This is a recording of the opening event for the exhibition, CONNECTIONS: The Artist/Master Printer Basil Hall, Ron McBurnie, Michel Kempson. The exhibition was held at the Cowra Regional Art Galery, 18 December 2022 to 5 February 2023. The exhibition was curated by Akky van Ogtrop. The event was recorded on the 17th December 2022.

Brian Langer: Akky ... van Ogtrop is here... So, is that correct?

Akky van Ogtrop: Very good.

Brian Langer: Very good. Thank you. I've got another tongue twister to come out too.

Akky van Ogtrop: Oh that's good too

Brian Langer: Akky is an independent curator, writer and art historian and I think you'd agree with me she's done a wonderful job putting this exhibition together and the selection of the works and I also want to thank the artists who participated in working with Akky towards the exhibition ... I would just like to commence by by acknowledging the Wiradjuri people, the traditional custodians of the land which we meet on today and pay my respect to the elders both past and present.

Brian Langer: Now as I've mentioned we have Basil Hall, Ron McBurnie and Michael Kempson here today and ... Akky's going to give an introduction and officially open the exhibition. So I'd like to commence by introducing ... oh my glasses broke

Akky van Ogtrop: yeah and I can't offer you mine

Brian Langer: A little bit of background on our guest curator. Akky graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Art in .... you want to pronounce that for me

Akky van Ogtrop: 'S-Hertogenbosch [laughter]

Brian Langer: ... in the Netherlands, majoring in print making. She also has a Master's degree in Fine Arts from Sydney University. As a director and project manager of major art events, Akky's worked with national and international arts organisations, including the Biennale in Sydney. She's also the founder of the Sydney Art On Paper Fair and has been the curator of the Paper Contemporary at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair since twenty eighteen.

Brian Langer: Akky works as an independent curator with art museums, galleries and contemporary arts spaces. And it's my pleasure to meet Akky and work with her at our exhibition [inaudible] with Yvonne who is here today as well. Thank you for coming Yvonne. And I think it was at that exhibition, we talked about doing another exception in Cowra.

Akky van Ogtrop: Yep.

Brian Langer: So its fantastic that she's made the time ... made her skills and knowledge available to us put this show together. Akky is also a collector of Australian and international works on paper and she's presently serving on various boards, including the ... she president of the Print Council of Australia, president of the Walter Burley Griffin Society and a board member of Dutch Link and she's also a foundation member of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. So it's my pleasure to thank you Akky and would you like to officially open the exhibition. [cross talking] [laughter] [applause]

Akky van Ogtrop: I would also like to begin today by acknowledging the Wiradjuri people who are traditional custodians of the land on which we are gathering today and pay my respects to their elders, both past and present. Wait, I forgot...

Akky van Ogtrop: It's actually quite fantastic to see you all here. And again, I must say, I'm very happy to be back in Cowra. Very special, yep very special. eh... a bit of history now. As a country with an ancient indigenous population and a large immigrant population from every continent, Australia has very diverse cultural traditions that strive in contemporary forms of printmaking.

Akky van Ogtrop: Until the sixties, printmaking in Australia was withering as an art form, written off as an archaic craft that lacked the urgency and emotion that real art required. This is not by me written, written by somebody else. This sentence but I really liked that archaic. Printmaking was in desperate need of well-trained master printers to give new life.

Akky van Ogtrop: Frequently then referred to as the decade when the print came of age, the sixties witnessed the emergence of printmaking as a mainstream art form throughout Australia. A large touring exhibition, the Australian Print Survey in 1963 was the culmination of these explorative years. Organised by senior curator of Australian art, Daniel Thomas, from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the exhibition was seen by both artists and the public as the official acceptance of printmaking by the art and collecting world.

Akky van Ogtrop: Printmaking as a collaborative activity started to play a crucial role in the development of artists' ideas about prints, generating a range of imaginative print projects, collaborations and co-operative ventures.

Akky van Ogtrop: So when we examine the best of post world two to printmaking in Australia and look at Australian context in general, we see that major transformations continue to happen in the culture of printmaking. These have included the advent of Indigenous printmaking, the impact of new technologies like the so-called digital revolution in the nineties and a raised awareness of Asian art and culture and a much more recent phenomenon, the impact of the zines and artist books.

Akky van Ogtrop: Since then, numerous collaborative print studios were established around Australia, becoming important sites for artistic exchange and experimentation with print. They play a critical role in supporting and stimulating the creative process and potentialities of printmaking by allowing for dynamic dialogue and exchange between artist and master printer.

Akky van Ogtrop: Today, contemporary artists are drawn to printmaking because it offers a creative partnership unlike anything else in their studio practice. And I must say that the best master printers are technicians, they're artists, they are also therapists and sometimes seemingly magicians.

