I write this post from the final day of the exhibition at Dudley House. It has been a truly fabulous experience to install and share this work.

I am pleased to report the opening was a huge success with an estimated 90-100 people in attendance listening to Jo Porter's opening address. Over the whole ten days of the exhibition the reception of the work has been terrific with multitudes of lovely comments left by visitors. People have commented that they found the work 'beautiful'  'delicate'  'ethereal' and 'exquisite'. Many many thanks to all those people that have supported this work - and especially to Creative Victoria with the Regional Centre for Culture Local Makers Grant as well as Rodney Carter CEO of the Dja Dja Wurrung Corporation.

​Images by Carrington McArdle Photography.

As I drive between the studio and the gallery this week I have been thinking about the genesis of the work I'm finalising and  installing, and the challenging process I went through to get here. It has seemed especially difficult. I think this is because I felt a huge moral responsibility to pay tribute to a woman who was essentially failed by the social circumstances of her time. And also to recognise the nature of what was actually going on in the Surveyor's Office in 1859 when Mrs Larritt lived there as a new bride and mother.

The Victorian notion of the morally pure woman who stays at home and creates a place of respite for her husband assumes that the man lives long enough to support her. Mrs Larritt (Maggie) was widowed only eleven years after she was married and left with five young children. The social expectation of the 'Angel in the House' didn't help Maggie manage. She went on to become the Post Mistress at Footscray Post Office and later at Oakleigh Post Office and forged her own path.

I hope the work I have made is a fitting tribute to Maggie. She is heroic in my eyes. And yet history doesn't celebrate her. At the start of my research local historians told me I wouldn't find much about her. And I didn't. She wasn't considered important.  People have asked me 'What did she do?'. And the truth is she did what many people do - she managed and cared for her family (and at times in difficult circumstances). As a carer for her family and then later as both carer and breadwinner, she persevered. 

The other (broader and essential) huge challenge in this show is properly acknowledging that Richard Larritt's Surveying of Bendigo was a major part of the Colonisation of the area - and colonisation had horrific consequences for the local Dja Dja Wurrung people. I need to signal that Maggie's white fella world didn't appreciate the culture of the Dja Dja Wurrung. Hers was singular cultural view. The optimism of her early married life in the building we now call Dudley House was only one part of a much bigger multilayered and complex story. It was a single perspective.

I am grateful for the input of various local Indigenous people in the making and presenting of this work. 

Image 'Single Point Perspective Murnong' 2018 Coloured pencil and graphite on Arches Satine 56 x 38 cm 

The gallery area at Dudley House consists of two rooms, one main room and one smaller one. It is my intention to have all the work in the second smaller room be one colour - a blue that is closest to Ultramarine Blue. I decided to do this as an indication of the mono-cultural view of the new immigrants of the colonial era and there are several reasons for my choice of hue.

Firstly this colour is one of the many variations of blue used in willow and other china patterns of the mid Victorian era which I'm considering with this work. The blue is domestically ubiquitous. 
Secondly, this blue is based on the stone lapiz lazuli which was once considered as valuable as gold - which reminds us that values change over time and across cultures.
And thirdly, this blue is often used as a colour to suggest purity, such as with images of the Virgin Mary in Renaissance painting. During the Victorian era women were expected to be morally pure. (See early post re the poem 'The Angel in the House'.)

The blue has become something I am increasingly enjoying working with. Before this project I would have assumed I would get bored with one colour but instead I am finding it continues to feed my interests. And so long as it motivates me I will continue to explore.

'Mrs Larritt in Upside-down Country' will run from Friday 16th to Sunday 25th November with and official launch with guest speaker Jo Porter (Co-Producer, Regional Centre for Culture 2018) on Saturday 17th November. 

​Image - stone lithograph with coloured pencil 

Coloured pencil with watercolour on Arches Satine 2018 (Mrs Larritt Series)

The world which I aim to celebrate and explore in 'Mrs Larritt in Upsidedown Country' is one where the caring role that was expected of a woman such as Maggie is central. White colonial history remembers significant events, the white men that drove them and until relatively recently assumes women weren't around much. (Thankfully this has been addressed at least in part by recent publications such as Claire Wright's 'Lost Rebels of Eureka')

During the Victorian era and Maggie's married life (1858 to her husband's death in 1869) European women were expected to be morally pure and create a home life that was untainted by the quite separate men's world of work outside the home.* This moral purity is exemplified by the poem 'Angel in the House' written by Coventry Patmore and much later discussed by Virginia Woolf in her essay 'Killing the Angel in the House'.
(See Patmore's poem here  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/coventry-patmores-poem-the-angel-in-the-house  
And Woolf's writing here http://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Woolf.pdf )

The making and managing of the domestic sphere, the daily work of caring for family and the material culture of the home are things that have been, and often remain, underrated. Care as a foundational element of domestic activity and the traditionally female caring professions often remains undervalued.

For the exhibition 'Mrs Larritt in Upside-down Country' I am particularly interested in Maggie as a young Scottish migrant woman whose role was to care for her husband who was mapping the town. Theirs was a singularly European cultural view yet he was organising the streetscape which became the Australian City of Bendigo. This streetscape grew around colonial gold mining - the mining that turned the Dja Dja Wurrung Country upside-down.

Maggie Larritt’s caring role has been mostly forgotten, and thankfully the Dja Dja Wurrung remain proud.

It has been my great honour to learn more of the Dja Dja Wurrung through the research for this exhibition, and to draw some of the indigenous plants significant to the traditional owners. I hope I am able to continue to learn more in the future. As a white fella I am humbled by the depths of the ancient and living culture of the Dja Dja Wurrung. 

