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- 8 June 2005
Tribute to Mrs Joan Brassil
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The Hon. PETER BREEN [10.45 p.m.]: Tonight I wish to pay tribute to the life of artist Joan Brassil, who died six weeks ago aged 85 years. Joan's work has been exhibited across the country and across the world, but I first encountered it in the form of a light box leaning up against a garage wall in Hilltop Crescent, Campbelltown. Peter Brassil, Joan's son, and I were playing cricket in the paddock next door to Joan's house, and I hit a loose delivery over the fence and straight through the light box. The year was 1958 and the cricket shot was an unworthy introduction to the work of Joan Brassil. Forty years later I had the privilege to accompany Joan on an inspection of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay. There were a number of installations, and one in particular took my attention. It was a pile of gravel with concrete pavers on top. Joan explained that walking on the pavers caused the gravel to move, and I recall that the title of the work was "Instability". We moved on from the gravel and the pavers to a series of light boxes on the wall, and I asked Joan if she remembered me hitting the cricket ball through a light box. She looked at me in her quizzical way and said, "Were you playing cricket?"
Peter Brassil and I played cricket from daylight to dusk in the spare paddock on Hilltop Crescent. Peter's father, who had died three years earlier—50 years before Joan—once played cricket for New South Wales. As young boys and aspiring cricketers, Peter Brassil and I worshipped the memory of his father, and we had very little regard for light boxes. Somewhere along the track I became more interested in Joan's art than in cricket. I think it was because of Joan's irresistible passion for her work and the way she identified so personally with her creations. I could not love Joan without also loving her work.
Apart from the light boxes, I also have vivid recollections of Joan's sculptures in the art studio at Wedderburn: fruit in fired clay, welded metal, carved wooden flowers and tree bark set in concrete. Her mediums were as diverse as her art. She educated two generations of art students at Campbelltown, and anybody who knew Joan also knew her work. Perhaps the best-known work is her sound sculpture "Tether of Time", which sits proudly in the sculpture gardens of Campbelltown Art Gallery. It is one of the gallery's major commissioned works and a worthy monument to the artist. On 10 May Jill Sykes wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald commemorating the life of Joan Brassil. Jill Sykes said:
Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Brassil's career as an artist is that she didn't take it up as a full-time occupation until she was 55. As a young widow, she had brought up her two young sons by teaching art, mostly at Campbelltown High School.
The Sydney Morning Herald article reminded me that Joan's art was always at the cutting edge of technology and science. In an interview for the Sydney Morning Herald in 1995, Joan said:
If you are working holistically, you must consult a wide range of people in varying disciplines. All you have to say is, "What are you doing?", and they always tell me, and I like to continue the song. We all leave our voices in the minds of others.
Peter Brassil married, and then tragically died in a motor vehicle accident on Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney, leaving two sons who were the same age as Peter and his brother, Greg, when their father died in 1955. Twice Joan Brassil lived through a wife and mother's worst nightmare. Joan is survived by her son, Greg Brassil, and his sons, Liam and Owen. A memorial service to Joan was held at her beloved Campbelltown Art Gallery. Greg spoke at the service, as did the gallery's patron, John Marsden, John Peard from the Wedderburn arts community, and many others who were her friends and colleagues.
It was said at the memorial service that Joan never lost her sense of wonder. One of her characteristic remarks was, "Why not?" She made the remark whether she spoke about the possibilities in the universe or a request for a cup of coffee. Like her art, Joan Brassil was an iconic human being, and she was held in the highest esteem by the arts community. She received an honorary doctorate from the College of Fine Arts of the University of New South Wales and an Order of Australia Award for her contribution to the arts. On a personal note, I will miss Joan's handwritten Christmas cards, her poetry, and her wise words of critical and perceptive thought. Joan Brassil seems to have been a part of my life forever. She lives on, somehow inhabiting that cosmos reflected in her art. Her sculptures continue to breathe in the bush, the sky and the desert she loved so much. The Wedderburn Arts Studio is stamped indelibly in my psyche, so much so that Joan's work lurks at the end of every bush track and behind every stand of grevillea. It can truly be said of Joan Brassil that she has added to the work of creation.
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