“select a story, it can be a short story or a shortened story… a folk tale, a piece of oral history. you may have another idea?
create 12 drawings retelling the story in visual form only (you can use text as a medium if you want to eg collage, concrete poem etc)
the images need to “hold together” as in a book illustration or a group of images to be viewed as a series or whole.
try to experiment with the method of representation, be inventive, dont fall back on cliched or well known forms (particularly in the case of fairy/folk tales). try updating a folk tale or drawing it in a modern style or vice versa.
explore mediums and supports, you might use pen and ink, washes, oilstick, charcoal etc or combinations of the above, but remember they need to work together as a whole.
the work doesnt need to be framed or professionally bound as long as you can present your idea clearly.” (j. bennett feb 2011)
so…. sticking with my personally set “mapping country” directive, i’m staying close to home.
within the balnarring district in fact…
this is foxeys hangout.
in the 1930′s a fella by the name of jack johnson found his way to the peninsula after arriving in victoria on a boat from tasmania. jack worked as a fox trapper, which in the time of the great depression was a good way to fund yourself. bounties were introduced by local authorities around that time so jack was set…
jack had been referred to a landholding family, the downward’s, of the district so secured himself work and accomodation and soon had the reputation of a ‘gun’ trapper.
lou connell, a local timber worker, who amongst jack and other working men folk, gathered for tea and chats each evening at the downward’s property, claimed he could easily do better than jack at trapping foxes and so a friendly competition ensued.
the gathering men decided upon a local, large eucalyptus tree that grew at the junction of the road to balnarring and the road to “the hills” on which to display each man’s catch.
signs were erected and the site became known as “foxeys hangout”…
the story continues and there is confusion about the facts that surround the mystery, but the facts remain that in 1946, jack was brutally murdered by trevor mckenzie, a man who noted on court documents, his occupation as “tailor” but who moved to the balnarring district to “straighten up” and who, while here, worked as a timber worker.
there is speculation surrounding the nature of jack and mckenzie’s relationship, but it is suggested that whilst living as jack’s housemate, mckenzie stole from jack and that the murder is the result of an argument over food and money.
jack’s body was not found for many days and it was in fact, mckenzie who alerted police by ringing a melbourne police officer and confessing to the murder. jack’s body was found 6 days after his death, hidden under a pile of “farm rubbish”, evidently having been shot numerous times by a shot gun and viciously attacked with an axe. jack did not die gently.
thanks to a medical report suggesting “insanity” and the jury’s plea for mercy, mckenzie, who had previously been sentenced to death, was sent to jail for life and his story disappeared from memory.
jack, however, lives on…
foxeys hangout remains today, the skeleton of an old, locally significant eucalyptus tree, at the intersection of tubbarubba and balnarring roads with physical fox like hanging reminders of the life of a fox trapper, the life of a local legend.
my sketches are preliminary… im hoping to combine a number of mediums to produce my visual story…
references:- “foxeys hangout” cathy gowdie, “the argus” newspaper articles circa 1946
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