.png)
No.47. in my series of short stories
For one season I worked at the Kailis Fisheries, in Port Denison on the Western Australian coast and this painting was done of an old house ruin and it was somewhere around the Greenough flats. I painted it 57 years ago when I was 17 and it was painted in acrylic. We would often explore the old ruins in any town we went through as I always would draw and paint old buildings.
My goodness after writing all these blogs I am just realising how much I got around in the 1960's. My best friend often travelled with me to different jobs and this time we both were employed by Kailis Fisheries. Once again we packed the Mark 2 Ford Zephyr and headed up the coast to our new employment. I was hired as a crayfish grader to size up the crayfish for local consumption or for export. We were allowed to keep the marked, broken, cracked, or crappy looking crayfish for our own consumption, so the best ones were conveniently cracked under the stainless work sorting bench so we could eat them with a few beers on the beach. 13 factory girls were supplied accomodation in a house at Port Denison just out of Dongara the house was pretty much a dump of a place but a load of fun. As usual I painted pictures all over our bedroom walls to liven the place up a bit. Other girls asked me to do their rooms so the place ended up my second art gallery, my first being my own bedroom walls as a child. Over the road from the house was the beach which permanently had a large drum for us to boil up the crays of an evening. The fisherman the factory workers and local girls and boys would have a feed while we listened to music danced and sang for hours. If it was hot enough we would jump or dive and swim off the Port Denison jetty late into the night.
A little further up the coast past Dongara you will find the "Leaning Trees of Greenough."
I painted these trees into so many of my art works
These trees are a eucalyptus (sometimes called tuarts) they appear to defy gravity by growing at a significant angle. The unique phenomenon is thought to be caused by the prevailing strong winds that blow through the region, forcing the trees to grow in a slanted or leaning manner. These trees are a tourist attraction and can be easily viewed on the Brand Highway when you are passing through the Greenough Flats, on your way up the North West coast of Western Australia.
Another piece of useless information but the trees are pretty awesome.