Tim Storrier

Sandra McGrath Storrier, August 6, 1992. I've been thinking it's '93 for the last year, typically recorded. I wasn't at the funeral, and I want you just to describe, if you can, well, I know you can, the funeral. I'd also like you to describe how you found out about him dying.

Tim Storrier Well, we'll start at the beginning with the second question. Um, it was just a matter of process that the the police in Thirroul, who had been alerted to the fact of Brett's death, uh, only had his address book to find out um who to contact, since there was nobody at Raper Street. And out of sheer chance, they uh they found Joanna Capon's name, and she had a home number. And of course, most of Brett's book was probably in code and nicknames, so anyway, she she just asked that they ring me, and two policemen came round here at 8 o'clock in the morning and asked if I'd go down there and identify the body, which which was no problem, so...

Sandra McGrath Well, why did Joanna Capon ask you to do it?

Tim Storrier Well, only because she was trying to think of, well, who would be appropriate to do this.

Sandra McGrath Well, why wouldn't Edmund do it? Why did they put it off on you?

Tim Storrier Thank you very much. She didn't she didn't know who else to ring. Well, why wouldn't Edmund do it? I'm not sure he was here, frankly. They rang her at about 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning. And then the police arrived, and I I said of course I would be delighted, but the question was I mean, it's much better if somebody in my position does that than anybody that's actually very close, family. And of course, I didn't understand Wendy's role, she has no real role at that point. So it was just a matter of process of identifying the body.

Sandra McGrath Now, where did you go, though? You went down the the...

Tim Storrier Went to the morgue that morning, following morning, and uh he was laid out in the Wollongong morgue, the mortuary at Wollongong Hospital. / And the morgue is in the Wollongong Hospital? / Yeah, he was all wrapped in a plastic bag with his head sticking out. / It's like what they do, they put them in a bag. / Body bag, yeah. / Was it a really green bag? / This one was white. The uh the attendant was wearing green. / What was your reaction when you walked in the room? Just leave your interview open, go upstairs and get a biscuit, I'll see to that. What was your reaction when you saw him? / Ah, I was quite detached. I um... / What were you thinking when you drove down to Wollongong? Did you go by yourself or...? Yeah, no, I just drove down by myself. Um... What were you thinking on the way down to Wollongong? / I wasn't thinking very much at all, really. Um, I was sort of quite shocked, I think, in retrospect. I didn't feel anything.

Sandra McGrath Was this the first time you've ever seen someone dead?

Tim Storrier Well, honestly, yeah. I, my mother died in the house, but I I there was a sheet over, and I didn't ever pull the sheet back.

Sandra McGrath So it was the first time you'd seen a dead face?

Tim Storrier Yeah.

Sandra McGrath I've never seen one. What's it like? Is it...

Tim Storrier Well, he looked he looked exactly he Well, there was a cer- certain sort of distortion like that, and I asked why why Well, he'd obviously died on his side, so there's a bit of distortion to his cheek, right? Um, and uh I he looked he looked ill. He looked he didn't look well. But he he looked he looked exactly the same as when you saw him socially and he wasn't well, where he'd actually been um had a bad shot or something, you know. He's He was quite white and his flesh was white and waxen-looking, and um he he didn't look very different. So I I just, out of affection, touched his forehead, and that was a shock because you're expecting you you always expect that it'll be warm. It's a natural thing, mother does it to you, you do it to children, and it my hand sort of recoiled almost, you know. / It was so cold. / Uh, not icy. He'd been dead for quite a long time, you know. So the body returns to sort of a normal, they put him in a fridge, I think. / So so they actually pulled him you think out of the refrigerator? / I think so. / What was your reaction seeing your first dead body, then? I really want to know, is it does it scare you? / No. / Does death look awesome? / No. / No, there was nothing. The the the lack of spirit was, was of course immense. I mean, there's no life. It's a body.

Sandra McGrath Is that so? Is that really obvious immediately?

Tim Storrier Well, it is when you touch it. That thing is the fact of being cold. That that's a that's the key.

Sandra McGrath And the lack of spirit, did did would you have known if you'd sort of walked in the room and he'd gone colder?

Tim Storrier Well, you'd have to say that he wasn't looking well, yeah, I mean, he...

