exhibition proposal - the mad the bad and the different

Mary Buchanan Bailey is one of the few serious social commentary arts workers in Tasmania. Since the 1980s she has been exhibiting highly individualised art works and short stories on women and individuals and groups marginalised by age, race, class and gender.

Her work has been shown in numerous group and joint shows, seven solo exhibitions and two touring solo exhibitions.

Her visual and literary work uses the contemporary world as a metaphor for the complexities of human relationships.

Her current work explores the impact on individuals and the community of the progressive closure in the 1990s of the public mental health institutions and their related support facilities.

This exhibition proposal is for a range of mixed media works and mono-prints mounted on canvas ranging in size from 96x61cm to 31x31cm and a limited edition short story.

artworks - the mad

in sane arcade of mirrors  54x37cm

cocaine going round in my brain 76x56cm

midnight alarm 76x51cm

judgement by proxy  76x56cm

in my father's house 2 90x60cm

outside looking in  46x36cm

afternoon surrender  31x31cm

freefall on sunday 61x46cm

artworks - and the bad

midnight in gordon lane 76x56cm

left step henry 41x30cm

the  walk shuffle  46x36cm

forbidden friend  38x32cm

look i am flying he said  31x31cm

breathing stale air 41x30cm

in the midnight garden of good and evil  61x46cm

midnight queens flinders lane  59x39cm

cynthia pell lived in a garbage bin 76x51cm

artworks - and the different

self portraits talkback show   41x30cm

my sister's silent birds 65x53cm

solo stairway to eden 76x61

self portrait midnight arcade  61x51cm

silent self portraits 2011 56x56cm

judith times three     41x30cm

free fall thursday 51x36cm

searching for surfaces 36x36cm

swimming against the tide 36x36cm

i must go down to the sea again and again  80x56cm

noises in the underpass 57x57cm

fly away peter fly away paul 92x55

short story

the mad

the bad

and the different

When I was seventeen years old, I sound like Leonard Cohen, I had a nervous breakdown. My father took me to the doctor who gave me a bottle of green iron tonic. He said it was female problems. That is what they said in the 1950s. It took me months to recover.

The world seemed a long place away from where I sat in my bedroom. My friend Penny was sent to the Royal Derwent Hospital by her father when at eighteen she became promiscuous. My friend Joy was sent there at seventeen when she stopped eating. My mother's friend Faye was sent there after the birth of each child. My brother's friend Dasher went there and stayed forever after he hurt a child. Electric shock therapy, insulin treatment and knock me out medications kept control.

The 100 women resident in the Hospital had the use of two small yards of less than a quarter acre each. The adjoining three acre paddock was forbidden to them. The Male division had a walled garden of a quarter acre. Two small enclosed yards of a quarter acre each were in use for unquiet inmates, and a small area in front of the hospital was used by quiet and convalescent inmates. There was no classification of the inmates in the wards. And around it all was the ha-ha.

Not seen and not heard.

By 1990 such hospitals and institutions were systematically closed. Along with all the refuges and safe places for people on the fringe, they disappeared. The mad, the bad, the different, were suddenly plunged into the edges of the community. The government dollars went into new institutions which were opened for the elderly - called homes for the aged. The non-elderly were given medication.

I first met Alistair when he was 40. A beautiful man interested in art and opera. A poet with Sweeney Reed and Shelton Lea as his heroes. Great and dangerous fringe dwellers of the 70s. Alistair dressed in hand knitted jumpers of soft greens and heathers and a cravat. He had been living with Kevin for many years. Big fat bald Kevin, dressed in oversize t-shirts, tracky daks and thongs. He would snap his fingers to go home and Alistair would follow. On the days he managed to escape Kevin we would wander through galleries, listen to music and sip endless cups of coffee. He clung to my armpit like a limpet when he became nervous. I suspected that there were other days when he disappeared from Kevin's orbit.

The day I found my long pink boots in Brunswick Street Alistair was beside himself. He searched endlessly for the same boots in size 11. He found some similar boots in scarlet costing twice as much as my pink boots. Kevin was beside himself and so cross at the waste of money I thought he would hit me. Much later that day, Alistair, in red boots and his Alice outfit, went out on the town. Through the city streets and by ways that were unsafe for me. Kevin found him days later in a medical emergency ward, battered, bruised and bewildered with his red boots on.

