness is _having no tan-lines_, as the saying goes. But, once back in Sydney, there simply are lots of times when it's better to wear something (usually pants).





I hope you'll come a check out my art work to see if I understood the anatomy of the human body and how it shapes our clothes, a bit better, since, 1969-1971.









So.......hope you'll come along to:

Tap Gallery 45 Burton St. Darlinghurst. (The other entrance is in Palmer Street.) Every afternoon 12-6 p.m.. 6-12 October.

6-12 October: Jo Mulholland - REmembering - An Anthology

Remembering, an anthology!

Remembering! Celebrating 65 years, with 65 paintings.

October 8, 2008 I celebrate my 65th birthday with the opening of my exhbition, consisting of 65 paintings, reflecting the memories of particularly people and also places I have known and liked, at the Tap Gallery, Palmer Street, Darlinghurst.

Please click on picture........

Dutch Australian Cultural Centre - my thoughts.

You know, I'm sure, about that group of blind men describing an elephant by feeling its different parts and how that produces several different descriptions of the same creature.
I have been invited, tomorrow, to describe to a consultant, engaged by the Dutch Australian Cultural Centre (The D.A.C.C.) the benefits that this organisation brings to the Australian community. ( I look after its website. "Please take a look.":http://dacc.com.au )
I am one of ten board members, who are in the process of, separately, summarising our understanding of the purpose of the D.A.C.C..

Sure, there is a Mission Statement (Hopefully, you'll already have taken a look!)
The Dutch Australian Cultural Centre Ltd has as its aims and objectives the collection, preservation, promotion and dissemination of Dutch culture and heritage in Australia.

It also aims to be a broad based source of information, advice, assistance and interest for the benefit of people of Dutch nationality or descent in Australia as well as for the wider Australian community.
It will act as facilitator and intermediator where necessary.
---
What we aim to do and what is being done and what is possible, is probably debatable.
Wonderful things, have already been done. I wasn't part of that, when the D.A.C. (as it was first) was launched, in 1983.
I had heard, in 1980, through my membership of the SBS 2EA Dutch-Radio Program, presenters team, that the concept was taking shape. But, in the early eighties I married an Australian-born colleague. We had two children and it was important to concentrate on a career.
The brief period of a 2EA Dutch radio presenter was over. Involvement with Dutch-Australian activities was on the back-burner. Something that my parents were still much more active in, than I was.
---
In the nineties I attended three meetings, a few years apart and decided that this was not for me. I'm not sure when I joined the board but it must have been during the current decade.
---
Together with my daughter and son - then very young - and their mother, I admired the display that the D.A.C.C., put on at the annual NSW Holland Festival.
I was aware that there were cultural activities organised for children of Dutch descent.
My impression is that there really was an energetic burst of activity in the earlier years. Much of it generated by one particular family, father, mother and daughter, the ten Brummelaars. No doubt with lots of support.
---
So, children of Dutch descent, were able to find out how the Dutch celebrate(d) Easter and St Nicholas Day and Christmas, etc..

When I joined the D.A.C.C. was still in its own building with display cases, reference sections, books, pictures, displays of costumes, etc..

However, it turned out that the management of the retirement village, on whose premises the building is located, found a different need for the building and the contents have been moved to a space, inside Holland House, in Smithfield.

Certainly worth a visit and lots to look at but still not into the shape that it was always intended to be in, i.e., allowing for easy access to information and resources of interest to the Dutch-born and their descendants, living within reach of the D.A.C.C..


I believe that it's a good thing that we, the current, ten board members, come to the D.A.C.C., with different experiences of migration and settlement.
My parents (then 39) and I (then 12), arrived in May 1956, on a migrant ship, after leaving Amsterdam five weeks earlier and, for reasons explained elsewhere, rather than settling in Applecross, near Perth, we found accommodation in four different migrant hostels (ex-army camps) before settling into a house together with another small family, with whom we'd boarded the ship, in Amsterdam.


Networks, with other Dutch were established in those hostels. Dutch-Australian clubs were joined, to relax after much hard work to rebuild a life , in this new country. My guess is that those of us who arrived in that so-called wave of Dutch migration, in ships (How appropriate! - Rather than by KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines) made up the bulk of what Jock Collins (Migrant Hands in Distant Lands, 1988) called factory fodder, encouraged by the Australian government and the Dutch to satisfy the labour market needs, down under.

