My father ‘Dick’ Enright turns 90 tomorrow and his lunch-time party is at Bindawalla Gardens, Caboolture. Here is the press clipping: Friday, Jan 4 2013
Blogroll and malcolm enright and urban archaeology blogging, found photography, the good things 10:08 am
Yes, his wall clock needed attention, hence the note to remind me to attend to it on Boxing Day. His prowess at the pool table will be challenged but a word of warning – don’t bet on your friends!
O.K. – party pics ( 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 ) and an update: Ended up being two parties at the same place 12:00 noon for the family and all the kids then after two games of pool with eldest son (malE), all his cronies turned up at 3:00pm and I left at 3:30pm
“poppy’ as he is known to his great grandchildren won both games of pool, it was down to the black first game and I went in off the black and down to the black in the second game, I kept playing it safe and trying to snooker him but he potted that black and so it was two-nil . . . what fun to see Dick in his element!
Two recent studio events that I haven’t posted on until now Friday, Nov 30 2012
Blogroll and jeweller to the lost - commisions and malcolm enright blogging, found photography, the good things 12:00 pm
1) Little ‘poppy gonzalez’s first visit to the studio with her Dad (and Barbara).
2) little ron E and his second birthday cake and candles
George Burrow’s 70th birthday party was a fancy-dress party 10 days ago in Hobart, here is our birthday card we sent down Monday, Aug 27 2012
Blogroll and malcolm enright and urban archaeology collections, fashion, found photography, objects with text, recycling, the good things 6:28 pm
He has many categories that he collects but we both share a love of ‘mermaids’ so I dug deep into my picture archive to do this poster with my favourite seventy. I’ll save you counting, I kept going a little after seventy because I couldn’t stop.
The other surprise was a series of c.1880–1900 photographic prints of ‘fakirs’ at the QAG Thursday, Dec 29 2011
arresting human intelligence and Blogroll and malcolm enright blogging, collections, found photography 5:15 pm
The shots of the sadhus who spend their entire life with one or two arms held vertical are so fantastic, these limbs loose blood circulation and eventually muscle atrophy so much so that they cannot lower these limbs. As Barbara is now recovering from her recent shoulder operation, her movement stretches have now given way to strengthening exercises . . . she freaked at these images.
Two shots sent to us by Gary Sauer-Thompson, two things dear to our hearts Saturday, Oct 1 2011
arresting human intelligence and Blogroll and malcolm enright and urban archaeology blogging, collections, found photography, research, the good things 3:26 pm
The old Tunbridge store, Rothwell & Son, Bowerman’s Store, Hazelwood’s Shop, 51 Old Main Road or Barbara and Mal’s pet project which ever way you want to look at it . . . large image as a .pdf here.
The Blackman River taken on the western side of the Midland Highway. The larger .pdf is here.
Gary Sauer-Thompson is a blogger who works in parallel, a Doctor of Philosophy, a seriously political being, a photographer 24 hours of the day (and night) and he is Barbara’s sister’s partner. His x5 strand blog can be accessed here (Rhizomes on the left [tab] will drop you into his own photographic essays).
Two Tasmanian purchases, one surprisingly from a colonial SE Queensland photographist: Tuesday, Apr 5 2011
barbara heath and Blogroll and malcolm enright and urban archaeology Australian gardens, bespoke, collections, fashion, found photography, objects with text, typography 8:30 pm
Ed Forster is mentioned and immortalised as an early Maryborough photographer, this mounted parlor card is inscribed with the following: “Unborn dugong calf, captured 1873. Sent to the Philidelphia Exhibition . . . in spirit and a glass case”. The other piece is a brooch which is a mounted and set, snake’s lower jaw in 9ct rose gold, maybe Australian?
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National Geographic’s Photography Contest 2010 – the pick: Monday, Nov 29 2010
arresting human intelligence and Blogroll and malcolm enright blogging, exhibition, found photography, the good things 3:09 pm
Allan Duncan usually sends us this link every year . . . the moth shot above (severely reduced in size) is my favourite, enjoy!
Now that the word is out that we are researching local colonial tin smiths, you never know what comes out of the tin spout Friday, May 14 2010
barbara heath and Blogroll and jeweller to the lost - sculpture collections, colonial tinsmiths, found photography, handmade, research 10:31 am
Lunch time on Wednesday there was a visitor at the front door – lovely Dawn Gibson, Janet Gibson’s mum! Dawn has just returned from a Palo Alto, six week visit to those favourite friends of ours at Stanford; The Jackman family. “Here dears, this is from my side of the Emerton family from West Wylong – the shop photograph is framed up with galvanised sheet and on the back, can you work out what the pencil inscription says?” I set to work with a scan and a few photoshop filters, printed out a pic and Dawn had every word clearly legible.
Post office directories lead to a friend’s relatives, further history revealed for Tinsmith’s research Saturday, Apr 17 2010
barbara heath and Blogroll and jeweller to the lost - sculpture colonial tinsmiths, exhibition, found photography, research 6:14 pm
A tinsmith, or tinner or tinker, is a person who makes and repairs tinware. Early tinsmiths used tinplate, wire, solder, and a few simple tools to produce utilitarian wares that ranged from downspouts to kettles, bath tubs to weather vanes. Interestingly the term ‘tinker’ refers to an itinerant traveler or peddler and indeed early tinsmiths did hawk their wares, on foot to rural farms and villages. In Australia tinsmiths numbered amongst the trades of the first convicts and free settlers and they quickly adapted their skills to meet the needs of the farmers, miners and builders of the new colony. As the prospectors and pioneers pushed further into remote areas in the hope of gaining a living, we can picture the tinsmith following behind to make the items they would have surely soon needed.
pic above: Tin mining at Stanthorpe. As with gold, prospecting for tin became one of the incentives for exploration and development In Queensland, tin mines were established in Stanthorpe and Herberton but without a milling industry here to turn the resource into product the raw material was shipped back to England to be processed into tin plate. Even as late as 1889 the process of tinplating sheet steel, indeed the tinplate itself had changed little since its beginnings in fourteenth-century Bohemia.
A description of the manufacturing process reveals many stages and much labour as the metal is repeatedly passed through rolling mills, furnace, acid baths then further rinsed and scoured and dipped in palm oil before at last, the tinman places the sheets in a large iron pot of molten tin. Then follows more palm oil and rolling, degreasing in a tub of bran and then rubbing with a skin ‘duster’. Inspected then sorted into ‘perfects’ and ‘wasters’ the plates are counted and boxed up into elm wood boxes, marked by branding irons and finally placed into the freight car, ready to be forwarded to their various destinations. The labour intense process which includes young girls and boys as well as adults, keenly evokes the harsh, noisy and soot blackened conditions of late nineteenth century industrial life. Even so, tinplate can be understood as a crafted product not without its own mystique, produced by many hands, its method of creation reveals a layered history of empirical knowledge.