Sandra McGrath ...the color...

Tim Storrier ...the color, and his face was sort of chiseled, like. But there wasn't anything particularly grotesque about it. No. Um, it was quite a clinical experience.

Sandra McGrath Did you actually touch the bag away, or was it just literally just his head?

Tim Storrier Well, I didn't need to see anything else. I mean, I the the zipper was open, so he was just in there, you know, with a black uh black... / T-shirt? / No, a um a sort of polo-neck things he used to wear. Um... / And what did you do after that? / ...well, I said, 'Do you mind if I go down the other side?' I I I didn't spend a lot of time. After I touched him, it just seemed anything else that you would do there would be quite theatrical. So I um I then did something that looking back, I'm still surprised with, but I got a pair I asked for a pair of scissors and cut some locks off his hair, um one of which I kept, one of them I gave to to Frannie, and one of them I gave to um to Spencer. / Hm. Where is it? / I don't know, it's here somewhere. / Where? / Jane knows where it is. It's filed. But the funny thing about that was that when I told Wendy that that I'd taken these locks of hair, she was quite sort of cavalier about it. She said, 'Oh, doesn't matter. We've got a bag full of it downstairs, because he used to always keep it, sort of stick on his self-portraits.' / Mmm. / But on the way down, I actually called into the newsagent and bought some drawing materials and I thought, 'Oh, I might do would do do with Brett what he'd done with Joel', but / Death mask, so. when I saw him, I thought, 'Oh, no, I don't want to do that. That's not the way I work.' That would have reeked, to me, that would have reeked of grandstanding, the theatrical sort of posturing. Make you sort of feel a bit of a knocker. / Yes, well, it turned out to be a lot of that afterward. / Anyway, then um it was a matter of just picking up his things, which is um you know, his personal effects.

Sandra McGrath Well, did you then have to drive uh go to the the Thirroul motel? / No, I wouldn't. There's no point. Other men cleaned that out. / So, did they have his things in a sort of bag, yeah? What sort of bag? / They're in um they're You know those sort of bags that Americans get groceries in? They're like that. Paper bags, thick paper bags about about this big. Brown, brown paper bags. Brown paper bags, yeah. And all his uh his personal effects were all itemized. And it included $900 in cash and loose change, his usual sort of um non-wardrobe... / What was in the bags? / Oh, it was an old jacket, you know. An old black jacket he used to wear. Everything had that same look, it was covered in dandruff and ginger fluff, so he didn't seem to take much notice of that. And some trousers. And he um and he had had some some notebooks, an address book and things, all of which which was duly noted and it was all in the bag. / What sort of notebooks? Art books?

Tim Storrier Well, he had three books that were in the boot of the car. Um, one was a big Sidney Nolan catalogue. I think there were three books. Ah, there was a catalogue from that artist that was on at the Art Gallery of New South Wales uh, recently. What was his name? / Francesco Clemente? / No, it was after that, I think it was. And I think there was another one on Bonnard. / A catalogue, or a book on Bonnard? / A catalogue, if I remember. Wendy'll know. / She's got all of it, has she? / Or Arkie would know, yeah. The Sidney Nolan one was a big, it was about Matisse and this other bloke. / Um, and that was it, really. Um... / What did you do? Just put the bag beside you on the seat and get in the car? / Well, after after being confronted by the press, and avoiding any any implication of bad heroin, which I thought was rather distasteful, uh that was it, really. / Where were the policemen? Who was the man that took you in? / Detective Sergeant Cole was his name, was the chap that actually took me over. And his remark was quite interesting. He said, you know, um, he said, 'Oh, we've never seen a junkie that age.'

Sandra McGrath They'd seen about a 20-year-old.

