Whilst I have dabbled in art throughout my life, I have only just completed my first formal art course recently. This was a certificate IV in Visual Arts at Charles Darwin Uni here in Alice Springs.

I have had art exhibited in 4 exhibitions in Alice – 2 solo and 2 with others. I enjoy the experience, from compiling a body of work to displaying them. I would like at some stage to look interstate for venues.

With any art, be it written or visual, the intent is to elicit a response from the audience. It is about people feeling the art not just viewing it. This exhibition is about having fun with art.

This is my first excursion into using oils and I wanted to have a project that would give me experience in using them. I have up until now done mostly landscapes. So I chose a different genre so I could play with it. I chose chooks as my subject because a lot of people appreciate their quirkiness and attitude. I wanted to try to capture this in my paintings.

I have the good fortune to live in Alice and have access to a lot of Aboriginal art. I am very inspired by the work of local Aboriginal artists in Central Australia. They ‘sing’ their work – infuse it with their lore and wisdom. I can feel the life and spirit in their works. I would very much like to emulate that in my own way.

I feel a deep connection to landscapes and country. To me, it is alive. I would like to awaken that experience in others with my work. I feel I can do this with colour to accentuate the landscape and it features. I am drawn to impressionist and abstract techniques to a degree. I feel this gives me the scope to explore ways of conveying the spirit of the land.

Magaer Lennox

August 2022

Once you’ve trawled through the archives and assembled your notes, how do you start writing a historical story? This workshop explores questions such as why write this particular historical story now, who are you writing for, your relationship to the story, using fiction and nonfiction techniques, and accommodating other perspectives and diverse voices. Participants are encouraged to develop their own approach to a historical project through reading extracts from historical writing and experimenting with writing techniques.

Alice Woods, from Library & Archives NT (LANT), will give a brief introduction to the collections held and services offered by LANT both in Alice Springs and across the Territory and introduce you to some of the treasures and joys to be found in the archives.

Who is this workshop for?

Suitable for aspiring, emerging and developing writers interested in writing historical stories, both fiction and nonfiction.

Eleanor Hogan is a literary nonfiction writer whose books, Into the Loneliness: the unholy alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates and New South’s city series’ Alice Springs, focus on central Australia. Into the Loneliness was shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award. She was winner of the Peter Blazey Fellowship 2017 and the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship 2019 for biographical writing.