VALDA, 89: Will was my second grandchild. He wasn’t terribly
friendly to everybody as a baby, but he loved his mother. When he
got a bit older, he became very independent. We always spent a
lot of time together, though. We sailed around Australia in a boat
in the ’80s, and Will and his sister Louise came more often than
not. We used to go to an island where no one else had been, and
we’d let the grandchildren swim and explore the beach. It was
very meaningful. As far as I was concerned, I could have lived
on the boat.
I was an artist, then a corporation wife for 30 years. My husband
and I were always entertaining and having people around to stay.
We lived in Paris and Geneva for eight years, so I spent a lot of
time learning to take in art by osmosis, going to the Louvre and
Pompidou Centre once a month. But I didn’t do much art when
my children were young – it was too hard.
I think women had more trouble becoming famous back then,
because it was always the man who took over. Women had to feed
their partners. I was brought up with my mother-in-law telling me
to make sure I was home when my husband came home, so I could
have a drink with him. And to put the children to bed so they didn’t
bother him. But luckily, things are changing.
I’m not surprised Will became a musician. Music was part of the
family and so was art. My father was an artist before he went to
the First World War, and my father’s father did art, too. Musicians
and artists have a lot in common. We both work the same sort
of way – Will does musical sketches, or songs, whereas I do an
illustrative sketch every day. I often say this to the art class I teach:
“You’ve got to do a drawing every day, because it keeps your hand,
eye and brain working together. If you don’t continue doing it,
you’ll lose everything.”
Art has been my focus my whole life. It’s a compulsion and I have
great will to do what I do. If you’ve got the focus, which Will does,
art and music is something you’ll have with you forever. Young
people have a big future with all they can do. I think they’re
a lot more clever than we were at our age.
WILL, 28: Grandma and Grandpa had a boat they built with my dad
and his siblings, so we spent most of our family holidays together
sailing around different parts of Australia. We’d do lots of art and
drawing on the boat. We’d be out for weeks at a time, so we definitely
got to know each other more than other families.
There are two main things I learned from Grandma. When I was
really young, I started drawing, and after a few lines, scrunched it
up and threw it in the bin. Grandma pulled it out and finished the
drawing. It looked amazing. It was this lesson not to discard your
work too early, because you don’t know what you’ve created.
You need to be patient. If you throw everything out, you don’t end
up making anything at all.
The other lesson was to make music every day. It helped me get
better, writing daily. It’s the music equivalent of a sketchbook – you’re
not going to publish your sketchbook, but your published works
wouldn’t be very good if you didn’t have hundreds sitting behind it.
Grandma is great at teaching you how to interpret the world
artistically. If you see a living room with brown chairs and red walls,
she’ll find the oranges, the purples and the greens in the room and
make it look great. She’s got great style. I’ll always remember her
as this tiny 70-year-old woman on the deck of the boat, pulling down
sails. We got her a chainsaw for her 80th birthday for her sculpture
work. She already had an angle grinder and circular saw, so what
do you get the grandma who has everything?
I got married not long ago in Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
My connection to my grandparents is really strong. Some people
never get to know their grandparents, but it’s hard for me to imagine
what that experience would be like. We really connect over arts and
I love Grandma’s perspective. She’s not naïve, but she just sees
possibility. There’s something really refreshing about that. I love that
she’s 89 and not afraid.
We watched anime the other week, and she was so inspired to
make stuff. I 100 per cent want to be like that when I’m her age.
She’s the queen of inspiring herself, and she knows she needs to
keep exploring, otherwise she’ll only start going backwards. @WILL & VALDA