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PROFILE: Roger Saunders - An Interesting Life Journalist: Jenny Oldland Your Yorke Peninsula News - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 Photo: Roger Saunders with this third painting, "Place of Turtle". Anyone looking at his paintings or reading how artist Roger Saunders "scooped the prize pool" at the recent Cheetham Salt Art Exhibition at Ardrossan, would never guess he'd only been painting since October, it was the first exhibition he'd ever entered, and his prize winning entry in the indigenous section was only completed three days before the exhibition opened! Roger, a man who embraces life with gusto, credits a shark with the start of his new found painting career. While he's always been a dab hand at sketching and cartooning, it was when he was advised not to go anywhere near the water for two weeks, or risk getting blood poisoning, after he had been bitten by a Grey Whaler shark in shallow water off a beach in far north Western Australia, he decided he'd paint to fill in the time. Nicknamed "Bushfire" many years ago by Aboriginal acquaintances because of his colouring, he later found his great- great-grandfather boasted Kamilaroi blood, which would explain his affinity with Aboriginal people. Last year, he and his wife, Christine, spent six months travelling around Australia, visiting many Aboriginal communities including Arnham Land, Beswick and Mataranka. However, it was while nursing his wounds he spent five days at the famous Roban Co-op, watching and learning from the artists there. "It was the first place I felt I could really paint, and it was a phenomenal experience. Everyone involved, from the elders to very young children, has a unique style, his/her own interpretation of the dreaming, and I was fortunate enough to get individual instruction each day", Roger said. His own dot paintings attracted a great deal of attention at Ardrossan, with two selling during the weekend of the exhibition. "I have always been interested in the dreamtime, and the artists advised me to follow my heart when it came to putting my thoughts on to canvas. And I think I've found my niche, it's like a fairytale and I got a real buzz when elders from Point Pearce said they could see the feeling in my paintings." Mind you, it's not really the first time he's painted, his early "career" ending abruptly when he started to paint his father's blue car black at 16! An hour in Roger's company and you know you are in the presence of a man who has led an interesting life. During a 20-year stint in the army, he served two tours of duty in Vietnam, where he entertained other soldiers with catchy cartoons on envelopes - one a cheeky dig at the slowness of the mail bringing deliveries to a halt until, Roger suspects, his commanding officer offered an apology on his behalf! Retired after many years working on cotton farms in New South Wales, Roger and Christine now spend six months of the year on the road, dropping in to visit numerous family and friends around the country, before heading back to Coobowie to spend time with nephew Peter, his wife, Pat, and children, Kia and Cody, who are currently learning dot painting from their great-uncle. "We're a bit like the 'fairies at the bottom of the garden', and come back to help Peter and Pat restore their old farmhouse, and find they've always got a list of jobs for us to do", Roger says. He is a man who definitely looks "outside the square". Like Christine says, he's always been an individual, and a man of many talents, having even managed to convert an old boat hull into a sensational kids' cubby house, complete with flying fox. The painting style he's adopted, which includes the difficult triple dotting, Roger finds therapeutic, the quiet time spent recreating a story from the dreamtime probably the only concession he makes to the fact he suffers from hereditary Parkinson's Disease, and has had nine strokes. Not that it has affected his desire to tackle life head on! SOURCE: Yorke Peninsula Country Times, Australia Your Yorke Peninsula News - Tuesday, May 4, 2004 http://kadina.yp-connect.net/~ypct/news/04/05/04/7.html * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn