Title

The Lyrebird on Castle Hill.

Author

McBurnie, Ron.

Publication date

1997

Type

Conference paper

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Lyrebird Press on Castle Hill.
By Ron McBurnie

How I met Tate and how the workshop in Townsville began:
I have lived in Townville, north Queensland now for 17 years and for nearly all this period I have been involved in teaching in the Printmaking area. My involvement with the Lyrebird Press has been a recent development. In 1990 a Townsville printmaker from Melbourne mentioned to me that Tate Adams had moved to Magnetic Island to retire. He explained how since retiring from RMIT Tate had chosen to live a reclusive life on the Island. After this conversation I made no attempt to venture to magnetic Island to introduce myself until one of my students happened to bump into him on the Island. She explained to me how she had met this charming Irishman who had invited her to his home. He had showed her his engravings and given her afternoon tea. This didn't sound like the Robinson Crusoe figure who had been described to me earlier. I then decided that I should take my chances. Maybe if I introduced myself to him I would also get afternoon tea.

At about the same time it just happened that Tate was asked by Roger Butler to speak at the second Australian Print Symposium in Canberra in October 1992. 1 met Tate during the first day of the Symposium. He was trying to use the urn to make himself a cup of tea. He had just burnt his hand with the hot water when I introduced myself (Tate has never been good with gadgets, the only tools he owns are his engraving tools and a hammer. I have been encouraging him to watch a video in his unused video player for the last 4 years, without success). When I explained to Tate that there were 14 printmakers from Townsville attending the Symposium he became very excited. 'Are there that many printmakers in Townsville"? He enquired.

After the Symposium, my wife and I made a number of trips to Magnetic Island to visit Tate and his wife Glen. The Island lies off the coast of Townsville and can be reached in 30 minutes by ferry. On our first visit, Instead of being offered afternoon tea we drank copious quantities of good wine, before being taxied over the cliffs and back to the ferry at a lightning pace in Tate's stainless steel minimoke. "Everything else just rusts away over here" Tate explained as we clung on for grim death.

Tate then began to come over to Townsville 2 days each week to work at the TAFE College where I lectured, He would talk to students, give workshops and sometimes proof the blocks he was currently working on (these were at that time small wood engravings of Magnetic Island).

When the Art and Design Department amalgamated with James Cook University and moved to the new Centre at Vincent, Tate proposed that we set up the Lyrebird Press in part of the new printmaking area. We were able to obtain a small space to begin publishing. This was in 1993.

A short history of the press before moving to Townsville:
Some years earlier, Tate had established the Lyrebird Press in Melbourne in the final days of the Crossley Gallery, which he closed in 1980. He hoped to be able to publish affordable, high quality, Livre d' Artist books and sell them in a similar way as he had successfully sold prints. This did not eventuate, Many people were happy to pay $250.00 for a single print, but when asked to pay the same amount for his first book Diary of a Vintage (1981), containing 26 original engravings, they would hesitate.

The John Brack Nudes book published in 1982 met with the same problem, which was further complicated by Rudy Komon's death. Rudy was one of the publishing partners in the Brack book. Very few copies were sold and Tate was left with an enormous financial debt.

Before moving to Townsville Tate worked on 2 more books. Only one of these, "Port of Pearis" was published, This book looks at the history and development of pearling in Broome. Tate wrote the text and produced 40 wood engraving and linocuts; for the book. The other unpublished book, called Th first vines, was to be Tate's contribution to Australia's bicenteniary. It was to be a book on the wineries of Australia that would celebrate a hundred years or more of production in 1988. After four years of research and 43 wood engravings later, Tate finished 7he first vines", but was unable to publish it because all his finances were tied up with the Brack book. The only copy of this book is kept in the James Hardie Collection held by the State Library of Queensland. The press also published one other book in Melbourne called "Recollections" by Rosalind Atkins before Tate left in 1989.

I have asked Tate on a number of occasions for his reasons for leaving Melbourne and why he moved to Magnetic Island?. He explained that the main reasons for moving related to his friends. George Baldissen who was one of Tates closest friends died unexpectedly in 1978. Tates other close friend Harry Crock, an orthopaedic surgeon, moved from Melbourne to London around 1986. Tate also retired from teaching at RMIT in 1982. He had also become tired of the Melbourne Art Scene at that time and felt that he needed to make a complete break and relocate to a warmer climate. Glen and Tate chose to live on Magnetic Island because they had both enjoyed holidaying there in the 1950's and 60's with Glen parents. They have since sold their Island home and now live in Townsville, Tate now comes in and works each day at the Lyrebird Press

The Press in Townsville:
The first publication Lyrebird Press produced after it moved to its new premises at James Cook University was "Lyrebird Speaks". lhadasked Tate to give a talk at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery about his experiences with Artists' books and engraving. The talk was for one of the regular 'Northern Impressions' printmaking group lectures. Northern Impressions was formed by Cheryl Wilson and myself to record and generate printmaking activities in north Queensland. After Tate's address, my wife, Bronwyn and I edited the transcript and we published it in an offset edition of 250 copies. I believed that because it had moved into a new premises and location the press needed to document its early history so people in North Queensland would know Where it had come from.

