My New England 5 - jumpers and jackets with the occasional pearls

For  years, I bought much of my clothing in Armidale no matter where I was living. This held even after I moved to Sydney for family reasons.

In Sydney, I would prowl David Jones or other retailers and then, dissatisfied, return to home turf.

I suspect that there is something deeply psychological  with this particular obsession. Or, maybe, it just reflects my good taste!

Armidale is quite a cold place and very much has had its own fashion style. This shot from one of the local tourism bodies, Experience the Highs, brought some of that back. The thick jumpers, the jackets, the moleskins, the tweeds.

Mind you, the world changes. The local styles have to a degree become submerged in that standardised modernity that so marks the modern fashion world.

Yet memory remains of girls in thin ball dresses, breath frosting the air, gathered outside around the drums used as heaters with the fire and smoke drifting into the air. Of girls standing by the fuel stove in the kitchen hitching their dresses up at the back to get the warm air from the stove. Of sitting there around the kitchen table drinking gins and tonics in the early morning after the ball. Of girls in thick fashion jumpers the next day.

And the pearls? They often wore them. Actually, I was a bit frightened of their sophistication. I sometimes felt so gauche! Still, that shot did take me back.   

My New England 4 - the colours of New England

Back in September 2009, I wrote a post called The Colours of New England that was something of a photo essay looking at changing colours from east to west, north to south. It remains one of our my favourite posts.

Then last year I gave a presentation to the Armidale North Rotary Club called Northern Images - Landscape, life and literature through New England eyes. There I combined art, film and literature with a dash of history to try to explain the interconnections, the commonalities and differences, in the way that New Englanders saw themselves, were seen by others.

This film poster for a very well known 1977 Australian movie was one of the illustrations I used. If you look at the short Wikipedia entry on the film you wouldn't know that it was a New England story, and yet it is. The film is based on a New England travelling film show operating out of Tamworth, and was filmed largely on the Liverpool Plains while the last scenes were shot on the Clarence.

In the Colours of New England I talked about the Liverpool Plains. The Picture Show Man captures in film the same colours. Driving as I so often did between Armidale and Canberra through the Western Slopes and Plains, I explored the changing colours in detail,       

My New England 3 - rain on the Uralla Road

This painting by Julia Griffin  is called simply rain on the Uralla road. Sadly. I can't give you a link to her work. It has vanished.

For many of us going north to the Tableland, the main road is though Nowendoc and then past Walcha to Uralla. This painting captures a mood and scene that I know well. I really know this road.

My New England 2 - Autumn colours

The Tablelands, Australia's largest tablelands, form the heart of New England. Rivers flowing to the north, west, east and south. Colours change across New England from west to east, north to south, something I described in The colours of New England.

On the Tablelands, autumn is a time of colour because of the introduced trees. This photo from the Armidale Express Facebook page will give you a feel for the beauty.

My New England 1 - horses on a long point

I have been trying to explain to a friend my love of New England. It's hard. So I decided to start a new series that my friend could follow along drawing especially from some of my collected visual material, but not limiting it to that. Further comments follow the photo.

 

This photo is by my old blogging friend Gordon Smith. It is called secret places, taken to the east of Armidale

This is such a New England scene.  I have stood on or near where those horses are standing. The blue mountains stretch into the vastness. On my last trip to this place, a friend and I stopped for a picnic overlooking a gorge. The view was spectacular.