After Kevin died Alistair queened his way through the underground of the city for weeks on end. No longer taking his medication. No Kevin to monitor his alcohol intake. His costumes competed with Gaye Hawke's Queen of Australia creations. From time to time one of his nine sisters would rescue him and nurse him back to health. The last time I saw him he turned away. Grand he was. The Grand Duchess of Gordon Street. Somewhat tattered and bedraggled he staggered off into a side street.

When he was 50 he was placed in an all male institution. An old age home. Like the thousands of older women and sometimes men daily encouraged by their families to desert their lives he went quietly. Out of sight out of mind. He sits with the other men like an old juke box telling the same story day after day. Medicated. Alcohol free. Writing the same poem.

The 100 residents in the Home have the use of two smaller gardens. The adjoining two acre garden is forbidden to them. Two small enclosed yards are used for recalcitrant residents, and a small area in the garden in front of the Home is used by quiet and convalescent residents. There is no classification of the residents in the Home.

My Aunt Daisy lived in her sister's garage for years, sponged herself with Dettol daily, wrote poetry and muttered to herself. One year when we were children she served my sister and I red jelly flowers – mouldy. My sister in desperation has said to me at times – you are just as bad as Aunt Daisy though I cannot remember serving mouldy jelly.

When she was fifty seven years old my mother's sister Auntie Marie, the artist, went to bed for a year and painted. She said it was because there were fleas in the house. I have never had fleas in the house.

My friend Digger ate his way through the 70s on magic mushrooms. He lives with imaginary people in a room in town. He is never lonely. Sometimes he writes music and sings at the local pub.

When I was fifty seven years old, at one of my exhibitions, I overheard my older brother comment – looks like she has finally settled down- and my sister nodded. On the outside looking in. On the outside. Outside.

Are we mad? Sometimes

Are we bad? Occasionally

Are we different? Yes

artist profile

Mary Buchanan Bailey is one of the few serious social commentary arts workers in Tasmania. Since the 1980s she has been exhibiting highly individualised art works and short stories on women, individuals and groups marginalised by society.

Her ceramics and artworks have been shown in numerous group and joint shows, seven solo exhibitions and two touring exhibitions. Her work is represented in private collections in Australia, Japan, Canada, the United States and New Zealand.

Her visual and literary work frequently uses her contemporary social world as a metaphor for the complexities of human relationships. However some of her work is more immediate and autobiographical, reflecting self portraiture within an essay approach.

The major medium currently used by the artist is form of mono-print on a variety of papers mounted on canvas. These are overpainted mainly using water colours. Some works involve collage, gouache, acrylic and oils.

The artist lives and works in Lauderdale Tasmania.

Email: marybailey4@bigpond.com Mary Buchanan Bailey is one of

Solo exhibitions include

2011                 THE MAD THE BAD AND THE DIFFERENT

Proposed Exhibition

2002               NO OR PETS CHILDREN

Schoolhouse Gallery

1999                A LONG LINE OF WOMEN WITH A FLICK FRINGE

Sadlers Court Gallery

1998                WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BEATRIX MAREE

Sadlers Court Gallery

1997               MRS P and the JELLY BEAN FACTORY

                        Schoolhouse Gallery

                        Touring exhibition with Tas Regional Arts

1995              AUNTS AT THE WEDDING

                       Schoolhouse Gallery

                       Touring exhibition with Tas Regional Arts

 

1988              ME an MRS P

                       Devonport Gallery and Arts Centre

Group and joint exhibitions include

2000             Five Clarence Artists

2000             NOWSA Exhibition Melbourne

1997             Clarence Art Exhibition winner also (1985 - 97)

1989-93       Hobart Art Prize selected

1989-93       Sullivans Cove Spring, Winter and Christmas exhibitions

1988            Devonport Gallery ans Arts Centre

1987            Gallery Two Launceston

1987            Freemans Gallery

Joint exhibitions include

1992-94      Despard Gallery

1994-90      Freeman Gallery Backspace

Publications include

1988           Mrs P and Me Poetry

1995           Aunts at the wedding 

1997          Mrs P and the jelly bean factory 

1998          Whatever happened to Beatrix Maree  

1999          A long line of women with a flick fringe 

2002         The story of Chicken Little  

    

2011         The Mad the Bad and the different