Best Photographic Work – ‘Fewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal’ by Katherine Seppings
I won ‘Best Photographic Work’ at the Rotary Castlemaine Art Show on 5 June, for a photograph I took of Fewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal, at sunset, 1998, looking across at the Annapurna mountain range.
‘This quiet and serene work captures the atmosphere of the dusk over the water in this remote place so well. You can feel the sense of stillness and cripsness in the air that I felt to be quite meditative. I particularly liked the composition, the water in the foreground, and the subtle tonal shifts in the layers of mountainous landscape. I also like the energy of the cloud hovering across the snowy mountain peak that can be seen towering in the top corner.’ Judge Artist Greg Wood
Anthea Matley, author of Planting Memories launched in Castlemaine
Peter Wiseman, Katherine Seppings and Anthea Matley
Planting Memories by Anthea Matley was launched in Castlemaine by Peter Wiseman, Bendigo TAFE professional writing and editing teacher and coordinator. Katherine Seppings (Sevenpens) edited, designed and published this book.
Planting Memories follows the life of Culver Matley who left his drought-ravaged prairie home in Punnichy, Canada, in 1935, and sailed to an unknown life on the island of Samarai and then to the Sogeri Plateau of Papua New Guinea.
Culver lived and worked on rubber plantations in Papua for 33 years. During WW2, he served as a driver mechanic with the 68 Light Aid Detachment in the Middle East. He met his wife, Margaret, an Australian Air Force nurse in PNG and together they built a home and raised a family of five children on the Mororo and Eilogo plantations.
Based on family letters, photographs, and memories, Planting Memories recounts many incidents that made up daily life in the PNG mountains. But as their adopted country faced the political and economic challenges of the 1960s, Culver and Margaret reluctantly decided to leave their home and move to Australia.
‘Planting Memories is tightly edited and a pleasure to read. Anthea’s writing is a matchless evocation. The stories are told beautifully in the voices of her family members. I commend this book to anyone who enjoys intimate biographies and creative non-fiction, and those interested in the history of Papua. I congratulate Anthea on completing a mammoth task so well and her team for a truly professional publishing project.’ – Peter Wiseman
Author Bio –
Anthea Matley was born in Moresby and grew up on a rubber plantation on the Sogeri Plateau, Papua New Guinea, immigrating to Australia in 1968. She has a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing and has assisted in producing and publishing Kidnapped by Time, a history of the Faraday area. Anthea has written short stories and poetry and Planting Memories is her first creative non-fiction book. She lives in Elphinstone.
To Purchase – Planting Memories is available through the author’s website Here
The 40th Anniversary of the first exhibition held at ‘The Bricky’ is being celebrated with a ‘Historical Show’ at the Castlemaine Brickworks Gallery this December. It was an honour and a joy to curate it. Of the twenty artists selected from Castlemaine Artists Co-Op/Inc (1980-1992) – painters, printmakers, photographers, potters, sculptors – many are recognised nationally and internationally. Castlemaine Artists Co-Operative was a group of 30 artists and craftspeople who came to the district in the 1960s and 70s. They held their shows at the old brickworks in 1981, 82 and 83. In 1986, with more artists in the area, the group became Castlemaine Artists Incorporated. In 1992 the group folded and merged into the fledgling Castlemaine Fringe. I am recording, archiving and writing the History of Castlemaine Arts (1960-90).
Great article in Clipped TV including an interview with my daughter Maya Rose and the premiere of the music video of her debut single ‘See You Again’!
Very proud of Maya Rose, and this video I co-directed with her, bringing in my experience of working on music videos in London in the 80s and 90s.
Excellent filming by Aidan Fryer!
A successful launch of The Illustrator by Jill Barclay at the Maurocco Bar, Castlemaine. The Illustrator, which I edited, designed and published with Sevenpens, is available for purchase from https://jillbarclaybooks.
The Illustrator is based on Jill Barclay’s real grandmother, a woman who just disappears. All her life Eileen is sure of one thing – her love of drawing and the desire to be a commercial artist. In the 1920s, Eileen’s talents are well recognised in the Goulburn Valley where she is a farmer’s daughter, but this is a place and time when women can only be wives, mothers and homemakers. A woman choosing a career over her husband and baby is unheard of.
‘Written with an acute eye for the period and a sympathy for the distressing choices a woman might be forced to make The Illustrator offers an alternative history for being female and not ordinary in the first half of last century.’ Helen Elliott
‘Time and place are brilliantly evoked in Jill Barclay’sThe Illustrator, which opens in rural Victoria and moves on to Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. The novel traces the unpredictable life journey of a young woman who resists conventional expectations. Deftly shaped and written with imaginative power, this haunting novel confronts us with the mystery of a self-driven personality.’ Brenda Niall
‘Jill Barclay’s The Illustrator demonstrates such richness of imagination, the writing is evocative and full of charm, and the story crackles with unforgettable moments – I was immediately transported.’ Louise Swinn
‘The Illustratorcould well reflect Miles Franklin’s character Sybylla Melvyn who turns her back on an offer of a marriage in order to travel and write.‘ Dianne Demspey
Me and my exhibition at Arts Open, Old Castlemaine Gaol. Photo by Calum McClure
More than 100 artists of Castlemaine and district are exhibiting their work and opening their studios. My photographs can be seen at the Old Castlemaine Gaol.
Labour Day weekend 10-12 March and 17-18 March 2016.
I launched my new collection of poems, Love and Death in Castlemaine published by Mark Time Books during the inaugural Castlemaine Poetry Festival in October.
Sue King-Smith, who edited the collection, describes the book as heartfelt and intimate, dealing with the big themes – love, death and place.
‘These poems are embedded in place, culture, history and the natural environment of Castlemaine (and surrounds). Katherine’s poems span many decades and are about community and the cyclic nature of relationships and life. They are a distilling of Relational Geography – mapping the way in which people relate and connect in a particular place.
The collection is both a celebration and a eulogy. The first poem, ‘The Road to Castlemaine’, invites us to the region. In ‘The Sounds of Chewton’, we hear the Wattle Gully mine siren for lunch and old Tex playing piano in the Red Hill Hotel. In ‘Forest Creek Goldfields’ stability is illusionary; life is riddled with mineshafts. In ‘Collecting Jaara History’, silences surround the Aboriginal heritage of Castlemaine.
There is a poem about lovers swimming in the Golden Point Res under the stars. A train carriage in the Chewton bush is described – “a vase of freshly cut wattle/food fresh from the market, an old stove fire, the smell of your rain washed hair/only candlelight.”
There are poems about relationships breaking down. In ‘The Pine Forest’, the felling of trees between the houses of the two lovers becomes a symbol of their relationship. And there are stories of people passing away. In ‘Attempt’ the protagonist is asked to hang on to the new life born of rain, after the drought.’
Love and Death in Castlemaine
is a collection of my poems about my life in and around Castlemaine since the early 1980s, in a tribute to the goldfields and to those I have loved, and lost.
Sue King-Smith, poet, writer, and previous chief editor at Melbourne Poets Union,
will launch my chapbook – during the inaugural Castlemaine Poetry Festival.
The event is also a celebration of Mark Time Books, the publisher of the chapbook series, and there will be readings from central Victorian Mark Time poets – Ross Donlon, Tru S Dowling, Sue Gillett, Ann de Hugard, Rob Wallis, and Sue King-Smith.
Katherine E. Seppings 