I was born in Casino and lived there until I was about nine. In between those years Mum travelled with seasonal work and I remember going to school in Robinvale near Mildura. Mum was working on the grapes down there. My Dad lived on a farm near Tenterfield out on the Mole River and I went to Mingoola School for a stint. We ended up staying in Tenterfield which is where I finished high school. It was cold in Winter. We were experts in making fires. Sometimes we’d have to wait for the water to come through the frozen taps.
I came back to Casino which is where Mum’s brothers and sisters live. I’m the middle child of three. My Mum is Aboriginal and my father was an Italian man who came out to Australia on his own and bought a farm working with lucerne and cattle. I lost my Dad about 10 years ago. My Mum met him when she was working picking tobacco. The main work then was either grapes, tobacco or cotton. Mum did a couple of stints Moree way as well.
I’ve never been to Italy but I met a few of Dad’s family when they came across to visit. My siblings and I had different fathers and I was probably the one who had the most contact with my Dad. He would pick me up for weekends and sometimes I’d take a couple of cousins or some friends. It was really lovely. He spoke most evenings on the phone to his family in Italy but lived in solitude the whole time he was here.
As a child, I’ve always been creative. I loved to draw and my first tools of the trade were textas, pencils and pens. I’ve always had a creative mind and I’d say I’m the uncoordinated child given that both my brother and sister are way more sporty. I got the creative gene, not the athletic gene.
In high school I loved clothing and fashion. I’d get a bit of pocket money and buy Dolly and Girlfriend mags, Cleo and Cosmopolitan when I was a bit older. My Mum always bought my clothes to a certain point. I remember one time she bought me a white dress with black polka dots to wear to a blue light disco. It was in that time when rah rah skirts were in. It had a straight skirt with a bubble skirt over the top and and a singlet top and I loved it. My sister and Mum had good style.
It was a big shift when we first moved to Tenterfield from Casino. I have 54 first cousins so from my early years I’ve always been surrounded by family. You come to a new town and you have to start again. I went to Sir Henry Parks Public School and I ended up finding my little group of good friends. There weren’t many Aboriginal kids in the school, maybe two or three. My friends were Kylie Blewitt, Greg Pilgrim, the doctor’s son who was from a rich family but he’d hang around the black fellas. It was always hard when we’d spend a weekend in Casino then home to Tenterfield. I’d fret for a while missing all my family.
I was a studious kid, good at Maths, I fared well in English but didn’t think I was good at it. I loved the Arts. My Year 12 electives were Visual Arts, Textiles and Design, Geography and Natural Environment. I came third in Year 12, I won a number of art comps and got in the top 10% in NSW. My Mum used to run an Aboriginal homework centre after school so we’d go there twice a week. I liked education.
I left school and enrolled and was accepted in UTS Fashion Design so I spent 6 months in Sydney. That didn’t work out so I spent a couple of months in Brisbane with a cousin, back to Tenterfield and then I moved back to Casino and lived with family. Fashion was still on my mind so at 19 I did a Skillshare course in printing and designing in fabric. I then applied for Apparel Pattern Making at Lismore Tafe which is how I got to Lismore.
We moved to a unit out at Gundurimba and lived there for two years. I met my partner Ashley Moran here in Magellan St one night on the town. We started dating and he’d come up and stay. I was still at Tafe and doing some training in hospitality. I got pregnant so we moved to a unit together in Wollongbar. We had a short time in Alstonville then we bought a house in Wollongbar. The day we got the keys was the day I went into labour with our second child. Ashley was working at SCU as ground maintenance and he then got a job as the Aboriginal Heritage Officer with National parks and Wildlife.
Ashley’s Mum Lynette Moran-Roberts was working at the time at Richmond River High as the Aboriginal Education Assistant so when she was on leave I’d relieve for her. There is seven years between my first daugher Kyeoma and our son Coen and three years later we had our third child Thurston. My eldest is 30 next year.
With my first child I was working at Trinity in a permanent position for 5 years. I’ve spent almost 20 years in Education positions. I went from Aboriginal Education Assistant to Aboriginal Community Liaison Officer, a regional district position working with 50 schools across Bundjalung. I did another stint as Aboriginal Student Liaison Officer which is around Aboriginal students school attendance and I did an Encounters Fellowship. In my last job there was an opportunity to address attendance or lack of attendance with Aboriginal students. I started a little group with girls at Casino High and that led me into weaving, coming across Casino Wake up time group. I still volunteer to support and I’m a member of that group.
I decided I wanted to go from Education into Arts and I got an Encounter Scholarship with the National Museum of Australia. There was six participants and we spent almost three months away. Two weeks in Canberra looking at their large Cultural Arts institution and four weeks overseas looking at Museums and Galleries. Through that experience I realised I wanted to do my own art and weaving.
The job came up as Indigenous Arts Officer with Arts Northern Rivers which I applied for and was successful. At the same time I have been continually weaving, painting and I do ceramics as well. I’m getting back into sewing again. I was with ANR for about four years and no I’m freelancing as an artist, bit of curating and mentoring and I’m cultural advisor for an organisation I do some work for.
Right now I’m curating a show at Lismore’s Regional Gallery. It’s a touring exhibition and this is it’s third showing. It’s called the Bulaan Buruugaa Ngali Exhibition. My practise is embedded in my weaving appreciation and practice in this exhibition. Having that experience with museums and ancestral belongings, I always thought, going to those large institutions, that not many mob get to go there and see them. I always thought about access and how good it would be to make it accessible to everybody. We did a publication when I was working with ANR. The book will be available for sale with the exhibition which opens this Saturday the 13th at 1pm. It’s a beautiful way to celebrate these stories of country and also give other Artists the opportunity to let people see the work the weavers involved in the exhibition have done. We have nine Ancestral bags in the exhibition and there are 15 to 20 contemporary works created by a collective of wonderful artists.”
Lismore Regional Gallery this Saturday 1 – 4pm We weave together. Followed by a free weaving workshop from 2pm.