Akky van Ogtrop: New-York Print Director, Jennie Gibbs, said, and I quote, "Imagining having this magical person who is there to be the midwife to your health, to your ideas, helping you to get your vision onto paper".

Akky van Ogtrop: Well, the exhibition Connection: The Artist/Masterprinter introduces to individual and collaborative practice of Basil Hall, and he's from the Basil Hall Editions, Michael Kempson, founder of Cicada Press and Ron McBurnie, founder of Monsoon Publishing. I've worked with them for many years and have grown to respect them for the sheer talent of their work, and the courses that drives them to produce work as artists printmakers and master printers.

Akky van Ogtrop: So one of the great pleasures for me putting this exhibition together was visiting Michael and Basil's studio and confer from afar with Ron who lives in Townsville ... Selecting together the works from their personal archives of artists they worked with over so many years is the story of facilitating and showing that a collaboration between an artist and master printer can create something very exciting.

Akky van Ogtrop: Recognising that the works of their own art practice is a natural extension of their existing practices they have no problem in reconciling the very nature of the creative process, working with various mediums, drawings, watercolour and prints, they engage and combine the two different artistic conversations and see their own work as quite separate from the work they create with other artists.

Akky van Ogtrop: I believe that there is an intrinsic appreciation of printmaking as a true mastery of fine arts. Prints ... never forget that prints have visual as well as tactile qualities. We are not allowed to touch the unframed prints, by the way ... but they are very textural. I want to acknowledge their dedication and innovative approach to printmaking. Basil, Ron and Michael have asserted a profound impact on Australian printmaking.

Akky van Ogtrop: I also want to thank you, Brian, for letting me put this exhibition together...terrific ... and being back in Cowra is terrific and I also want to have a special thanks to the best installation team ... there's only one here...to the staff and volunteers...thank you, thank you. And with these thank you's I'm very happy to open this exhibition and you'd better go and enjoy the works of art. Thank you. [applause] [cross talking]

Brian Langer: So... we have the three artist/printmakers come up here. [cross talk]

Brian Langer: So the idea of this is to have a bit of an overview of the exhibition and also the people have a chance to speak to individual printmakers or the group if you like. I mean, I presume you all know each other very well and there's been a lot of water under the bridge, so to speak, in terms of your careers and what's been happening cause you've been going back to the 1970's. [inaudible] [laughter]

Brian Langer: But the amazing thing is you've all set up these fantastic studios. I'm...I mean I've come across all of your studio works from over the years and different exhibitions you've had not just in Cowra but other galleries where I've been through. And I've always been amazed by the quality and the type of works that you can actually put together, the studio side of it. But in terms of your own work I've not had very much experience with that. So that might be something where we can start. Who would like to [inaudible]

Michael Kempson: Ron would you like to start?

Ron McBurnie: Yeah. Can you frame the question? [cross talking]

Brian Langer: Well ... what's enabled you to ... I mean were you an artist before a printmaker, it all seen as part of the process... [cross talk]

Ron McBurnie: Yeah. Yeah. So my. My major goal was painting in my minor was printmaking. So I had a bit of a knowledge of that. mmm I guess I'm always, always made work and in certain times I've printed a lot of work for different people. I was involved at the university where I taught, James Cook, with the principal [?] Lyrebird Press, and I worked for about 13 years with Dr. Tate Adams, who was initially from Melbourne, and he taught at RMIT.

Ron McBurnie: So he came up and retired in Townsville and then we started to publish artist books. And I think there's a couple of little artist books in the other room that we made. So a lot of my experience in printing became ... editioning works for the ... the artist books that we were making.

Ron McBurnie: And then it wasn't till wasn't till Lyrebird finished that I started to do more of what I wanted to do and work with artists who were my friends or ... I've now ... I've never taken it too seriously as far as a profession. I'm taking my ... my art that I make seriously, but the printing, I'll just work with people I love to work with and and feel like I'm having a lot of fun with them and and making something really interesting. And ... yeah, so that's me ... so part of the time I do printing with other people and part of the time I'm just in the studio on my own.

Michael Kempson: That was Ron McBurnie if you didn't know... that's Ron. Michael's my name and Basil if you don't know us.

Michael Kempson: I did my schooling in Orange ... just up the road. So I'm very familiar with Cowra in the sense of... as a bloke I would get my head bashed in playing football here and the same with cricket. So I went to study Fine Arts in Sydney ... once I got out of high school. And one of the mediums that resonated with me was printmaking. And I don't know if you know about printmaking or not. I'll give you a break ... a brief breakdown.