Tim Storrier Yes, he had. He was the The police were very good, I must say. Very understanding and um, quite fresh with all of this. / I found that with police in my dealings. People complain, but I've never had a bad experience with them. / No, they're all right. / So, what did you do after that? After you went to the dead house, what, were the police outside the front, I mean, the... / No, I drove I then drove back. And Sally Begbie rang on the car phone and she wanted me to make some remarks about Brett here at the studio at about 2:00, which I did, or 3:00, 3:00, yeah. And um, in the meantime, I went I met the solicitor who was representing Tony Clune round at Raper Street um, and explained the situation with his personal effects, so as to... / All right. But did you come back here at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and make... / I arrived back at the uh I arrived back at uh Brett's studio at about uh 1:00. And I stayed from there from from about 1:00 till 1:00 till 2:00, 2:10 or something like that. And we were waiting for the locksmith to come around and change the locks only instructions of Tony Clune. / It's so tough. On one level, you were just doing the things you had to do, but on another level you must have been... / I didn't feel a thing. It was a strange scene. But um, it wasn't really unexpected, in a way, but the loss of it hadn't really sort of sunk in anyway. And I think that happened to a lot of people, really. / This guy yesterday at the interview, he said he didn't realize that Brett had died until he went into the studio yesterday. To him, it was just so un-Brett. There was sort of a mess there, and... / Very cold. And no nicotine on the air either, you know. And uh, anyway, we we waited there. I then didn't stay waiting with them. Um, I left a guy called Gore, I think his name was, who was a representative of Tony Clune, to wait for the locksmith. Subsequently, there was a kerfuffle that that this character was actually looking for the other will, which he was.

Sandra McGrath Who's Gore? / He's an articled clerk of Tony Clune. He works for Tony Clune. / Oh, I remember. So you were at the apartment until 2:00 waiting for the lock the locksmith arrived? / He didn't arrive while I was there. There was a TV crew outside, but I refused to speak to them. / The locksmith didn't arrive, right? / He did arrive after I left. / All right, okay. / On getting back here, then I had a funny phone call, because then I I rang Clune and explained what how everything had been done. I had the old keys, uh the old keys were over at the studio. Then Gore came round here and gave me the new set of keys,

Tim Storrier and the understanding was that I could then hand these keys and the bags of personal effects over to Frannie. I then got a phone call from Arkie saying that this wasn't a good idea, so I rang Clune, who then said no, this wasn't a good idea either, but the courier would come round and pick up the personal effects and the keys. My understanding of the situation, he being an executor and Arkie being an executor, that this was the uh No, it was can't have been Arkie. It can't have been Arkie, must have been Wendy, because Arkie was still in London. Um, so then um It was Wendy. So then um she didn't want it to go to Frannie or something. I mean, it got very complicated all of a sudden, so anyway, Clune took it all. And um, I duly tried to put some thoughts together for the ABC and then that was really it. Until the evening, and then I got a very distressed phone call from Michael Johnson. And I could hardly hear what he was saying, he was so upset, and he came around, I said, 'You'd better come around.' So he came around with with with Tony McGillick, who was more stoic than Michael, but at the same time, obviously very upset. Because these chaps knew Brett very well in London many years before. Peter and Mandy Wright came round, I think, if I remember. I mean, I was avoiding any, any kind of emotion, because Frannie Whiteley then came around, and it was all very She was very upset, understandably, but I just find in those situations the display of emotion are rather self-serving. I didn't think there was much point in being upset. And at that point, I still didn't feel very upset. There seemed to be too many other things to be taken care of, like security at the studio. All these things had then been handled, because then a process of of um the family getting in touch with Beryl and Arkie, getting them to fly out, which they did a couple of days later.

Sandra McGrath Did Wendy ring Arkie? / Yes, somebody rang Arkie. Wendy, I think, is the one that... / From here? The girls went from here? / I didn't see Wendy until the funeral.

Tim Storrier I didn't I didn't I didn't know what her role was. I knew that she'd been in...

Sandra McGrath Did Janice come over here? What happened before Janice? / Yeah, she came... So Janice came over... / She came over that same night, yeah.

Tim Storrier It's a curious situation when somebody's been trying to kill themselves for so bloody long, and they finally succeed, you know, it's not It's a little different. Well, I think that's probably true, from what I understand Janice believes that, that somebody took him some dope that day. I mean, that's where these sort of dual roles came in. I mean, I didn't... I think he was familiar with how most people felt about it, really, and I think... ...having known him for so long, you could always tell after a period.

Sandra McGrath You know, the person who had that...

Tim Storrier And the sweating. The sweating.

Sandra McGrath The sweating.

