I am here visiting my family and have some spare hours before seeing them. I thought I would just read the book I had brought with me, to while away the time, however…more of that later.
Walking off North Terrace and into Adelaide’s State Library, a volunteer guide asks what I would like to see. “Anything about Antarctica” I say. “You are very lucky” she says, and shows me their “Treasure Wall”, just rearranged yesterday with Antarctic material from their collection. It is arranged chronlogically, starting with a 1723 French children’s book about a jouney through the poles, and finishing with maps and other publications from the time of Mawson’s expeditions. Mawson of course has strong connections with South Australia, having studied and later worked at the University of Adelaide. His fasciniation with Anratcica arose from his interest in its geological connections between with this part of Ausrlaia.
It is wonderful to see the original publications, having only read about them, or seen glossy modern reporductions of material within them. Engraved prints on ageing papers have a different tactile quality. And mostly they are larger in format than books we see today. I get a sense of their physical and conceptual significance, revealing the new world of Antarctica as observed and imagined.
The children’s book, Relation d’un voyage du Pole Arctique au Pole Antarctique par le centre du monde, was published in Paris in 1723 by Noel Pissot, who I assume was also the author. Drawing my version of the picture on the open page, of “flamboyant botany and other marvels”, I wonder if Philippe Boissonnet had this read to him as a child, and if it may have influenced his thinking of the poles as connecting with the world as a whole now.
Seeing B. T. Pouncey’s engraving of Hodge’s THE ICE ISLANDS feen the 9.th of Jan.ey 1773, “Drawn from nature”, I think of Tom Roberts’s first known sketches, made in his father’s twice-used diary when he was just eight. His drawings include several copies of Pouncy’s company logo, suggesting that Tom wanted to perfect it. I use the image of this old diary as an icon for this Log. Now I find it an interesting and unexpected Antarctic connection:
But such seems to be the nature of this research, of serendipitous connections.
I notice two black birds, in the Hodges image, that I had not seen before. Hovering ominously over the ship, they look larger, suggesting the threat to the ship of the ice bergs. I suspect I see them now because I am looking at the image in its original size. The image spreads out over two pages in this already quite large book. The feeling of whole scene is enlivened by the visible textures of the engraved lines. I see evidence of the printing process in the lines raised on the paper.
A full page illustration of two Adelie penguins, painted in a naturalistic manner, grace a page of an even larger book: a report of an expedition by Dumont D’Urville: Jules Voyage au Pole Sud ey dans ‘Ocean…Atlas Zoologie, published in Paris by Gide, 1841-1854. Above the naturalistic penguin portraits are two diagramatic, line drawings showing two views of a penguin’s beak. I get a sense of the artist’s simultaneously objective and subjective responses to these beautiful creatures. I get a sense of the fact that these are being seen, delightedly, for the first time.
Next I am led by the volunteer quide into the Mawson Centre, housed in a nearby building at the University of Adelaide’s Science Centre. Memorabilia from expeditions led by Mawson and others is kept here. I am particularly drawn to the stereoscopic photographs, taken by Hurley, Davis and others. I look at these through hand-held viewers.
Like Tony Oetterli’s contemporary stereoscopic pictures, the views look specially set up, to show foreground, middle ground and background, to take advantage of this technology. Unlike Oetterli’s scenes, these often involved people in action – manipulating equipment, climbing, and engaging with the wildlife. A surprisingly successful 3D effect was achieved of birds flying above the sea – many more than I saw in one any place looked around Antarctica. I wondered if this image, Flight of Antarctic Petrels, by T. W. E. David during the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907-09, could be taken now. Or has the number of these birds diminised since his time? After listening to marine scientist, Steve Nichol, at the Australia Antarctic Division, describe the drop in numbers of creatures living in the Southern Ocean, this would not surpise me. As he said, their lives are all interconnected.
A Puffometer intrigues me – a machine for measuring wind. I would like to know more about this.
I get talking with the Collections Manager, Mark Pharaoh, about the experiences of expeditioners in extreme environemnts, and the expressions by some of belief in Providence. Is there something about this environment, so elemental in nature, that can connect humans with forces beyond our conscious knowing?
Leaving this question for the moment, Mark directs me to the Mawson Laboratories, in another part of the university, a vast room full of wooden display cases, each with glass tops, and glass-topped drawers beneath. Treasures collected from all round the world, but mainly South Australia and Antarctica, chart the history of the earth and its creatures, including us. One of Mawson’s original sleds is mounted on one wall, and maps and photgraphs surround the others.
One photo shows an Antarctic rock slab lined by smaller rocks scraping over it within some long-gone glacier – a very slow drawing of invisible process…lines to animate.
An ancient human hand as engraved a wooly mamoth tusk with an image of that beast, long gone, like the glacier.
Wind-sculpted rocks – or ventifacts – are shapes to animate, suggesting the force of katabatics.
Finally I revisit the Adelade Museum, where last time I was here I had noticed a golliwog lurking within the life-sized replica of Mawson’s Hut. Mark had told me a story about this item. It is a Russian doll, possibly given to Mawson by the ballerina, Anna Pavolva. I drew the doll and noticed that the suit it wears resembles one that Mawson was photographed wearing. I can suggest the connection with Pavolva by having the golliwog dance.
At last I get to read the book I had brought along to read: David Bhom’s On Creativity. I am delighted, but not surprised now, to find a Polar connection in the Preface, written by the native American Indian scholar, Leroy Little Bear:
One is not limited to focusing on the immediate surroundings but takes in everything, from the local surroundings to the distant horizon. In the process of surfing the flux, one takes in and experiences all different combinations of energy waves. It begins to look abstract not unlike an abstract piece of art but full of motion and movement. Visually, the dance of the energy waves is elegant and beautiful, similar to the dancing of the northern lights.
I have seen the southern lights – the aurora australias – and been touched in ways I am now more able to intuitively understand, and recognise in the words and images of others. The lights I saw in Antarctica are like those I have dreamed of when I was in my early 20’s. In the dream I am painting a scene, and yet somehow the scene is painting itself, including me as a small part of it. I feel in perfect harmony with what I am experiencing, and yet it is very difficult to write or talk about.