It is also an honour to spend time remembering a woman whose everyday reality has been considered unremarkable - yet many small domestic things can add up to an awful lot.

The exhibition ‘Mrs Larritt in Upside-Down Country’ will open at Dudley House on Saturday 17th November at 5 – 7pm.

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NB It is assumed Maggie viewed the Indigenous flowers as decorative unaware of or disinterested in their edible roots.

* In the exhibition I am considering Maggie's early married life, yet it is interesting that these Victorian ideals ultimately failed Maggie as her husband died and Maggie later found employment as a Post-Mistress.)

Margaret (Maggie) Larritt nee Ferguson was born 2nd March 1835 to Scottish parents in Ireland and baptised (25th October 1835) in the Presbyterian Church in Dublin. 

I'm not sure when Maggie arrived in Australia and I wonder if she was brought out to Australia as a prospective bride for Richard (see notes below). Or was she a companion to her Aunt (also Margaret) who was wife to pastoralist Donald Campbell of Bullock Creek? Both Richard and Maggie had fathers who were Army Officers so perhaps there was a family connection? There is so much that is unknown. Maggie's Aunt Margaret had young children at the time of Maggie and Richard's wedding so perhaps Maggie was helping with the children?

She married Richard Larritt, Surveyor of Bendigo at her Aunt's and Uncle's (Donald and Margaret Campbell) home at Bullock Creek, listed as Marong in April 1858.

Dudley House was built in 1858-9 and known as the Surveyor's Office and residence. It is now known as Dudley House and is used as an exhibition and function space with upstairs offices for Bendigo Shire Council Arts workers.

Dudley House was an early marital home for Richard and Maggie, and I believe they may have stayed in nearby rental accommodation while the building was finished. Their first child (a daughter) was almost definitely born there (June 1859) with the birth notice (put in twice two weeks apart?) listing View St as the location.

Maggie and Richard kept a goat, bought sherry, ale and had staff. (From Richard's diary)

Richard rented and then bought a sewing machine after they went to Melbourne (late 1860) which suggests she didn't have one prior. (Also from Richard's diary)

For the upcoming exhibition 'Mrs Larritt in Upsidedown Country' I have focussed on the early married time of Maggie's life while they were living at Dudley House.

Richard Larritt died in January 1869 leaving Maggie with five children aged 13 months to 9 years and little or no income. 

Maggie went on to become the Post Mistress at Footscray Post Office from 1875 - 91 and then at Oakleigh from 1891 to 1898.
Maggie and Richard's eldest daughter matriculated from Melbourne University around the same time as Maggie was working at Footscray. It is heartening to realise Maggie supported her daughter to be educated to that level in an era when less women studied to matriculation.

​Maggie died in 1908 and is buried in the Unitarian section of Kew Cemetery, Melbourne and her descendants still live nearby.

Last week was Reconciliation Week and I was lucky enough to hear about a fabulous fund raising dinner hosted by Nalderun, a local Indigenous support services organisation. Nalderun is a Dja Dja Wurrung word meaning 'altogether'.

Along with about thirty others I ate some very special indigenous foods including some of the plants I have been drawing for 'Mrs Larritt in Upsidedown Country'. It was a truly special evening thanks to the efforts of many. We were also treated to an auction of fabulous work made by local indigenous artists.

To spend my day drawing a bunya nut casing, then to eat a soup with bunya nut (and macadamia and berlotti beans) was simply fabulous. Other special flavours included Kangaroo, Emu, Murnong, Vanilla lilly tubers, Bulbine lilly, Quandong, native tomato, native fruits and more.

We are so incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about indigenous culture through food, and honour the sacred culture that has existed here on Dja Dja Wurrung Country for thousands of years.

Images, bunya nut reference and (below) detail of drawing with Ultra Marine Blue pencil and watercolour on Arches Satine.

It is getting cold in this part of Central Victoria - Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Winter is coming. When the weather turns cold and wet as it did today I often think for a moment about how the gold miners survived in their tents - all the extremes of weather they must have experienced. Maggie Larritt's story is not one of tent dwelling however. It seems she always had a proper structure to live in. Hers was a relatively comfortable world - although not when I consider it against my own everyday experience.

Today when I put on a long woollen skirt that falls to my mid calf I felt warmed by the weight of the fabric. But as I went about my day I realised why I don't wear the skirt very often. It dragged on the steps outside that were wet as I was carrying things in both hands and couldn't lift it. It dragged on the floor when I sat down. But my skirt is relatively easy compared to those in Maggie Larritt's era of early married life.

In late 1850's Colonial Australia women generally wore voluminous skirts. The ideal skirt shape was aided by a corseted waist and was almost bell shaped thanks to the 'cage' petticoat. The practicalities of managing those skirts would have been extraordinary compared to how we dress now. Today we have almost no threat of catching fire too close to the warmth, no need to lift skirts away from the mud on the streets, and much more I haven't thought of yet. 

To the women of Maggie Larritt's time the massive skirt was as normal as making a cup of tea. To me it seems restrictive, annoying and uncomfortable. 

The resilience of these women must have been quite impressive. Yet I've found little mention of the everyday difficulties in my researching of the era. The domestic realities. History records significant events yet what about an everyday woman?

And that leads me to ask what other elements of history are not visible? 

My perspective is different to Maggie's as we exist across different times... And more importantly, there were so many more perspectives than the white men that wrote Colonial history.