The next book to be published in April 1994 was one of my own, 'The boy who tried to kiss himself'. It consists of 19 etchings of images and text. The story is about an adolescent boy who feels an awakening need to kiss somebody or something, but is not sure how to direct his new found desire, He firstly tries to kiss the cat, the dog and himself before meeting a young woman who kisses him. I had made the etchings for the book 2 before at the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba.

One of the great advantage of having a press such as ours in our University is that students are able to become involved with publications. At present we have no specific bookers course operating, but students who are particularly interested in working with the book form are encouraged to do so. Danny Yate's book "The barflies chorus' and Deanne Campbell's book "One single journey, are examples of this, Both artists worked with Tate and myself in the over design and construction of each book. Danny's book consists of a series of etched and underwiped barflies heads seen at local pubs in Brisbane. As one moves through he various barflies chorus's on each page the heads can be seen turning from front on to a profile. The chorus's themselves were written by Brisbane poet Brett Dionysius.

Deanne Campbell's "One single journey" produced as part of her Masters in Creative Arts Course is a screen printed book which draws its information from her grandparents. They both migrated independently from Yugoslavia to Australia, whey they married, These books were both launched in 1995.

Tate has always been particularly interested in the Livre d' Artist publication. Although I share a common interest in this type of artist book, I have encouraged students to produce artist books which make use of a wide variety of technologies and materials, and to be as experimental as possible in their work, This has led to many different types of books being produced as part of the printmaking program. To promote many of the student productions being made we launched a seperate series of Lyrebird books called "Off the Wall". To publicise this series a catalogue was designed. It resembled a catalogue of samples, such as one you might receive from a paper merchant or a printery. The individual pages of the catalogue were designed by each artist who had made a book in the series. This was intended to give the future book owner an idea of what the product they were investing in would look like. This new branch of Lyrebird has proved very popular and has made the press much more accessible to younger artists and students, who have not had the chance to have examples of their work published. We have not only included student work in the catalogue but books of other Artists working in the community. We have also tried to keep all books in the series under a $ 100,00. Many are under $30.00. We believe these books should be affordable to everyone.

Presently Stephen Spurrier from the University of Melbourne and I are working on a new "Off the wall" project for the next artist book fair in Brisbane in 1988. This will consist of a series of stamped books, conceived by artists from Victoria and Queensland, but editioned by the Lyrebird Press and the University of Melbourne.

It has always been very hard to fund many of our projects, We receive a small amount from our University, but the rest has come from successful government grant hunting as well as some private sponsorship from paper merchants such as Edwards Dunlop. Any profits made through the sale of our publications go back into the production of new artist books. Many artists have approached us in the hope that we can publish their books. Most times it is not possible to help them unless we can obtain specific funding for their project through the above channels.

At present, Tate is working on a number of projects. Cheryl Wilson's "Extibris¬Bookplates of North Queensland" which has just been completed and will be launched in the near future. This book is in an edition of 60 and contains 29 original book plates by artists who have lived and worked at one time in north Queensland.

Tate has just finished a book called Island Voyage where the size of the hand coloured linocut images increases as one turns the pages, so as to give the impression of being in a rowing boat and moving closer and closer to the rocky landscape of Magnetic Island. After one reaches the centre of the book the images then begin to get smaller and suggest leaving the Island and rowing back to the main land.

The main project which has occupied us for the last 2 years related to a special botanic park in Towsnville called the "Palmetum'. We have invited several north Queensland artists and several southern artists to take part in this project. Each artist has been invited to Townsville and asked to produce a print of their impressions of this very special environment. The book is to be printed in an edition of 40. We are endeavouring to launch this large volume next year during the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery's exhibition of the published books of the Lyrebird Press.

Tate is always coming up with new ideas for publications. Since he gave up smoking a few years ago he has even more energy to burn. The wooden plan cabinet at the end of the Lyrebird room is filled with beautifully bound mock-ups in various shapes and sizes. They are all waiting for the day when we have the time and most importantly the funds to publish them.

To sum up the Lyrebird press is a small exciting artist book Press that operates on very little funds. We have still managed despite this to produce a substantial number of different Artists' books. During the years that the press has been in operation, we have worked with a number of very talented artists and art Students from many parts of the country and will continue to do so. We are most grateful for their continuing support. If you're ever in Townsville and would like to lend us a hand or just pop in for a visit, Please phone us at the James Cook University of north Queensland.

© Ron McBurnie, 1997.
Paper presented at The Third Australian Print Symposium, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1997.

Last Updated

02 Dec 2024