Michael Kempson: But it's it's a discipline that is philosophically accessible to people because we're making images in multiple form using a series of printmaking technologies, some current, some long since superseded. And ... but each of the mediums have beautiful qualities to them, but require specific technical knowledge to be articulate in the medium.

Michael Kempson: And when I was studying, I would go into a gallery called Stadia Graphics, where Akky ... quite sternly held court. No, no, no, no, no, no. But she ... she very kindly let me leaf through all of the portfolios and I would be there regularly as a printmaking student ... connecting with what was currently happening. Sadly we don't sort of have a gallery like that in Sydney anymore. But ... mm ... But, but that was a really good learning experience, being exposed to quality work.

Michael Kempson: I got to know Basil, professionally, through the work that he was involved in ... in Canberra with Studio One and other iterations which he no doubt will talk about. And of course Ron, through mutual friends, but the magnificent work that he was doing, not just his own work, but he was working with other other artists up there.

Michael Kempson: So I thought, how can I leverage ... because I was working in academe, how can I leverage the beautiful experience that I love of making prints ... in an educational context? So when I went to work at a university called UNSW, they were sort of crying out for some direction in terms of their printmaking. So I set up what was ... we called Cicada Press.

Michael Kempson: Living in Orange we used to get a lot of cicadas, but they were the greengrocers, I don't know if you know, the green ones. And very rarely would you get black ones which are ... I don't know if you know the name of them, they're called Black Prince. And we like making lots of black prints in printmaking. So we called ourselves Cicada Press from this moment [cross talk] like my work very bad puns.

Michael Kempson: But ... but we started involving artists into the studio and we aligned with ... with courses, so our students had the opportunity to meet notable artists coming in and working. Very diverse range of artists. We worked with over 250 different arts, national and international standing.

Michael Kempson: And so there's one thing being content with printing your own work, but there's another thing printing for other people, and particularly working through me and I'm a bit of a demanding taskmaster. So they had to print at the top of their game and that was a fantastic learning experience for all the students who came through that process.

Michael Kempson: And any making that you were involved with always comes back and informs you and informs your practice. So the work, to answer your question, Brian, the work that I do is about what's happening in my life. And sometimes obliquely, but it's always relevant to what I'm interested in ... what I'm doing. So I'm very happy to talk to anyone who might have questions about what's happening in the work, if the clues that the title don't offers us those solutions. Basil.

Basil Hall: Well, I'm Basil Hall ... last night ... the last speech I gave was at my mother's funeral last night. So it's a bit of a jump. I wasn't expecting this. I guess that's wrong. I'm not after sympathy, it's just rather a weird jump from one thing to the other. And some of the people who are there are having to listen to me again. Sorry, guys.

Basil Hall: I came to printmaking when I saw Jorg Schmeizer's work first. Wonderful German printmaker who was brought out here to teach at the Canberra School of Art and had work at Stadia Graphics. So Akky knows him from when he first arrived in Australia. I saw a few of his prints in Canberra in the seventies and started collecting them.

Basil Hall: And I just thought, I want to do this. I went off and became a school teacher first though, and did a bit of that, became an art teacher, never having done any HSC art. And so madly going to TAFE the night before learning how to do it, then going back and teaching the next day and some of that was printmaking. So, it's a hell of a way to learn.

Basil Hall: But I finally got to Canberra School of Art and worked with Jorg Schmeizer and ... did four year course with him. And he was an extraordinary technician ... back in the days when art school involved five days a week, staff being there whole time, learning your craft. And Peter Haynes is here somewhere. He was trying to teach us some art history, but mostly it was about making your being in your area and learning the craft of printmaking. So I feel we got pretty thorough grounding at that stage.

Basil Hall: Anyway, during that course, I started helping Jorg print some of his work and he needed a couple of extra pairs of hands and so a couple of us would take the red or the yellow plate and he would do the key plate, the blue plate, and if I ever write an autobiography it will probably be called Orange Hands and ... because an awful lot of the first prints I did over the first twenty years would being the orange hands for Jorg's ... Jorg's prints.

Basil Hall: I didn't bring a ... or we didn't choose a print of his for the show because I feel I never collaborated with him ... he was the ... he was the artist and I was just the printer. I wasn't helping him in the making of the image or discussing it with him. I simply was a pair of hands and, you know, sort of carry on what I'm saying. You know, that job can vary from being a simple technician of a pair of hands right through to being very much part of the making of the work ... involved in the discussions and the decision making and all that.

Basil Hall: So yeah, I started working for Jorg and then graduated to a studio in Canberra called Studio One, which I ran for ten years. And during that time I came across this guy and printed a print for him and that would be seen around the corner [laughter] as a beautiful little print called Putting Out The Cat which strayed too close to the fire, which had a lot of problems, and that's around the corner there.

