By way of explanation to this category appearing in "Pottery". I have tried to keep Handpainted to amateur and semi pro artists although some pro's painted naively and vice versa and have been included........scroll down to the pictures if the story-line is tooo long

My mother in the 50's and 60's was involved in groups like the Country Womens Association (CWA) and the Anglican Mothers (a good woman!)(dad was in Apex and golf club..) painting/pottery/flower arrangement (including dried art!) were some of the things these women did...In Western Australia, classes were taught by the likes of (over a period of 40 years) Flora Landells, Joan Darbyshire and Eileen Keyes and various other excellent artists,usually women.

My Mothers "stuff" was of legendary mirth in our house (4 boys and 1 girl) my father humoured and encouraged mum to create and Sunday afternoon "drives" into the "bush" looking for clay (Kalamunda) sticks/mallee roots/banksia and sometimes whole Jarrah trees (I exagerate)(but not by much!)(dried flower arrangements) and bits (to paint on) were a regular way to fill the boot of the Hillman Minx and later the "FB"(some found its way next week to the rubbish dump on the Saturday arvo mow and cleanup (insert picture of Victa Super 18 lawnmower)(and the wooden-tray box trailer)...

Some outstanding amateur painters evolved out of this movement..."Alva" springs to mind...a prolific artist (I have found her "stuff" in all states of Australia and even bought an item on ebay from the USA) who is best known notably for her "blackboys" (politically incorrect) on Wembley Ware (although i don't think she was a Wembley Ware artist)(The Wembley blanks could be bought from Boans etc in Perth) and any other sort of plate cup dish bowl and tile she could find.. Alva also painted other wildflowers although not as prolific......more information on Alva is actively sort, as little is known of the person.....

None of my Mothers "stuff" from this era has survived...My Father was an avid "chucker" and is best known for a sledgehammer and stained glass windows (with kookaburras' x2) to replace with "you beaut" aluminium sliding windows (and we won't talk about the Kalamunda Apex Club in 1956 holding a "smashem" -3 balls for a penny...thrown at an oversized kitchen dresser full of "old" pottery...and the, picture this, overhead clap of two fists fitted in the throats of two Wembley Ware dhufish to attract attention to the stall at the Kalamunda Show)...Her ashtrays plates and vases (lopsided and uneven...) were thrown out as fast as mum could make them, as dad stopped smoking...or cleaned the garage or shifted things around......Mum still dabbles in her "art" and an occasional gift finds its way into our house (more treasured now ..even if her view of a tree is not the widely accepted version of a kangaroo paw.....................)(got you thinking about that one!) and constantly the cry of "hey mum your kangaroo is better than the one Cap'n Cooks botanists painted" (go check their paintings!) and I still wistfully look at mallee roots,wild oats and bits of asbestos................................

As an artform ceramic painting still continues, although the ceramic paints used are more modern and tend to turn a bluish colour. The older pieces are becoming harder and harder to find, and are often overlooked at garage sales and opportunity shops because, 1) they are naively painted 2) localised subject matter Western Australian wildflowers or swans.. 3) what price do you put on them? Are they of any value? 4) professionally painted (insert transfer) items are more available (and probably not as poisonous!) 5)displays of handcrafts by adults are not common in modern houses

Finished!..... but just you wait for the story on school manual art projects!!! Cottees cordial bottles wrapped in tubing..leather work... trays...matchsticks.. .paddlepop sticks (fruit-bowls from hell!!!)