The following daily journal entries and letters constitute a contemporary imagining and fictional reconstruction of the painter S.T. Gill’s time in Adelaide. They are taken from the creative writing thesis, ‘Sketching Tom Gill: Art, history, and a creative exploration beyond the frame of ST Gill’s utopian visions of colonial South Australia’ that was conferred in 2024.
 

Journal Day 12: Gawler Place, Rundle Street, Adelaide, Kaurna Country.

To: The studio of the artist ST Gill

c/o. N. Terrace, General Post Office, King Wm. St. Adelaide

(Letters posted to the past)

Dear Tom,

Today’s sketch is a portrait of a young colonial artist. I have sienna, umber, and rose colours for making clothing, flesh, and skin. I’ve made unruly curls in dark chestnut brown with a neat side part above a clear forehead. Kind eyes and a trim moustache. Full, soft lips and a shy, ready smile and long fingers, tender and sensitive (Title: Portrait of a perceptive colonial artist embarking on a career).

I’m on Rundle Street. You wear a slate-blue frock coat, years old, patched and mended. Pencils, a flask, and brushes bulge in your pockets. You have a small, worn, leather-covered sketchbook in one and hand and you let your index finger and thumb worry the corner of one of the pages, back and forth. You wear a vest, snug and buttoned, and a loose cravat, hastily done. Your felt hat is lopsided and stained. It’s a favourite.

Fawn riding breeches and long boots, scuffed with age, complete your outfit. There’s a hunting crop in your hand, as always. A big Newfoundland dog lies in the sun nearby with one ear cocked, alert to your movements. Behind, a crowd shifts and stirs, occupied with mercantile affairs as noon approaches and the morning’s long umber shadows creep close to the buildings.

A proud chestnut horse shifts one back leg and turns her head, ears pricked, nostrils flared. She catches your eye (Title: Spirited chestnut filly on Rundle Street). 

~~

Journal Day 17: Mount Pleasant, Cambrai, Sedan, Towitta, Ngadjuri Country, Meru Country, Danggali Country.

To: The studio of the artist ST Gill

c/o. N. Terrace, General Post Office, King Wm. St. Adelaide

(Letters posted to the past)

Dear Tom,

Today I make sketches near Mount Pleasant, Cambrai, Sedan, and Towitta. I travel on dirt tracks to record the sights and sounds of hot summer back-country South Australia. For most of my walk I see only arid areas on either side of the road and occasional small flocks of bedraggled sheep that burrow into scrub shade far from the trail. Most paddocks are bare of trees and pasture, with great dust bowls indenting every gateway. There are sagging fences with rusted wire that glint rust-gold barbs in the afternoon sun. On Pine Hut Road there are miles of dry stonedry-stone walls that stretch off into the distance. Then I see a single live eucalyptus tree at a parched waterhole close to the road (Title: Portrait of a lone gum surviving).

The lone gum stands on one side of the track offering the only shade for miles. It’s an aged, thirsty, hurting tree, but its size indicates it has a brave and noble heart. The leaves on one low branch are varied in colours. Most are yellow and crisp. Soon they will drop to the ground and the afternoon wind will spirit them away. Some sprigs fare better and show darker green with tints of orange-gold on their tender little stems, bright as the late afternoon sunshine.

The lone gum has a large trunk, its skin pearl grey and speckled with patches of ochre-red. Some bark hangs from the trunk in strips, while other shreds lie in curls on the ground.

On a small part of the circumference, low enough to touch, there’s a great lumpen scar that bulges into the western sun. It warrants a sketch of its own (Title: Close study of an aged tree scar in the late afternoon). 

~~

Journal Day 23: Gawler Place, Adelaide, Kaurna Country.

To: The studio of the artist ST Gill

c/o. N. Terrace, General Post Office, King Wm. St. Adelaide

(Letters posted to the past)

Dear Tom,

I picture your first studio in Gawler Place set out for visitors. There are three rooms. The first is a small vestibule used as a reception area. Here, the front door is left open to the street when you are in attendance and there is a brass bell to ring for attention (Title: The welcoming artist). Within this little anteroom, there is a pair of handsome display easels holding finished works that demonstrate your skill at landscape and portraiture. Nearby, a small dresser offers business cards on a tarnished silver tray. Close beside are two upholstered chairs for callers (Title: The reception of the artist ST Gill).

Another door leads to your studio. This room, larger than the first, has windows allowing good light. There are several easels, and a long workbench piled with books, papers, brushes, and jars. Makeshift racks, filled with workaday objects such as jugs, bowls, and other household articles, line one section of the studio. There are stools scattered and sketches in various stages of completion pinned to walls (Title: The artist’s studio, view 1).

On the shelves are innumerable things to inspire the art of the still life. Here are the skull of a horse, the chalk-white leg bones of long-dead cattle, two urns, a dull kettle, and a collection of brass lamps (Title: The artist’s studio, view 2). In one corner of the room stands a folding screen with hooks for donated clothing and hats, used as costumes for models (Title: The artist’s miscellaneous garment collection). In another corner is a black stove with a box for split wood alongside it, and a weathered chest that serves as a table. A collection of mismatched armchairs is positioned in a conversational group of four where friends sit and warm their hands at the stove. A large threadbare cushion is on the floor nearby (Title: Interior of cosy studio with companions and sleeping dog).

A small low doorway tucked behind the stove leads to a windowless boxroom, and it is here you have made up your bunk (Title: Corner where the artist sleeps). 

~~

Journal Day 228: North Terrace, Adelaide, Kaurna Country.

Martha Berkeley’s horses trot the length of North Terrace, ears forward, legs stepping high. I like the grey with his well-brushed mane. The brown carries his tail well. Martha Berkeley’s gum trees are graceful, made with delicate brushwork. I picture Martha Berkeley’s paintbrushes standing in tidy jars with fine points styled to perfection.

Martha Berkeley’s ponies are fat in body and sweet of face. They have pricked ears and carry their tiny plump riders through forests and over bridges. One little girls sits side-saddle with her velvet riding-skirt layered over her pony’s rump. Soon she will leave him behind and gallop a tall thoroughbred through bushland thick with ridges and saplings and danger. 

~~

Journal Day 240: Victoria Park Racecourse, Pakapakanthi, Kaurna Country.
Victoria Park Racecourse is dry under the late February sun. Summer’s yellow grasses have been fiercely trimmed. Thick gums with shredded ochre-red bark surround the edges. I picture ladies in dark dresses with balloon sleeves and tightly fitted waists holding parasols aloft. When the horses gallop past, the ladies hold linen handkerchiefs to their faces and the parasols fill up with grit. 

~~

Journal Day 287: Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga, Adelaide, Kaurna Country. 

Eight white police horses walk in a line down King William Street. The horses have clear curved shields to protect their eyes. They have long white forelocks and grey muzzles. Thirty-two metal horseshoes make loud ringing sounds on the hard surface of the road. Afternoon shadows from buildings cut through the sun and the horses pass from dark into light. When they reach Tarntanyangga, four of the horses form a circle on a patch of grass behind the Charles Sturt statue and four turn right down Franklin Street, sixteen metal horseshoes ringing on the road. 

~~

Journal Day 409: Blanchetown, River Murray, Millewa Country, Ngarrindjeri Country.

To: The studio of the artist ST Gill

c/o. N. Terrace, General Post Office, King Wm. St. Adelaide

(Letters posted to the past) 

Dear Tom,

When I see a shady river bend with big gums dipping low branches into sandy shallows, I imagine you and explorer Edward John Eyre sitting fireside in his cottage at Moorundie. And even though the cottage has gone, I can easily picture it near the water, surrounded by trees that dapple sunshine onto its small roof (Title: Humble colonial cottage on the river, view 1).

The cottage walls are made with pug and sweat and rough-hewn logs. Near the door there are iron hooks to hold coats, hats, and leather bridles. There is a crook-legged stool carved from a broad bole of gum, while another beside it supports two saddles with muddy girths (Title: Humble colonial cottage on the river, view 2). A long table fashioned from gum planks stand near an open chest that spills blankets onto the floor. Threadbare chairs rest near the fire and table candles chase gloom into corners. Cigar smoke hangs in the air. Dogs, damp and muddy, brown and brindle, lie on their sides by the fire, now and then whimpering and paddling in sleep (Title: Humble colonial cottage on the river, view 3).

You sit your sketchbook on your knees and make outlines to capture the elements in the room. Profiles, too, of Eyre, as effectively as you can while he moves. The untidy curl of his dark hair pushed back impatiently, the elegant nose sniffing at the cigar, the long fingers stroking a full bears. Eyre talks of the big Moorundie landscape and his enthusiasm for the avenue of giant river gums that lead to his settlement. He talks of making his home and other buildings nearby. There are storage huts and accommodations for his police and stabling and shelters for animals. He plans more buildings, his voice rising with every idea. He describes fat geese and chickens and pigs in stalls.

As you draw, Eyre mutters of cattle and sheep and bloodlines, and of the trials over overlanding stock from New South Wales. His voice becomes more animated as he talks of violence, and of how he plans to improve the district for everyone (Title: Portrait of an Englishman outlining a peaceful civilisation). 

~~

Journal Day 709: North-eastern South Australia, Dhirari Country, Dieri Country.

I force myself to trek for five miles without water to stand at a rusted fence in outback South Australia. I want to picture James Poole’s grave, distant at Depot Glen. The sun is relentless, and I have enough damper for one long day. Later I will have water, but during the trek, I want to want water. To feel a new thirst.

At the fence, I picture Poole’s gravesite and the beefwood tree and the shade moving through the afternoon. I see James Poole dying in agony on the back of a dray. I think of lemons and thick juice dripping into the sand. I imagine the heat of the dirt and Sturt’s men digging, drenched in sweat. I close my eyes and imagine I can hear a bush funeral said at the close of the day. I say the words aloud. The Lord bless him, and keep him, and in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ we commend to almighty God…

I feel a new thirst and deny myself water. The sun begins to fall. I have another five miles to trek (Title: For the want of fruit and vegetables).