Basil Hall: Anyway, yeah ... so we ... yeah ... worked there for ten years and I just one day saw a job in the ... in Darwin advertised. They wanted someone to go up to the university in Darwin and run the printmaking program there.

Basil Hall: But the real ... the attract, the bit that attracted me about that job was the chance to operate a printmaking workshop in the uni, very much like the model that you've described ... at Cicada. Only the difference here was that we are, you know, in Darwin, of course, right in the middle of Indigenous Australia and the access to ... while in the end up to 50 different communities would work with right across the top and Central Australia over those years.

Basil Hall: So I had six terrific years of the uni trying to do that, trying teaching at the same time. All with my own equipment because they didn't put any money into the program and they just wanted it to happen and we had to pay ourselves out of what we were earning from our work in [inaudible]. So I wasn't, it wasn't a really good job, but it was more highly paid than the one I'd had in Canberra. Anyway, I did that.

Basil Hall: Then I started my own business, Basil Hall Editions, which I've been running for 20 years. I've worked with all sorts of people. I've never, never sought out the famous ones necessarily. I much prefer to work with, as you said Ron, you know, working with friends and people who's working you like and going along the journey with them.

Basil Hall: So rather than just working with the very best. And so they'll be painters and sculptors and photographers and weavers and all sorts of people with all sorts of skills. And the challenge really is just to find a way for them to get into this wonderful medium of ours and using the skills that they have, not imparting the skills that we have. And that's the trick.

Basil Hall: And, you know, Michael ... Michael's worked with indigenous artists too in Central Australia and elsewhere. And it's it's a it's an interesting collaboration. It's very different because you're working with people that have very different skills to you and you're trying to get really beautiful prints out of them without trying to necessarily be a missionary and convert them to, you know, the fine art of printmaking. They've got a beautiful painting skills already through whatever one happens to be.

Basil Hall: So anyway, in this show, terrific examples of the tip of the iceberg for all three of us and what we've done in our own work. And my case very rarely, and I'm at the beginning and end of my career so far [cross talk] ... of finally did something new [laughter] But there's a big ... I noticed when Akky had finished choosing all the work that there was some of my work from the eighties and some of my work from 2020. And a big block of work was stuff I'd done for other people in the middle. And that's kind of the way my career's gone. [cross talk]

Akky van Ogtrop: No, no, I don't want to grill. But what is so interesting is working with you in ... in ... in that I was allowed in your studios. I mean, sort of allowed, but the way you all three treated it in a different way. That was interesting and told me a lot of what to select from their own work especially I think. Because you see so many of your master printer work. And so I'm more familiar with that.

Akky van Ogtrop: And as I said, with Number One and Number Two, there is quite ... very special to have the possibility to show that as a new work, sort of new work, isn't it? And ... this ..Ron and you Michael it that I don't know how to explain it because you feel ... well, first of all, also, I must say that in principle they selected the artists they really want to show, isn't it? And if I disagreed, then especially Michael had a lot to say about it

Michael Kempson: I was difficult, I was difficult. I must agree ... [laughter] ... or I was a lot more confrontational with what I wanted to put in ...

Akky van Ogtrop: Well, but I survived. As you can see, I'm very proud that I was allowed to put this exhibition together with you three who are absolutely ... think are the best. And actually, I do love you all three. [applause]

Brian Langer: Any questions from the floor there ...

Michael Kempson: We can wander around if you like and talk in front of work. Yeah, yeah. Let him off the hook. I can tell ...

Ron McBurnie: ... that was being made at the time, and this is amazing conifer was in that garden area, so I spent a lot of time drawing that tree. I did a smaller work about half size, and then I did that work when I got back to the studio.

Ron McBurnie: em ... the ... the big rock and the work over there on the right, are both from a residency in Mackay, which is in North Queensland. And so the residency was based on people suggesting places that I should actually go and draw and paint in the Mackay region. So it was all sent to me via, I don't know, Facebook or something like that. And then I turn up to these places and work. And so these are examples of some of the places that were suggested to me.

Ron McBurnie: These works here, the two etchings, a little bit earlier, but they relate to my interest in Samuel Palmer and the group called the Ancients, which were a British group of artists that sort of produced work in the latter part of the 1800's and then had followers. So there are all of the followers of Palmer, and I've become one of the more contemporary followers of Palmer. So every year or so I do more of these romantic etchings, and I've been doing these now for about 30 years. So these are two examples of the Palmeresque works that I have done.

Michael Kempson: I suppose I'll limit my conversation to the works that I'm responsible for within this space and maybe, if our attention spans are still functioning, we'll traverse next door ... I think I've got one work ... a big work that you guys are staring at on the other side there, via a wonderful printer who I have massive respect for, Michael Callaghan. Very much a political artist who did remarkable work early in his career, creating concrete poetry and using the slogans of the Vietnam War. So a lot of text within the work.

Michael Kempson: A lot of sort of social justice screen printed work that I found very powerful. And I'm sort of interested in the sort of undercurrent of those issues within the work. And he came to me ... not long before he passed away and wanted to do some work. And it was a real honour to work with someone who you've got massive respect for. And I'm got massive respect for both Ron and Basil as well. So I'm very happy to make prints with you too if you're interested.

Michael Kempson: But Michael's work was about the Iraq war, and then it is a digital work of which I don't necessarily traverse. I struggle with turning the computers on, let alone dealing with them. But we have a digital component, an intaglio component and a print making component of the work. And it talks about the ... the horrors of that conflict, but also what civilians living in war zones have to have to deal with. So I really find Michael's work and himself an inspiring presence.

Michael Kempson: The other work that I think we've got in here is a work by Martha McDonald Napaltjarri and Martha's from a community called Papunya in Central Australia, about 300k's north west of Alice Springs. A very famous community because its the home of the Western desert art movement... and a community that has had strong working traditions since the seventies, the early seventies, with the early boards that were painted there.

Michael Kempson: I was asked by an academic at UNSW to .. to ... to develop some work for the community to raise funds to open a new art centre. There was no arts centre for this very famous community. So we went and made works with the artist Martha, whose father was Shorty Lungkata ... Shorty was one of the original Papunya painters and he's very famous for three waterhole...claypan works, you know ... she painted her father's country.

Michael Kempson: And this is her very first etching and it's a gobsmacking ... tour de force of ... of print making for someone who's whose grasp of English was her fifth language. In the Papunya community where so many language groups were forced to live together, some times with a degree of antipathy ... You know, it's it's a remarkable achievement for ... for a community where everyone sings, everyone dances and everyone makes work. And it's the sort of community I think we could learn a lot from.

Michael Kempson: But I'll pass over to you Basil. You've got a lot of stuff in here as well, including your own work ...

Akky van Ogtrop: or do you want to go in? You're want to. It's up to you ...

Michael Kempson: So I just sorry, Guy Warren as well ...

Basil Hall: Ah, here's the crossover. Oh well, yeah, there's a couple of mine there and a couple over there that I've printed. Yeah these ... these on either side of Michael's, they are examples of work in other communities, Yirrkala on the left and Peppimenarti on the right. So as I say, I've been very fortunate to get out to an awful lot of different places to work and being based in Darwin made that easy. Nowadays based in Canberra is a little bit further to go, but I still do three or four trips a year and that gives me a hell of a lot on printing to do. No staff anymore. So it's just me.

Basil Hall: And well I have just started with a young Aboriginal assistant which is really nice. Her dad was the first I printmaker who ever made etchings ... sorry linocuts in Australia. So Kevin Gilbert, the very first. And we printed some old blocks of his that have just been discovered in a suitcase in a kennel out in the country ... Condoblin. And so, you know, really exciting when you come across these really old things and I get a chance to print them.

Basil Hall: Anyway, these two came ... were part of a project really called the Custodians. We had ten fantastic artists from across the country ... selected them and paid them to do their plates. And then we all shared in the proceeds of sales and eventually the printers get paid, once things sell.

Basil Hall: And you have to make your money twice in this business. You've got to do all the work and then you're going to sell it ... having paid printers and all the costs on the way through. But when you're working with people like this all comes back in spades. And Gulumbu (Yunupingu), quite extraordinary artists and Regina (Pilawuk) as well.

Basil Hall: She's a weaver the one over on the right there. So we try to devise a system where she could work with her favourite brush, when she paints, use a sort of scrubby old brush that leaves a nice thick mark and then tails out to become a thin one. And because of her weaving as well, because we wanted to do something that would hint of the warp and the weft. So of course we are going to paint one first and then you etch that deeply then you paint across it and etch that deeply and you get this wonderful feeling of three dimensionality.

Basil Hall: Same technique in a way used in Gulumbu's. There's three or four layers there. And she starts by painting the white, the white stars. And their etched quite deeply around. And then she adds the next layer and then the next. Her work's .. all over the ceiling of the fantastic museum in Paris, the Musee du Quai Branly, that's decorated with those very stars.

Michael Kempson: three, three, sorry to [inaudible] three plates?

Basil Hall: Ah I think so. It's hard. It's hard to use later to remember how you did it. I always love to ask you how that one happened because I've looked at that a lot and ...