Tim Storrier Well, they tell you how to do it. It's pretty simple. Well, there were six, I wish I could think of the other one. I think it was Anthony McGillick. Tony McGillick. He would have liked the music very much, I think. But it was quite brief. Peter Wright spoke from some prepared notes. Peter Kingston made some remarks that were very touching and quite brief.

Sandra McGrath Wendy, Arkie... Daniel. Janice.

Tim Storrier Janice, Janice arrived. Daniel's his nephew, Franny Whiteley's son, Russell Carlyle's son, very nice young man. Yes, I can't remember anybody else. There was It wasn't a big service at all. It was purposely kept rather private. Oh, Gary Shead, of course, and Purves. ...so he went to the cemetery and he was standing there, he and Joanna, listening to this sort of eulogy and suddenly realised that it was a mafioso funeral, that it can't be Brett's funeral. No, it was the big... Northern Suburbs Crematorium. Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

Sandra McGrath What did you notice about it that that was unusual? But if you were filming it, what would you have picked out?

Tim Storrier people who chose to went up and sort of laid their flowers on the coffin, She immediately jumped into her her limousine and cleared out. She didn't stay around at all.

Sandra McGrath I'm just going to ask you a few questions that you have to answer in one or two words, sort of.

Tim Storrier Yeah.

Sandra McGrath What do you think was Brett's How would you describe Brett's mind in one or two words or phrases?

Tim Storrier Which one? I mean, do you mean the drunk one, the stoned one, the straight one? I would say highly intelligent and ironic. A witty sense of irony, yeah. A very mercurial mind, too. A very clever mind, and maybe that cleverness was part of his problem in a sense. He certainly had a muse, but I think, I don't know exactly what it was. Whatever it was, it was certainly very big and certainly very industrious.

Sandra McGrath Do you think women played an enormous role in his art, or just...

Tim Storrier Well, I can't really answer that, because... I mean, we didn't have, although we did quite a lot of sort of semi-locker room discussions, but they... ...to some of the most languid, soft sort of drawings of women. But you could make the same remark about his dogs, really. ...remarks was that there were there were very, very different aspects of his life. And you get the impression, now, although heroin had a lot to do with it, that he had very different compartments for different people. Well, I'm quite sure. You know, I was in a certain compartment, but I was in the sort of the stitched-up, conservative compartment. And there was an area of him that quite liked that. I mean, there were... ...there were some very conservative areas of his thinking. It's a very traditional area, you know. But again, it would vary, it would vary. His affection for the Left was dramatic and quite honest at a certain point. That tended to wane as he got older, I'd concede. I mean, Joel was very important to him for a period, but I didn't - I mean, that was another compartment. I was never really part of that sort of friendship, you know. They had a completely different, separate thing. I think he had a different relationship with everybody, and a very compartmentalised, more honest, I think. Yeah. You know, you sort of, his share of the relationship was on and off, but it was, you know, beautiful. Well, your relationship was your relationship, and even if it's separate... I used to see him, I very rarely saw him after, um, after the after the breakup of Lavender Bay - my breakup there and then his. But, um, after, not having seen Christ for him, I... ...I very rarely saw him when uh when he when he was using. And, in fact, I think he probably would have avoided my company. I mean, I was never moralistic about it, but, um, I just found his companionship when he was stoned rather non-existent, by comparison to when he was drinking. And, uh, one could have some outrageously funny times with uh with Brett... ...when he was tipping a bit of whiskey and uh and talking and joking. Can you remember any particular ones? Oh, look, there were so many of them, really. I mean, there was his ability to to mimic and to mime and to sort of take people off, and uh there was a lot of theatre in many of the things he said, but often there were scurrilously cruel observations about people, too, but as we all know can be very funny. Can he... He could speak any language, you know. He could speak Japanese, English... Well, he... Yeah, that's right. And he was very good at Arabic. And the other thing he could do, he could play Rachmaninoff on the piano quite well, or Erik Satie. He was very gifted. He could just pick up the piano and make it sound like somebody. The thing that he was really lousy at was gambling. He used to - he thought he was a good gambler, but he never was. Where did you ever go gambling? Oh, we'd go up to Bathurst when Martin took Tammy Currie up. He thought he'd lost all that money. In Bathurst? Well, I used to I used to chauffeur for him. We'd go plein-air painting up round Hill End, you see, and we'd stay at pubs and worry... Tell me about those days. When they were... Well, they were... They were... Well, early '70s, really, mid '70s. Mid '70s, early '80s, that sort of period. Years to, um, he'd feel a need to get away. And, uh... ...so we'd go to Hill End. We'd stay at Sofala, or Sheila Carroll's place, or at the pub in Bathurst. We actually went up and stayed at John Laws's house at Oberon for a week once. And, um... ...he was very strung out, depressed, and drinking an enormous amount. And I really felt that I was sort of, again, like identifying with, uh, just performing a service for him, really. Was this when he was at Oberon, you're saying, he was very depressed? Yes, Oberon. What was he depressed about? Well, I think he was trying not to use, and, uh, it took 30 days to, you know, speed on him, I figure. That was sort of a drying out week? Yeah. But, early on there, I found it difficult to tell. It got more chronic as he got older. Yes, I couldn't tell, except when he fell on his plate during his lunch or, you know, his head starred in space for half an hour. Yeah, well, there was that one time when I got him out of jail, that was a very funny experience. John Hughes has got a very funny story about when he went to court, you know, what what the judge said to him. I could get John on the telephone to talk to you about that if you wanted to do that. Yeah, I'd love his telephone number, I really would. It was very amusing because, uh, you know, he's booked for DUI, driving, uh, drunk driving. And I had to get the bail money to get him out of jail. Oh, he got up to a couple of very funny time. I'll let John tell you all that, but the the when we got out of there, um, in the later afternoon, he said: 'These police stations are very Matisse-ian, aren't they?' He said, 'The blue, the blue.' He was talking about, you know, that blue of the New South Wales police uniform. The blue of the New South Wales uniform, not the colour of the walls? No, that blue, it's that that same blue that Matisse used a lot in those, um, cut-outs. Matisse cut-outs. Yeah. So, I remember a lot of those those things. Not a tragedy, but at that episode he got very, very pissed and, um... Where did you go? Oh, we we went out. He wouldn't go home, so we got we got drunk again and we fell to pieces late in the afternoon. Well, not much to be said about that. I don't know if he's ever in trouble. He's fallen prone. Now, when was that episode of the drunk driving thing? Was that naked driving? What was the...

