WHEN YOU CAN'T SAY IT - CREATE IT!
Phyllis Armstrong
Born in 1934, Armstrong has amassed an arsenal of artworks including drawings, paintings, etchings, pottery, ceramics, sculptures, and photography. Many of these were only discovered in mid 2022 when she sold the family farm in Maitland, NSW Australia at the age of 88 years.
Phyllis has never limited herself to one genre or medium and at the age of 89 has even taken up the stylus to create digital works.
Early years
I did not live in a town or city where there are large numbers of people, but on a remote bush farm where I seldom saw anybody but my immediate family. The approach to the farm was on a narrow dirt road. There were so few cars on this road and so few settlers in the district that our family, upon hearing the sound of an engine in the distance, could determine the owner of the vehicle before seeing it. There were no immediate neighbours, only a family that lived three kilometres away and we were surrounded by forest as far as the eye could see. My first two years at school were spent in a small, one-roomed school about four kilometres away, which I walked. The consequence of all this was, that whenever a person came to our farm it was an occasion for celebration. Our family would become very excited because we saw so few people, and my mother would put on a spread. The visitor would be seated at a special place at our kitchen table and because the visitor’s face to me seemed strange or unusual, I would find myself analysing it. Later, in privacy, I would transfer my impressions to paper.
School years
When she was 10 years’ old she asked her parents to pay for an art course by correspondence and waited eagerly for the post arrive in the large timber roadside mail box.
High school in the nearest town of Taree was filled with mixed experiences. Previously only visited on the occasional shopping excursion with her mother, she was now catching the bus to the busy rural centre daily. While her five siblings were all involved in school sports, especially track and field, Phyllis was more interested in drawing and painting at every opportunity. Spotting her talent, her teacher asked her to paint scenery for the school concert. Phyllis was delighted to be provided with paints and materials to produce her first works on a large scale.
Phyllis recalls enjoying her first years at high school immensely and relished in making new friends, especially with the town-dwelling teenage girls, who read the latest magazines. Phyllis especially loved the fashion photography and photographs of the glamorous movie stars of the era and started making her own clothes.
"All was going well", she says, "until one day when a group of girls from my school arrived unexpectedly at the farm. Dad was primarily a timber farmer, but we also had a fruit orchard and grew vegetables for market. My parents had built our two-bedroom cottage themselves out of timber from the trees that grew abundantly across their 500-acre farm. As more children were born, a large unlined shed was divided into two – one side for the three girls and one side for the three boys.
When we weren't at school, our days were filled with farm-related chores such as chipping and weeding, picking and packing fruit and vegetables for market, as well as helping with housework. Washing entailed boiling a copper and wringing sheets and towels through a mangle. We had no electricity and relied on hurricane lanterns to light the way to the un-sewered “dunny” that was built quite a distance, for obvious reasons, from the house. Our clean water was pumped into buckets via a cast iron pump on the back veranda that drew water from an artesian well. This was supplemented by a large steel rainwater tank that fed water into the kitchen sink.”, said Phyllis. “I could continue with this description, but the upshot was that I knew the girls were a bit shocked by the state of the place. I never felt they were as friendly towards me after that visit. It shook my confidence and I feel that I withdrew even more into my art after that”.
Further education
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National Art School (1952 - 1955)
At age 15, Phyllis turned down the offer of an apprenticeship in a Taree tailoring shop, instead setting her sights on attending art school in Sydney. In 1952 she was awarded a full scholarship to the National Art School which she attended four days per week, with one day a week spent attending Sydney Teachers College. Phyllis was exhilarated to find herself in 1950's Sydney, although admits her shyness prevented her from fully embracing the lifestyle that many of her peers seemed to be enjoying. The terms of her scholarship prevented her from taking on any employment. However, on several occasions when short on funds, she worked "incognito" at an assortment of temporary jobs which included serving refreshments at a Pitt St cinema snack bar, and as a shop assistant at a Daryl Lea chocolate shop and ladies fashion store, Chic Salon. Once, on seeing a line of girls waiting outside the infamous Tivoli Theatre, with her blonde hair and 18-inch waist, she was almost talked into auditioning to become one of the theatre's chorus girls. Phyllis remembers, "I was always so nervous that someone would report me for working that I could only hold a job down for a short while before my conscious got the better of me and I'd make my excuses and leave. It sounds silly when I look back now."
In 1955, Phyllis graduated as a high school art teacher, committing to the terms of the day whereby she agreed to work for the Department of Education for a minimum period of three years. As a single woman in her early twenties, Phyllis was sent to teach in various regional areas. This included Maitland Girls High School in its original location in Elgin Street. It was while teaching here that Phyllis met her future husband Henry. The couple had three children, and were happily married for 60 years until their wedding anniversary on 7th January 2021, when Henry died.
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Newcastle University, Bachelor of Fine Arts (2004 - 2008)
In 2004, at 70 years of age, Phyllis embarked on a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Newcastle University. During her first year she was involved in a research and documentary exercise. A local Maitland historian and writer, Cynthia Hunter, launched her book, Time Gentlemen Please, at Maitland Regional Art Gallery. The book focused detailed the history of pubs in the Maitland district. Local artists were asked to contribute by making paintings to accompany the presentation. The theme of the exhibition was Pub Culture and Phyllis was asked to contribute. (Read more in Gallery | Party People by Phyllis Armstrong).
Career highlights
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Teaching in the UK - Southlands Secondary Modern, New Romney, Kent (1973 - 1975)
With a daughter aged 11 and a son aged 6, Phyllis and Henry decided it was time to see the world. Not unusual by today's standards, but in 1973, to resign and travel 10,000 miles to a new country with no job and limited funds, was seen as quite bold. Their first task was to buy a second-hand Kombi van to transport and temporarily house the family of four, before both secured positions at the same school on Kent's coast. Henry teaching history and geography, and Phyllis teaching ceramics. The adventure was completed with the birth of the couple's third child, born in the nearby city of Ashford in Kent. Phyllis and Henry made many friends throughout this period, some of whom traveled to Australia to visit them after they returned to Maitland, and some they caught up with on subsequent visits to Europe in later years .
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Kurri Kurri - Regional Art Prize ( 2002 )
Always taking up any opportunity to paint, Phyllis entered and won the competition sponsored by Alcan with her painting inspired by a visit to The Rocks on a rowdy New Years Eve.