Michael Kempson: basically just sticks. [cross talk]

Basil Hall: ... yeah, I know how to make the marks, but I don't know how you make the print. [laughter] It is extraordinary ...

Akky van Ogtrop: It always comes back to the technician. [cross talk]

Michael Kempson: I did play some role.

Basil Hall: How do I know how you get them to do what you want ... [laughter]

Akky van Ogtrop: Can I just show you how printmakers look at work. No, no, no. I just showing ...

Michael Kempson: you're going to show ...

Akky van Ogtrop: I'm now printmaker and they want to look at how it's been made.

Basil Hall: There should be nose marks all over by the end of the show.

Michael Kempson: Yeah ... you do a good impersonation ...

Basil Hall: I'll just very briefly point in something of mine, because they're very rare things these. As I say I have made ... very unlike these two guys ... I haven't had a ... an exhibiting career. You know, I showed a few things early on when I left art school and then I started printing for other people. And I really haven't done a lot along the way.

Akky van Ogtrop: Print Council ...

Basil Hall: So yeah, and that was awful. [laughter] I mean, I hope nobody's seen that. [laughter] Anyway, just yeah, the last four or five years I've started again and I thought just to make things interesting, in the last year I've used the technique that we absolutely hated at art school, which was called collograph, which by the nature of the word sort of led you to believe that you made these blocks by sticking things on to other surfaces and inking them up.

Basil Hall: And we don't build up these great, thick, ugly looking blocks made of twigs and bicycle sprockets and so on. And then they were hell to ink up and hell to print. So we did that, you know, for a few weeks at art school and then decided never again. I know I told you this.

Basil Hall: But I thought I'd have a go at it again because I'd seen some other things more recently, which were a lot more subtle. And basically these these are made on sheets of matt board and just ordinary cardboard from the framer, which costs you nothing as opposed to a piece of zinc that size, which cost you $400. And you could get quite a lot of nice marks out of just painting on the cardboard, cutting into it ... doing whatever you like to the surface it. And if you are going to stick anything on, just make it thinner of than a bicycle sprocket.

Basil Hall: So my trees are all about ... my trees are historians. It's interesting that we've all got trees near Michael's got some beautiful bonsai'd trees through here and Ron's talked about his tree here. So we're obviously all ... all interested in them.

Basil Hall: These two trees are like historians and I've got a series of these. The trees ... they've seen an awful lot over the years that I've seen a lot more than we have. Some of them have been here for, you know, a lot longer thanthe ... the invading group.

Basil Hall: And so one of our ... one of the trees there, of course, is representative of pre-contact Aboriginal culture, First Nations culture on the left as the the little no 1 ... hints that up the top.

Basil Hall: So that one there is, yeah ... based on the scar tree or the one on the right is the one taken from the tree that ... Burke and Wills ... search party marked. So that the white and the black history ... but of course trees also record our floods and fires and goodness knows what.

Basil Hall: There's a whole series there that all done on a humble piece of cardboard with a glue brush and a little knife. And I'm running workshops in that, too. And I'm learning a heap as I go along, because these clever people come along and you give them a little trick. And they go away, they do really good stuff with it. And I think you alluded to that two way thing. I think I mean, as teachers, we just learn so much every time we have to give credit to people around us or an artist to work with. That's enough for me ... [laughter]

Ron McBurnie: ... [cross talk] just mention a couple of the people that I work with here. The guy on the right, he's a guy called Vince Bray and he's now 87 and he was a lift operator in Mount Isa Mines for 26 years. And the one on the left was a sort of a dud print that I said, Oh, maybe you could hand colour it. So, he's sort of hand coloured one on the left and gave it to me as a gift. And we've included that.

Ron McBurnie: But he works on perspex and he uses dremel tool on perspex and just carves into it. And we've, we've made maybe 30 or 40 prints like the one on the right, the black and white one on the right, and he just loves to do them. His sight's is going, unfortunately. So the marks are becoming broader and broader each time we work together. But we still ... we still ... we just did a large one, a metre and a half one which we sort of both store under our beds because I don't think we've got any places to put these really big prints.

Ron McBurnie: The person on the left is June Tupicoff, and there ... two mezzotints that we worked on together. I think the one on the far left was just a proof that Jim didn't like. But I kept a copy of anyway because I quite liked it. And the one on the right was when we editioned.

Ron McBurnie: And the mezzotint is made with a thing called a rocker and it has various ... it's a curved implement and it has very tiny teeth on it. And you rock the rocker back and forth on a plate on a piece of metal, in different directions until the whole of the plate is textured, has a fine tooth all over it. And then you scrape back into that texture to reveal the ... the ... the metal and smooth the metal down. So you're working almost like working with a white pastel into black paper. So that's an example of Jim's ... a couple of mezzotint plates that she worked on

Akky van Ogtrop: and some beautiful. Okay, right...