(Quote: " Their problems with language and their lack of familiarity with Australian institutions and customs made them exploitable and often docile factory fodder " p.87)
---
If all ten had been children of factory workers, like myself, the board would not be representative, at all, of the Dutch culture that is our children's heritage.
It is so understandable that, now, at the very other end of the scale, or continuum, the Dutch ex-pats and immigrants who have arrived in recent years, by aeroplane and settled into the wider community straight-away, find it hard to relate to what my parents' generation experienced as quite a struggle to have to same lifestyle and advantages.
---
My impression is that the current board of the D.A.C.C. represents a cohort closer to the wave end but only a very small minority did the hostel -thing. (_Latrines, communal ablution blocks, communal dining, sparse, basic, army-style accommodation, etc.._).

When I have my turn, at minding the D.A.C.C., on Wednesdays or Sundays, I like digging out the newsletters and minutes of meetings, that were produced by the Netherlands Society in Bankstown. (Very few members lived in Bankstown.)
I like to read about what so _important_ in those days. ( The hiring of the halls, for the dances and the film nights. The catering needs, i.e., Dutch treats, etc..
The organisation involved in car rallies, bus trips, soccer matches, (Dutch) VIP visits, etc.. I *knew* some of those personalities, who wrote these things and the believe I know the feelings behind those words.
(My father was president of that social club for just under half of its life and I had a turn, in its declining years.)
Do visitors (descendants) to the D.A.C.C., need to know these things? I believe so.
---
But, as Edward Duyker, points out in his book on the Dutch in Australia, in the chapter: If I may boast, (and there are further examples on the D.A.C.C., website, under DIMEX project), the Dutch did not only come to work in factories. There are a number of names of dutch-born people, prominent in politics, entertainment and the arts and industry, that are often mentioned.
And it's up to our DACC to continue to make these experiences and achievements, known, as well.
Just as my parents and I migrated, pillarization ( verzuiling ) was dissipating, in the Netherlands. No longer were your friends, family and neighbours, known to belong to the cohort that read one particular paper, listened to (and viewed) one particular broadcasting organisation, voted one particular way, supported one particular associated cause, etc..
My perception is that our (1950s, 1960s) wave brought a bit of that with it, as like-minded immigrants from the Netherlands, settled in certain parts of Sydney, from which a small percentage, which was not into assimilation overt or covert, formed social organisations of like-minded members.
---
The D.A.C.C., should tell the story of how all these groups brought their particular for of Dutch culture with them to Australia and if these different groups are not represented on the board, the D.A.C.C. may need help to pass on the complete heritage package.
---
To be a little bit politically incorrect, it is still, I believe, sometimes thought at one particular Dutch social club might be much more into readings/speeches/lectures by politicians, business representatives, academics, etc., than others. That in one of the few remaining clubs, you're much more likely to do a Knees-up Mother Brown / hoe-down, than in the other(s).
And that's not specifically a Dutch thing.
---
Still with me?
---
Tomorrow I shall talk privately, about how I believe we are, and should, as a D.A.C.C., coping with presenting the whole picture, to our fellow Australians.
---
Not to mention, whether our collection should be made up of materials only in the English language or whether a mix of Dutch and English is still appropriate.
---
Thanks, for staying with me, and being my sounding-board.

Had to let go of my "babies".

Delivered the paintings of Connor, Chelsea and Liam to their parents.
Took one last picture of each. See here!

Greenfield Beach and Pamela's Beach House.

Talk about *connections*!!!
Walking on to Greenfield Beach, in order to photograph the subjects for my next series of paintings, I may very well have spotted the neighbour,

of the cousin (Are you still with me?) of a very good friend of mine, painting a picture, of Greenfield Beach, which this friend of mine, visited, *as a judge*, in the Keep Australia Beautiful, Clean Beach Challenge Competition , in 2001.)

The beach receiving an award, in this competition, at that time, as it did again, last year, for 2008!
I stayed in the studio of Pamela's Beach House.

UP-DATE:
Spoke to Bob Reed. This man is not the artist who lives near his cousin.
Perhaps a little too good to be true. :)

The naked truth- warning: nudity beyond this point!

