At home among the gum trees … Bribie celebrates the reclusive but revered Ian Fairweather
Brisbane musician and composer Erik Griswold’s tribute to the enigmatic artist Ian Fairweather will finally be performed on Bribie island, the hermit-like Scotsman’s final home.
Brisbane musician Erik Griswold’s ground-breaking composition about the reclusive artist Ian Fairweather is finally about to be performed in its natural habitat. Bribie island, that is.
Fairweather: A Musical Journey is on at the Bribie Island Recreation Hall on October 18 as part of the Bribie Island Nature Festival (October 17-19).
The festival will features three days of arts, cultural and science events including art workshops, guided nature walks and tours, and science talks by visiting and local artists, scientists and community leaders.
There are also unique cultural activities including a tour of significant trees and an opportunity to learn about the work of Bribie’s turtle conservation volunteers.
This is an opportunity to explore Bribie Island’s hidden places and diverse wildlife, discover unique local talent and celebrate the island that the globetrotting Ian Fairweather came to call home.
Festival executive producer Libby Anstis says she is thrilled to be presenting Griswold’s work at Bribie, Fairweather’s final home.
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“One of the local artists here, Geoff Ginn, has childhood memories of Ian Fairweather, so he will introduce the concert with some personal anecdotes,” says Anstis. “Geoff is also running a workshop over the festival weekend, on the site of Fairweather’s former home – using the surroundings as inspiration.
“We were thrilled to receive a grant from Arts Queensland to support the Fairweather concert, and also a jazz concert to close off the festival. The grant has also supported the recording of the work.
“We are closing the festival with Bribie Jazz on October 19 – bringing back the JMI ensemble with Alyssa Sinclair as the headline artist.
“There’s also plenty of other interesting activities happening over the weekend – tours of the island exploring significant trees from a First Nations and ecological perspective, night- sky gazing, talks on a range of topics from frogs to light pollution, and an opening night “hypothetical” -style debate on the notion of rewilding the pine plantations and reintroducing the coastal emu.”
For Griswold, a musician who also teaches at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, it’s a rare opportunity to give his show an airing.
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“The last time we performed it was at the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide in 2017,” Griswold says. “It was first done at the Queensland Art Gallery in 2013 but it has always been a dream to perform it on Bribie Island.”
Fairweather is a collaboration of poet Rodney Hall, composer Erik Griswold and artist Glen Henderson exploring the remarkable life, work and psychology of artist Ian Fairweather.
This multi-media work is scored for string quartet (Graeme Jennings, Brendan Joyce, Mollie Collier O’Boyle, Katherine Philip), koto virtuoso Satsuki Odamura and Eugene Gilfedder as narrator, framed by Henderson’s evocative video works.
Starting from the artist’s early years in Scotland, Fairweather traces his experiences as a soldier in World War I, his myriad travels through the Asia Pacific, his life-changing journey aboard a homemade raft and his final years in a dilapidated shack on Bribie Island.
The work is comprised of six sections – Childhood, The War, China, The Raft, Bali and Bribie – with each section influenced by the cultural, geographical and ecological topographies of Fairweather’s life, as well as rhythm and colour of his paintings.
Reflecting on scenes, events and images from the artist’s life, the trio of Griswold, Hall and Henderson create a collage of music, text and image to mirror the intricate, textured layers of Fairweather’s paintings.
While Rodney Hall is unable to travel to Bribie for the event, the addition of Gilfedder (widely regarded as Queensland’s leading thespian) as narrator, is a coup. “We couldn’t have got a better replacement for Rodney,” Griswold says.
Scottish-born Fairweather is a revered artist who has a permanent presence on a wall at the Queensland Art Gallery. On Bribie Island, Fairweather built a thatched hut and, living as a hermit, continued to paint until his death in 1974, producing some of the most significant works of his idiosyncratic career.
Griswold is a long-time fan of his work.
“It’s so original,” he says, “There’s a real rhythm to his work and I was intrigued by the local connection with Bribie.”
It will be a poignant homecoming for Fairweather: A Musical Journey when the words and music finally drift across Fairweather’s spiritual home.