Ron McBurnie: ... The Boy Who Tried to Kiss Himself and the Baldessin book. And both of those books were made when I was working with Tate Adams and the Lyrebird Press, so quite a while ago. The Baldessin book was made after George died.

Ron McBurnie: But Tate was always ... speaking very highly of George. And George was ... George Baldessin was one of Tate Adams' great friends in Melbourne. And so as a homage to George, we decided to make a book of five of his etchings and with his ... with permission of Tess Baldessin, Tate designed this particular book. And I printed the etchings in Melbourne with Penny Moynihan [?], who was printing some of the estate editions at that time.

Ron McBurnie: The other little book here is a book that I did to pander to my boys who were about eight and ten at the time, and it's just a little book called The Boy Who Tried to Kiss Himself, in which a little boy starts to investigate kissing things from the cat, to the dog, to ... a chair, to his own cheek and so on. So the book goes on and develops, and eventually someone kisses him and he thinks that's right. So that was that little book.

Ron McBurnie: Oh yeah ...this work is a special work, I guess, for Akky and Joppie, in that this is the house that they lived in, Castlecraig in Sydney, and their dog Sam is on the left foreground, so it's a sort of a commission in a way of the house at Castlecraig.

Ron McBurnie: And so I tried to get a special time of the day, which was the sort of late afternoon when I would sit outside and watch the sunset ... sort of over the hill. And it's nice to see because it for me, it also brings back my memory of going and staying at Castlecraig and hopefully for Akky and Joppie a memory of the house that they once owned. [cross talk] [inaudible]

Ron McBurnie: ah ... It's not now ... it's ... I have to actually reverse the image because I wanted it to be in the same direction as the house otherwise it would look a bit odd. And that's another thing. As Basil just mentioned ... you're probably aware that when one does an etching the image is reversed.

Ron McBurnie: So if you ... if you're going to do a landscape, where the landscape will look the correct way, you need to reverse the image, or be aware that the image is going to be reversed. And also, if you're doing text, if you putting text in, you've got to remember that the text will be reversed. And to drive that, the steering wheel on the

Akky van Ogtrop: Jorg Schmeisser didn't ...

Ron McBurnie: the steering wheel on the car will be reversed as well. So there's all sorts of things you have to remember.

Basil Hall: Oh, I forgot ... I forgot that The other day. I was enjoying myself so much doing a collograph. And I cut the whole thing the right ... after 40 years of ...

Michael Kempson: how many prints have you made? [laughter] [cross talk]

Michael Kempson: How are we off for time?

Akky van Ogtrop: mm, yeah it depends on how ... [cross talk]

Michael Kempson: I'll go through it very quickly, ok so ... [laughter] [cross talk]

Michael Kempson: One of the very etchings that I made at art school in '81. And even then I was making very bad puns and doing things about things in my life. So this was called a father figure, and my father was the father. If you're if you get the gist of high ... high church Anglicans.

Michael Kempson: Ian Grant, a wonderful painter of landscapes ... even when they’re in the dark ... two beautiful etchings by Elisabeth Cummings, as I sort of reinforced what a pleasure it has been to work with Elizabeth. Wonderful catalogue of marks. And just to watch her looking at a sketch book and then she'll put it away and from that memory, conjure ... conjure the image. So it's always breathtaking to see it.

Michael Kempson: This is a work ... I often like to work in collaboration with artists, even in my own practice. And this is ... I want to acknowledge Matthew Tome who's a friend, a painter, very different practice. And we did an exhibition that toured around regional galleries called A Little Respect. And this was one of the series called ...that was called Prime Ministers of Australia, and this was done ... this is the time of ... of John Howard. So it sort of chronicled the political persuasion of the Prime Minister and the foibles of their time in power.

Michael Kempson: So you couldn't not reference Pauline Hanson and you couldn't not reference cricket, and particularly the backward defensive stroke, which was the most defensive stroke when playing cricket, gun buy backs, Menzies, or the ghost of Menzies and the two rivals that sought the next position of power in the government, and that was Abbott and Costello. In fact the real Abbott and Costello.

Michael Kempson: And behind us there ... I think that's ... oh sorry ... we've got a Euan MacLeod there based on a trip to Antarctica. And the boat is a very resonant motif in Euan's practice. And of course his work is about a ethereal figures traversing through landscapes.

Michael Kempson: And the last thing we do is a lithograph and I ... I can do lithography but I got the help of a student in the making of this horse image by Noel McKenna. And the student's name was Jason Phu. And Jason developed a really good relationship with Noel. Noel gave him opportunities. And Jason's gone, I think he won the Sulman Prize one year and has gone on to do really amazing things.