My writing, as Ozcloggie, (in RedBubble.com) on the topic of the quaint expression: *Nudist Camps*. (_Remember them?_) received 586 views. My other efforts (writing, journal, paintings, photos) at best get an average of, say, 18 views.

I've just read an article on the www by Nicole McClelland, on: AlterNet. Posted January 25, 2008, under the heading: _Nudism: A Healthier Lifestyle or a Bunch of Hype?_

Some quotes - Yes! Out of context! ) :

Once I decide that something is a good idea - going to Australia, baking a chocolate cake, trying nudism -I work blindly, diligently, toward setting it into motion.

( Please read the article here, yourself, if you too, have sometimes wondered whether naturism (nudism) is for you! )

Some more quotes, from the article:

The only thing that wasn't enjoyable was the constant, compulsory nudity. Despite all our efforts, we had sustained extensive insect bites and sunburns, and our butt cheeks were permanently dimpled and crinkly from sitting on our scratchy, textured personal towels during down time.

We had placed delicate body parts near open fires and stove ranges and ill-behaved pets, and coated them in sunscreen and bug spray.

Nudity had rendered nearly all our activities totally impractical, sometimes miserable, and occasionally unsettling.

_I suspected the real motivation for many nudists consisted of a combination of a desire to belong to something and exhibitionism, and nobody was owning up to the latter._

-------
I've never been to the 'naturist resort', where Nicole and _her intended_ found work, to hopefully experience nudism as _A Healthier Lifestyle_ and seemed to have come to the conclusion that it is, more likely _a Bunch of Hype_.

I look after the website of River Island Nature Retreat, west of Mittagong, here in New South Wales. I started visiting _River Island_, (clothes-optional) in about 1993 and, like Ms McClelland, once I commit myself to something (usually a _cause_) I live by that well-worn phrase: *Worth doing? Worth doing well.*

So, after joining the A.N.F., supporters club and then the Free Beach Association of NSW and getting well and truly involved with, particularly the latter, I got to know the owners of River Island reasonably well. They're simply very nice, open, friendly people, who do not make a fuss. Do not particularly enforce rules (Their resort is clothes-optional) but quietly manage the place so that everyone who visits and behaves as in any other accommodation enjoys the place, in what-ever way they want. (E.g., exploring the 500 acres, beside the Wollondilly River, or sitting by the pool, or in a spa, or reading a book, or sipping, a drink, etc., etc..

(I did not start this to advertise the resort. I know this one best.)

I *do* want to _let off steam_ about the way reports are written about naturists and naturist locations, almost always painting the author and their readers as people who know better and are more _pure_ and, yes, _normal_, while _those naturists_ do _funny things_ and don't have perfect bodies.

Naturism (i.e., doing things without your pants on) is not a _health cure_. Getting sunburnt all-over is not healthier than covering up.

In many of these articles there is often a reference to the _dangers_ of getting close to a barbecue, or deciding to use a wipper-snipper, in the buff. Removing clothes does not go with removing common sense.

The article that got me on this soap box, refers to an Australian naturist magazine, which was apparently being used, in a small way as a reference to what the author and her intended, expected from naturism.

There are currently two naturist magazines, in Australia that are widely distributed. The one referred to in this article puts more emphasis on body image. Is more likely, in my opinion, to feature attractive (younger) people. That's understandable. It sells magazines.

In waiting rooms, I often pick up magazines that show beautiful houses, with exquisite interiors and ocean views, but I know very well that I'll never live in one.

At the risk of putting the two topics together, it was seeing the topic: How you too can be Gay written about by Robert Knapman that made me put pen to paper (Well. You know what I mean!) here which made me think (As I wrote above) that How you too can be a naturist would not be a bad topic but I did not want to steal the idea (Well I have, really.) and wanting to make a similar observation. It is often said that most people would love to skinny-dip some time in their lives.

Do it!

After painting, beaches and books, photography is favourite.

Oh! and I do like going to River Island (west of Mittagong, NSW)

Maroubra Bay High School Reunion, 2009.

It will be 50 years since Maroubra Bay High School was opened(in March, 1959), in 2009 and that's a great reason to have another reunion. The idea has been floated. The committee which organised the 2003 reunion will, hopefully reconvene and plans made during this year, 2008.
Ex-students (Bra boys and girls) of MBHS, please keep in touch!!

jo at ozcloggie.com

Facebook link.

Background (link to the previous {2003} reunion pages)