When a teenage Anne and her family attended a sports day at St Ann’s College back in the late 60’s, an instant joy and love for the College was born – one that has remained strong for 50 years. Now recently retired, we caught up with Anne in her beautiful art studio to learn more about the highlights of her time as both a student and teacher at St Ann’s, through to today’s Emmanuel College.
Anne began at St Ann’s in Form V (Year 11) after completing Form IV at Good Samaritan College in Koroit (now St Patrick’s Primary School), who were at the time closing the senior year levels. She remembers thinking when being at St Ann’s for the first time ‘Oh! This is the school for me!’ Then explains, “I would have been so disappointed if I didn’t get to go there. I just loved the whole thing. Everything was just brilliant.”
While her love of school was evident, it was not school itself that set Anne on the path to art and teaching. “I think from when I was about 4 years old I wanted to be. . . there were two things. Art and teaching. I love them both.” With her goals set from a very young age she went straight from school into teaching with a scholarship.
Anne began her teaching career in Wedderburn, before moving onto Lake Bolac, where she taught for about 3 years. Anne then took a year off to go overseas, another long-held ambition of hers, and when she returned, moved back to South West Victoria where she spent some time working as a Secretary at the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education (now Deakin University).
Before long, an opportunity arose at St Ann’s as a careers teacher. This appointment saw Anne collaborate with Mr Tom Clapp and representatives from the other local secondary colleges, to set up the Warrnambool Careers Expo that still runs today across the three schools.
The role of the careers teacher at the time involved what Anne describes as having a strong focus on community and social justice. “St Ann’s was always very into not being privileged. . . I had little groups of students, trying to integrate them into the community. Meals on Wheels we had going, we were teaching young men at Brierly how to dance, plus lots of other things.”
When I was a younger teacher, I was more about the ideas and the creativity and now that I’m older, I think it’s more about getting the kids to love what they’re doing.
Another aspect of teaching careers Anne recalls was the strength and success of the students. “We had a very, very high scholarship rate. We would get an 85-90% pass rate for HSC, which was hard to get in those days. It was very rigorous.” This level of success the girls were achieving at the time saw them go into a wide range of careers of their own choosing.
After a few years, an art teaching job came up, which Anne was quick to jump at “That’s where I felt happy, so from then on it was art and visual communication.” Throughout her time with the art department she was the Art Coordinator for many years and a VCE Visual Communication Design teacher for nearly twenty years.
As Anne recalls her timeline, the one event that always springs to mind for those who lived it – “the amalgamation of the schools!” Anne exclaims. “At the time it was very polarising, because you have to understand that the identity of both of those schools was massive. We each had our own identity, with extremely different cultures.” Anne goes onto insist that while it was tough, it was the best thing to do. “It’s a really good school now. It has very high standards.”
Over the years, Anne has seen the Arts Department evolve, particularly in regards to access to resources. “Back when I started, there was no money. The arts were the least likely department to get money. We always had to fight for it. As teachers, we had to be extremely creative and we would bring things from home.” This was a common practice for many teachers of the time, collecting bottles, old magazines and scraps of fabric so that students had something to be creative with. “Once we started getting money, that was just so much more exciting because you could buy pretty things. The kids loved it and it was quite inspirational. Now when we’ve got so many assets, what you can do is just incredible.”
Just like her time in Careers, the Arts Department were always encouraged to do things in the community. “I was always looking for ways to get the kids work out there. To make them feel like they were artists. You have to feel like an artist, to actually be a good artist.
There was one I remember where you had to use a pair of jeans to create sculptures, and then they were actually showed down at the Performing Arts Centre.”
Overall, Anne reflects on her teaching career with a lot of positivity and love. “I’ve enjoyed the growing. When I was a younger teacher, I was more about the ideas and the creativity and now that I’m older, I think it’s more about getting the kids to love what they’re doing. My first concern is to build a relationship with the kids so that they can love what they’re doing and they can feel challenged. Whereas before I don’t think I had that.”
Now in retirement, Anne’s plans include a big shift in focus back onto her own art. In hindsight, this was a lucky choice that now sees her avoiding the chaos that the COVID pandemic has caused for any sort of travel. “We were going to be travelling of course! If I hadn’t said to Max (Anne’s husband) that I really wanted to spend this year doing my art work, we would have been travelling as Max would have retired too.”
Anne is making the most of her retirement in her beautiful home studio, preparing work for competitions and an exhibition she is planning for post the isolation restrictions. Upon her collection of canvases, she is exploring the issues we face with our environment. Anne is particularly trying to evoke discussion about how we have the power now to make change, but that window will soon close. “We are holding the world in our hands, we have the choice – we can look after our world or we can let it go to rack and ruin. Australians, we love our bush, but we don’t look after it.”
In one of her works, Anne has taken inspiration from the work of artist von Hagens, who is famous for his exhibitions of human bodies that have been through the process of plastination. Using her interpretation of his plastic preserved nervous system she hopes to show humankind within the Australian landscape. “We live by our emotions, but we’re not using our senses. We’re hiding what we’re feeling and what we’re seeing inside.”