Michael Kempson: Because it reinforced the value of what Cicada Press offered to students is developing and establishing networks with artists, getting opportunities and pursuing their own career ... careers, where they tell their own stories through a range of media about how they can change their world. Basil maybe we finish with you.

Basil Hall: This is like a walk in the past in here. This was at the bottom of the drawer [laughter] as Akky came through the studio. So these two ... these two here I did when I was at art school. mm I did a whole series of big lithographs based on the building of Parliament House, because that was the biggest single thing going on in Canberra at the time.

Basil Hall: And as far as I know, I was the only artist drawing it, which is really weird because when the harbour bridge was going up, there were artists everywhere, painting it and drawing it, and making linocuts of it. But although that was photographed extensively as it was being built, I think I was the only artist drawing it and all the architects bought these. So this is the only surviving pair of that one.

Basil Hall: And it only came into my possession because somebody gave it back to me. [laughter] 30 years later, she said, Look, we never got this on the wall that's still on the tube. So I swapped to something else and got these back. So that's a pair of lithographs and done on the spot.

Basil Hall: This one here is the first commission I ever had for another artist. In 1985, Klaus Mode who was an amazing glass artist, gave me this full colour transparency and said, Can you make print of that? And so 32 colours later and a lot of hand cutting. I did the screenprint for him and again, I was a student at the time, so I was just blown away at being given this opportunity.

Basil Hall: There's somebody over there who was a student with me at the time, Susan. You know, you get this opportunity when you're a second year student or whatever is incredible. And I look at it now because it lives in that bedroom and I still don't know how I did it. I don't think I could do it now. I think sometimes you you rise above yourself when you're given an opportunity. So although it's only a picture of somebody's plate, I'm really proud of it, technically.

Basil Hall: That's an oldie, I just ... the only story, its an old etching of mine. And ... the only story I'll tell is that I enterred in the Warrnambool Print Prize once and that was rejected. [laughter] And then I entered that in the 1st Kochi International Print Prize in Japan, and it was accepted somehow [laughter] I don't get it, its all a lottery. [laughter]

Basil Hall: Otherwise the other pieces there, the three on the end there... are other beautiful things that ... I've done with some of these extraordinary First Nations artists and I'm just blown away by the skills. And as I say, if there's any skill that we bring to bear, it's just making sure that they have a tool and a situation where they feel comfortable and can do their thing.

Basil Hall: So the dots on the far end there, you know, to get her to get into the rhythm of making that print, such that she can ... s ... sing the song and see the story and get into that ... that creative state is the challenge to the printmaker.

Basil Hall: You give her a pot of sticky bitumen and you get her to paint on a plate. It just doesn't work because the stickiness of the material stops the flow. So we worked out a much more fluid way of getting her to make the marks and away she went. And it's a joy to see when they start humming the song and experiencing the story. You know, you've got ... you've got them and you know, you're going to get a top piece of work.

Basil Hall: And the other tiny prints over there. My most successful etching ever, which always comes at the beginning of your career, the one you absolutely nail and the whole edition gets sold in the first show. And then you go downhill from there. [laughter]

Basil Hall: So those two there were in the same show I printed for Ron McBurnie, and I just had to put that in cause I've always loved putting out the cat and I think was was in the same touring show. We talked Ron into being part of it and mine was in it too. So they're reunited after all these years.

Basil Hall: [inaudible] was in 1980 something ... 88. Yeah. God, and we're still alive. Anyway that's enough ...

Akky van Ogtrop: Well I think I give this one to you now, but actually, I think you are already standing ... we need a standing ovation. What you heard today was really very special, and I'm very glad actually that its all recorded as well ... because this is historical. Thank you, Basil. Thank you, Ron. And where's that ... thank you Michael. [applause].

Brian Langer: Thank you Akky ... [inaudible] fantastic. We don't have very many opportunities to invite artists to Cowra. So when they do come in, always enjoy these sort of opportunities. I'm just ... [cross talk]. I just want to thank everybody concerned with the gallery during this twelve months. This is our end of year exhibition.

Brian Langer: So thank you to the staff, the volunteers [applause] and the Advisory Committee who are working very closely in the operation of the gallery, to the Councillors and to the Council for their ongoing support. We have one of the Councillors here today, Sharon is here ... thank you Sharon for your [inaudible]

Walk through the exhibition

Credits

Curator: Akky van Ogtrop

Artists: Basil Hall, Ron McBurnie, Micheal Kempson

Gallery Director: Brian Langer

Camera operator: Dr. Bob Jansen

Editor: Dr Bob Jansen

Technical & assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen