Page 25 - Luce 2016

A l umni News

Alumni News

Before coming to Harvard, I was at the Four years after graduating and working
Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a secretary for a psychoanalyst, I
(also in Boston) doing my PhD. I was realised that the desire to paint would
fortunate to have a generous PhD not go away. I applied, and was
supervisor who likes to travel. A accepted, into the Victorian College of
highlight of my time at MIT was visiting the Arts. Now, nearly 40 years later, I’m
Tibet. Another highlight was seeing still making art.
the launch of a NASA satellite from
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Despite its reputation as being a rather
I was one of many contributors to the glamorous and exciting career, a lot of
satellite’s development. an artist’s time is spent quietly, alone in
The College was delighted to add a a studio, day after day. Perhaps being
portrait of Dr Barbara Fary OAM to Reflecting on my time at College, I feel an only child is good training for this.
those of other past Principals. Dr Fary, fortunate to have been a part of the JCH The much-vaunted freedom to express
pictured above with husband Mr Norm community. I made good friends at JCH oneself is nearly always accompanied by
Fary, was Acting Principal in 2001 and and it has had a big impact on my life. self-doubt, questioning and self-imposed
has maintained a close connection with The residential tutors were particularly rules, though I aim to make work that
the College since that time. exceptional – Alice Pung, Anna looks spontaneous and easy. Nor is art
Goldsworthy, Leng Lee, Lauren Rickards, a very remunerative occupation! And
Kaighin McColl to name a few – both in their own yet, on the rare days that it seems to be
(2004) accomplishments and in their generosity going well, the pleasure in the process of
I’m an hydrologist with their time. Intellectually, I was painting is like no other.
and am currently a pushed harder than I’d ever been before,
postdoc at Harvard both in formal classes and tutorials, and My work has mostly been about my
in Boston. Boston in informal conversations in the Dining experience of being in Australia, the
is a great city. The Hall or common room. It was a very world I know, whether it be gardens,
winters are cold, stimulating time, and one I look back on domestic interiors or the faces of friends.
it’s a long way fondly. Even when, for a little while, the world
from Melbourne, of current affairs became my subject,
and the coffee sucks. But it’s home to a Kristin it was always as I found it through the
lot of interesting people from around the Headlam pages of the newspaper, delivered every
world. The many excellent universities (1972) morning and read in bed.
also make it a great place to do science. I In 1972 I
like it here. arrived at From the late 1990s till 2006 I taught
JCH from painting in the Fine Arts Department
I’m interested in feedbacks between the Launceston, at Monash University’s Caulfield
land and atmosphere. Rain causes the shiny and Campus. It was lovely to work with
land surface to get wet. But it can go the fresh-faced, students, many of whom I really liked,
other way: a wet land surface can cause to do an Arts but ultimately I would have preferred a
rainfall to occur. Evaporation of water Degree at job that had nothing to do with art! Talk
from the land surface adds water to the the University of Melbourne. I took to about art may appear to light the way,
lower atmosphere, which can prime it College life like a duck to water. Having but I believe that much of my best work
for rainfall. This leads to feedbacks: rain grown up as a rather well-behaved only is done when I have no idea what I’m
adds water to the land surface, which is child, my delight at finding friends with doing.
pumped back into the atmosphere, which broad-ranging interests in JCH led, I
causes more rain, and so on. Feedbacks confess, to much more social life than Over the years I’ve had 25 solo
like this can prolong droughts, heatwaves study. Sometimes these days I rather exhibitions in Melbourne, and
and floods, but are poorly represented in regret that I did not put quite as much interstate, and been part of many
weather and climate models. energy into my studies as I did into my group exhibitions, both in Australia
social life, but in College I made many and overseas. I have done a number of
I use models and satellite observations lifelong friends. portrait commissions, including some
to study these feedbacks. Models help for the University of Melbourne and
us distill our knowledge of the system Art had always been what I liked to do colleges. Entering art competitions is
into its most essential parts. We can most, but in the 1970s it was not really rather a hazard of the business, but in
test hypotheses and learn where our seen as a likely or possible career for 2000 I won the Doug Moran National
understanding is weak. They are also a woman. At the time, I knew of no Portrait Prize with a self-portrait, entitled
useful for making predictions. Satellites women who had managed to make a In Bed with the Animals. This painting
can observe radiation emitted by the land career out of art, or if they had their celebrated the part that pets played in
surface. All else being equal, a wet soil names were rarely mentioned. (Now, my life; it has recently been on show at
emits less microwave radiation compared of course, I know that they were there, the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra,
to a dry soil. We can work backwards often ground-breaking figures, who were in an exhibition called The Popular Pet
to estimate the amount of water in the then hardly acknowledged.) So I figured Show.
soil. These measurements help us to that studying Fine Arts as an academic (continued on page 26)
understand how the land and atmosphere discipline might at least lead to a job in
interact with each other. a gallery!

J anet Clarke Hall 25