Spook…
I attended an exhibition last night – at our local pub.
(It is quite normal to use pubs as art venues out here – a natural meeting place with the drinks and nibblies on hand! And this pub is run by a couple of artists, so it’s really only fitting!)
It was a photo exhibition by a local identity known to one and all, simply as ‘Spook’.
The photos were taken during a time when only darkrooms were used to develop images… and each stage of the process belonged to the photographer. They were mostly of wedding portraits of local couples…
Simple black and white prints pinned to boards, with no captions (Spook could remember some, but not all, so left them all un-named). It was quite the guessing game, as we tried to pinpoint who was in each image! Luckily we had some long-time residents on-hand to help us out with a few…
The crowd paused for the official opening…
…when Spook and the brother of his old mate Gil (a well-known painter, for whom the exhibition was dedicated, now deceased) reminisced about what it means to be an artist, and what the two had been like in their ‘hey day’.
For as long as I can recall, Spook has always looked the same.
We discovered how he got his name (for the area in which he spent his childhood years, ‘Ghost Gully’).
Now in his 80’s, Spook has an enormous collection of images, which he has no idea what to do with. Already a house fire and the floods have ruined many of his collection.
He threatened during this speech to get rid of the rest…
I asked him later ‘not to, please?’ So much history all piled up… too much for him to go through, but we are hoping that the local council might help him out.
Spook gave me a bit of a hard time when I explained that I too, am a photographer.
‘No you’re not,’ he said. ‘You are one of these new-fangled digital artists!’.
Heh. Made me smile.
I argued that I had done my apprenticeship in a newsroom darkroom – we talked apertures and lense lengths for a little and he seemed to relax.
He reluctantly let me shoot this image, with one of his favourite old cameras.
I wonder how many gems he has hidden in his piles of prints and negatives.
A couple of questions for you…
How do you save these kinds of collections? How do put a price on the history of an area, and of an artform?
Your thoughts?
🙂
Signatures
14 Comments
jeanie
Donate to the Art Gallery or Museum? They have professional curators who know how to store and present such beauty…
jeanie´s last blog post ..When I was a Girl
Colin Huggins
“Our local pub” and Mr. Spook of “‘Ghost Gully’”.
Great to see that the Mr. Spooks still exist.
Well at least some pubs in country towns are still owned by REAL people, not Coles or Woolworths like here
in Brisbane, and other big cities.
The local pub is an icon for the town. You get/got good service. A meeting place where hopefully there are bar stools still available.
All stools in front of poker machines or in front of TV sets for betting. Now that’s where stools are placed.
The present staff of these W/worths and Coles managed hotels are MOSTLY indoctrinated with – machines first (money) and let the people wait for drinks. Never done before, until the takeover by the multinationists***. ( this may be mispelt)
At least some staff can remember the decent things of years ago – courtesy. I guess they got this from their parents.
Still in these days a job is a job, eh?
Brisbane would now be lucky to have a privately owned local hotel. Even the Good Old Breakfast Creek place.
It grieves me that this here has come about. But what in the answer???
I’ll leave it to you to explain to your o/seas viewers, I can’t and good luck.
Thanks Mr. Spook and I wish there were more like you
Debby
Here, we have historical societies, local groups of people who love the particular history of their own area, and they take collections such as these. They might be displayed for a time, or then stored. Having just gone through my parents lifelong picture collection, I can tell you that these pictures are valuable. Out there are people who’d pay to have a copy of an old picture of one of their antecedents. The best thing to do is to copy these to a disc, get them on line. But the pictures should be saved, at all costs. Of course, storing pictures comes with it’s own set of problems. Does he have the negatives?
Good luck. Spook sounds like a rare breed, a real charactor, and I adore charactors.
Debby´s last blog post ..Spring
Debby
Oh, and that picture of the old cameras? Take a look at the one w/ the brown strap, in the front. My mother’s camera. My sister found high on a shelf in an unused closet. I’m not sure when mom left off using it, but my sister took it with her. She just discovered that there is still film in it.
Debby´s last blog post ..Spring
Carol Alex
Colin, I can relate to what you are saying about the multinationals stripping us of our roots and privately owned businesses. Check out this place that they haven’t got to yet, http://www.madeeters.com/ I hope this works because this is a great old place that we love. If it doesn’t maybe you can type it in. Built in the logging day’s it has always had a big sign out front that say’s, This is God’s Country, Please Don’t Drive Like Hell. It is what we call Up North, in a very small town. Inside is very cool too, with huge timbers and old wood tables and chairs (some anyway). It is huge inside I guess because they had so many Lumberjacks back in the day. We love the place and the food. When you get to the site click on the History of this place.
BB, love this post, very interesting. I have been missing in action lately because we were Up North, LOL.
Carol
Colin Huggins
Thanks Carol, but all that comes up is this place and heaps of links to it and I am sure that you are not referring to a Swiss establishment.
“Ma Deeters restaurant and bar a landmark in Luzerne, has been operating since 1921. The original Ma Deeters was built in 1921 etc etc”.
Does your FNQ hotel have a name to look up?
Colin Huggins
Oops, I should have read more on the place.
