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Reviewed by
Bill Stephens
While many
people found the Covid lock-down period alienating and difficult to cope with,
for others it was a period of stimulation and opportunity. Among the latter is travel
writer and photographer, Angela Schaffer, who had been ruminating on producing
a book like “Pearls” for years.
When her
daughter Liz, the founder and editor of Lodestar
Anthology magazine, decided to return to Australia from London during the
pandemic, Schaffer saw it as an opportunity, not only to share some valuable
mother/daughter time with Liz, but also to bring her dream to fruition.
Confined to New South Wales because of travel restrictions, Angela and Liz
travelled the length and breadth of the state interviewing successful women. Some
Angela had met previously as a travel writer while others had been recommended
by friends.
The result
is a superb coffee table book entitled “Pearls”, a collection of candid,
thought-provoking interviews with 41 remarkable women, all with astonishingly
varied backgrounds and experiences.
Not all the
women featured in the book are as well-known as Kathryn Greiner, but each has
an absorbing story to tell not only about their achievements, but about their
different life choices, learnt lessons and influences.
Kathryn
Greiner for instance talks enthusiastically about her work as Chair of the NSW
Ministerial Advisory Council for the Ageing. She reveals what drew her to MACA and
what she wants to achieve while in her role as Chair. She also shares a delightful story about the
late Queen Elizabeth. Greiner reveals that when asked to be “Granny of the
Year”, the Queen politely declined the role. Through her Private Secretary she advised
that she had always said that you’re only as old as you feel, and maintained that
at 95, she didn’t yet feel that she was old.
 |
| 74 year old Buddhist, stripper, performer, grandmother ELIZABETH BURTON one the interviewees featured in "Pearls". |
Each story
in the book is prefaced by an introduction written by Schaffer which sets the
scene for the interview. Then, set out in a question and answer format, the
actual interview allows each interviewee to speak for herself in her own voice,
capturing each’s unique turn of phrase and method of expressing herself. The
interviews are lavishly illustrated with superb full-page photographs, often
the work of Schaffer herself, but also including contributions by other well-known
photographers.
Among the
other interviewees, Sydney Designer, Sally Jackson, the creator of “The
Bowerbirds’ Collection” which has been exhibited at the Powerhouse Museum,
explains what drives her fascination for making spectacular wearable fashion
from second-hand clothes and vintage textiles.
Pip Brett explains
why, after completing a Bachelor of Design in fashion and textiles, she decided
to exploit her flair for marketing and open a homewares shop in the NSW town of
Orange which she called Jumbled and
which has now become a mecca for fashion, art and homewares.
A phone call
by her Dad to Opera Australia opened the doorway for self-styled ‘home sewer’, Rebecca
Ritchie, to forge a career making costumes for spectacular opera productions. Now
Wigs and Wardrobe Manager for Opera Australia, Ritchie talks of her joy in
solving challenges involved in realising the ideas of imaginative designers
from around the world.
Ritchie reveals
that she did baulk at washing her costumes in urine for a particular production.
Apparently this was the method used to clean clothes in Shakespearean times, and
was suggested by one designer in her quest for absolute authenticity for her
designs.
Similar revelations
are scattered throughout the absorbing interviews of other interviewees as
varied as astrophysicist, Kirsten Banks,
who shares her love of science through TikTok; wheelchair Paralympian, Christie
Dawes; zookeeper at Mogo Wildlife Park, Lisa Payne; sexologist, Jodi Rodgers
and Beekeeper, Vicky Brown.
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| Mogo Wild Life Park zookeeper - LISA PAYNE - one of the interviewees featured in "Pearls". |
A personal
favourite of this reviewer is 74 year-old Buddhist, stripper, performer and
grandmother, Elizabeth Burton, who shares her mantra ‘ mastication,
masturbation, meditation and mobility” together with some disarmingly frank and
unapologetic details of her well-lived life in the very first interview in the
book. Sadly Burton died before the book was published.
For anyone
interested in how other people lead their lives, “Pearls” is the perfect
holiday read. No matter where you open it you’ll find a story to entertain,
inspire and intrigue. Alternatively, if you’re not in the mood to read, you can
just rest your eyes on any one of the dozens of superbly reproduced photographs.
Surprisingly
for such a gorgeously produced book, it does not contain an index of the
interviews, which would have made it so much easier to go back and re-read
favourite entries. You’ll certainly want to do that.
“Pearls” - Published in 2022 by This
Is Magazine Ltd. Printed in Australia by Ive Group. Hardback, 280 pages.
Cover image by Laura Reid
Lisa Payne and Elizabeth Burton images by Thomas James Parrish
Available in
Canberra at Paperchain, Manuka; The Australian National Gallery Shop or direct
from the author www.angelaterrell.com
