What a wonderful surprise yesterday when I received an e-mail from Peter Drewett with evidence of his project to make 100 walking sticks, in the hope that he will be able to place them as a collection in a Museum collection. 

It has been ten years  since I was last talking to Peter and there was always a possibility that he might just go bush and not be seen or heard from again. He had appeared out of the blue at my front door some twelve years ago, having been sent by Joan Kerr who had seen his pyrography in a coffee shop up North.  She went searching and found him and told him he must make contact with me.

Well, Peter did and we talked and set the bar a little higher in terms of artistic goals. Peter was in need of cash and he had found a ready market for trinkets and throw away pieces. He departed from me, set on making a great work. That he did.

The work, was shown in the National Gallery of Australia in the exhibition Home Sweet Home Works from the Peter Fay collection. Peter suspended gourds from the ceiling falling in an arrangement that suggested a projection of strange unknown worlds. With his pyrographic pen he traced continents in the markings of the gourds. It was a work of extraordinary poetic sensibility. It marked an artist of some note.

So you can imagine my delight to see evidence of Peter's latest project (below) I look forward to seeing the completed work as Peter is threatening a visit in his newish car. A trip to Sydney could be fraught with difficulties in the old days as Peter's car was always on its last legs. He now mentions the luxury of an almost new model. I know that it will be full to the roof with his latest works. I can hardly wait.