Seems that this place is in Michigan, USA.
“Ma Deeters restaurant and bar a landmark in Luzerne, has been operating since 1921. The original Ma Deeters was built in 1921 and was torn down and rebuilt on November 3, 1941, and is the largest commercial log cabin building west of the Mississippi.”
So now we have TWO Luzernes!!
Carol Alex
LOL Colin, there is one in Switzerland too, I forgot about that one. The point I meant to make is that we still have a few old privately owned places in the USA that are still the way they have always been. Just a place to go and throw back a few with friends, or eat,and they have a band on Friday and Saturday night. In it’s day they say the lumberjacks might drink a few too many and tear the place up. You can see a few marks on the log walls and floors that look like that may have happened, LOL. Most of our privately owned businesses have lost them because of the big box stores, Walmart, etc. Shame I tell ya’. I hope you enjoyed the little trip to Michigan. I sure do love this trip I take to Your country, beautiful! Have a great day.
Carol
Colin Huggins
Well, surprisingly I know Michigan pretty well. I ran into a couple of Michigan blokes at the Hofbräuhaus in Munich, Germany. Michigan boys can drink!
Ended up sharing accommodation with the two of them and traveling to the big castle, The Nymphenburg Palace, just outside Munich for the day via trams and NOT PAYING. Your two “Michigan blokes” conned me into jumping on and off trams if we saw anyone in uniform get on. One fellow came from Detroit and the other from Lansing. Invited after Europe to visit but didn’t get to that state, maybe I was still terrified of jumping on and off trams or buses???? Kept in contact for years, but slowly that ended.
Ah – funny days indeed with the Michigan blokes in Munich.
Carol Alex
LOLOL!! Yep, I know a few people like those tram and bus hoppers. Lucky you didn’t end up in the local jail house, LOL. Wish I had been there. I have friends and family near both of the cities you mentioned.Lot’s of family in Canada too since they are just across the Detroit river or across the Blue Water Bridge to Ontario.
Carol
Colin Huggins
Glad you got a giggle.
The next day we caught the train – WITH TICKETS – to Dachau, just outside Munich.
Sobering thought, I think jumping trams and buses for the rest of their trip was quick smart forgotten.
Yep I think you would have enjoyed jumping on the wooden tables in the Hofbräuhaus and doing a frenzied display with stein attached to hand of a Bavarian folk dance. Actually as tables competed in this strange ritual, we were very good.
The Three Musketeers or maybe The Three Stooges – Moe, Larry and Curly. Actually I prefer the 3 Musketeers!!!
I can certainly envisage, Amanda, giving a fine rendition.
Carol Alex
Colin, you are a hoot, or as we would say in the states, really funny!! I’ll bet you I would have danced too, with a grog in my hand, probably hoping I wouldn’t spill any of that good brew, LMBO! Yep, I’ll go along with the 3 Stooges bit too, or maybe even Looney Tunes, HA! And yes, I’ll bet Amanda did a few table dances in her Brisvegas days but we won’t hear about that, LOL! My Dad took a trip to Germany and to Dachau also, very sad thing that was. Dang crazy.
Carol, the wanna be table top dancer, Too Funneee… Colin
Colin Huggins
Actually and I was NOT going to mention this, until you wrote that your Dad was in Munich and saw Dachau.
My Bavarian table top routine at the “Hofbräuhaus” with my two Michigan ‘tram and bus’ hopping mates was in 1973, I was 29 and the two Michigan “rouges” were about 27 – so all in the same vintage.
Ask you Dad, did he do a table exhibition at the ” Hofbräuhaus”???
My parents in 1976 on a International Hoteliers convention, held somewhere in the then West Germany in Munich or somewhere close by. They always selected “exotic” places for these “conventions”.
Anyhow they descended enmasse to the ” Hofbräuhaus” for fun and games. Seems from what I heard afterwards, that various delegations from countries had “table top” competitions. My father ( now deceased -2 years ago) was 60 and my mother was 55 years, still alive will be 91 (on the 20th March). I was never told what delegation won. I suspect NOT the Australians, they would have boasted and why not????
Those table tops are sturdy, they need to be.
So it seems that it could be in the “genes”!
I often wonder if the offspring of the two “gentlemen of Detroit and Lansing”, followed their fathers foot work on tables in
Munich??? I never married, the reason I was on the trip, I was left at the Altar, thus the RTW trip to forget. I was the lucky one in
that business, the “bride” had 4 further husbands and took all to the cleaners!
So now Carol you will have to go off to Munich and dance on the sturdy wooden tables. AND DON’T Drop your STEIN!
It may be all in your “GENES” – if father did it, why not you?????
Carol Alex
My Dad went with one of his war buddies,they were at an ALSOS Mission convention which they were a part of during the war But in his day he would have been playing his guitar and singing at the joints, that was his hobby, guitars and singing and tipping a few beers. His day time job was engineering. I never saw him or my Mom dance on tables and not to burst any bubbles but neither have I, LOL, but We love a good party. Guess I won’t say sorry you were left at the alter since she turned out to be a “cleaner”. I promise not to drop my stein!