Trobriands No. 2 - Today's Art Work

Trobriands #2
Roger Smith - 2015
Prints available here.

In the middle of writing my book on living in Papua New Guinea in the late 1970's - early '80's, I felt motivated to produce this work based on traditional Trobriand Island design elements.

Flying the Way it Used to Be

From Brisbane to Singapore 1937
Refueling at Daly Waters in the Northern Territory

In this day of A380's and Changi's terminals it is easy to forget how far travelling by air has advanced in a very short space of time.

This image shows a refueling stop in  Australia's Northern Territory.  In 1937 when this photograph was taken aircraft has to stop several times on long flights to refuel.  It was only two years earlier, on 7 April that Qantas operated its first overseas passenger flight from Brisbane to Singapore.  It was a  four-day trip in those days and the aircraft (partially pictured at right) was a four-engine DH86.

Demand for the service was such that two years after this journey was captured on film the DH86 was replaced by Short C Class Empire flying boats, which also operated out of Sydney.

1937 was clearly a watershed year in Singapore aviation as the Wearne Brothers launched the first commercial air service between Singapore and Malaya that year using a de Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft called (quite appropriately) the Governor Raffles. It flew from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

It was also the year that Amelia Earhart departed from Lae in Papua New Guinea en-route to Howland Island. She never made it.

No Frequent Flyer points in those days and only the well-to-do could afford air travel. Qantas has also become an airline consigned to Singapore's history as it recently stopped flying there, preferring instead to go through Dubai.

Related articles

• Amelia Earhart's Navigator: The Life and Loss of Fred Noonan
• De Havilland Dragon Rapide
• Qantas base leaves Singapore for Dubai

Uncle Roger Remembers

Today marks the second anniversary of our departure from Singapore, returning to New Zealand on the evening SIA flight.

It's a date that fills me with some sadness as I felt blessed to have been able to work in a country I had for so long admired.  Better still to be able to live and work under a local contract conditions and be domiciled in Queenstown away from the Expat hot spots.

There are some , and I am not one of them, who regard Singaporeans as being somewhat distant and remote.  I never found it so, having made some good friendships with colleagues that I still maintain.  As with any culture and country if you are prepared to make the effort to assimilate and learn the local customs then your experience will be the richer for it.

Use a country as a temporary halt and only mix with your own expatriate community and you will selling yourself short. If that's your approach then you will also miss out on the real friendships that can be forged.  It is the same all over the world and I observed similar traits and reactions when I worked in Papua New Guinea in the late 1970's/ early '80's.

There's a 'buzz' about Asia and Singapore in particular that I really enjoy; it's vibrant, everyone is focused on making their lives better because you can't expect the government to mollycoddle you if you are not prepared to get stuck in yourself.

And then there are the tropics themselves - the luxuriant foliage, the warm and torrential rains that announce themselves with deafening thunder, the bugs, birds and flowers that are larger and more colourful than those found in temperate climes.

The diversity of cultures in a country like Singapore is a delight and in the main harmonious.  I worked with Singapore nationals and PR's of different ethnicities and from many countries; a rich mix that makes life in the Little Red Dot even more interesting and rewarding.  We can all learn so much from the customs of others.

My admiration for the founding fathers of Singapore, the relative safety of the streets and of course the richness of Asian cuisine were all reasons that first attracted me to Singapore on my first visit there in the early 1980's, and remain with me still.

So on this day I remember with great fondness being called "Uncle Roger" by those whose friendship I value in Singapura.  I count myself very lucky to have lived and worked there and my heart remains in the Heartland with my soul (as I wrote in an earlier poem) in places such as Fort Canning.

Painting With Passion

For three years in the later 1970's and early '80's I headed an art school in Papua New Guinea. I taught people such as Larry Santana (known as Larry Mike in those days) who went on to become and important and internationally regarded painter from PNG.

My Niugini Days blog covers these times but I was reminded of them today when looking at the local arts calendar in Auckland.

A contemporary gallery is featuring the work of Jeffry Feeger, one of the new and emerging artists from Papua New Guinea.  His painting style is featured in this short video below.




What I loved about about this portraiture was the passion exhibited in the painting and the 'studio assistant' at the beginning of the process!  The choice of colour palette reflects the more traditional 'groun' (local clays) used in PNG body art.

Being passionately involved in your subject matter was something I always emphasised as an art teacher and tried to follow in my own work.

Rabaul - Acrylic on canvas. Roger Smith 1981