I got into book design and illustration by accident…

The first book was Nadia Wheatley’s novel, Lucy in the Leap Year, for which I did the cover and a number of black and white drawings. Some years later, from 1997 to 2001, Nadia and I worked in the school in the Aboriginal community of Papunya (Northern Territory), where we made a number of self-published books with students and staff. One of these was the prototype of Going Bush. Another was the prototype of the Papunya School Book of Country and History. When Allen & Unwin accepted the latter for publication, I ended up teaching myself about book design. Later Nadia and I worked on a number of books inspired by the Papunya Model of Education, which has learning from Country at its core. Nadia and I produced Going Bush, Playground and Australians All. I worked with teacher and botanist Diane Lucas on Walking with the Seasons in Kakadu.

I also did the book design for two books by First Nations artists and illustrators whom I mentored — Mary Malbunka’s When I was Little Like you, and When we go Walkabout, by Rhonda Lalara and Alfred Lalara.

If you go to the installation Learning from Country (this website, 2000 - 2018) you will see examples of the work in progress for all these books.