Sandra McGrath ...episode of that when he was in jail?

Tim Storrier It was drunk driving. He was picked up on the highway, wasn't he? On the highway, I'm pretty sure. But John Hughes, who who was his advocate, can tell you the whole story. I've got his number there. What did he tell the judge...

Sandra McGrath ...when he was asked, since you're listening to this?

Tim Storrier Oh, no, he said, um, he provided all this evidence about his ability to draw, if he was meant to be that pissed, 'How could he draw that well?' Well, but, of course, we all knew that he could draw legless, he could still draw beautifully. But that seemed to work. And, um...

Sandra McGrath Well, wait a minute. Who asked him to actually draw when he was...?

Tim Storrier No, no, it wasn't that, but the judge said... The judge said... ...said to Mr., said to Mr. Whiteley, 'When you say you're, um,' 'drinking on the universe,' which he'd said to the police, 'is that a,' he said, 'is that a,' 'is that a drinking establishment,' 'or is uh is it a state of mind?' Whiteley was very amusing, he charmed the judge, really. It was a very, very good performance. And he lost his licence? Yeah, not for very long, though. That's the only time you know of he was in jail for that. Why was he actually in jail? He was just there for a couple of hours till you came and got him? Well, like till we got him out. He was being so rude to the cops, I mean, I heard the Crown Sergeant say to him, 'Put that away, will you, mate?' Because, well, he had a pair of Vietnamese pajama on and they'd split, so his dick kept hanging out of them. This very nice Crown Sergeant... ...was just asking him to put his penis away. And then the other question was, um, 'Um, when did you have your first drink, Mr. Whiteley?' And he said, 'Oh, when I was about two hours old.' 'Ah, nah nah, come on now, Mr. Whiteley, you know.' I was surprised they didn't bash him, to be quite honest with you. 'Haven't you got no shame, Mr. Whiteley?' 'No, give me cancer.' It went on like that. Anyway, it was duly dealt with in the court and John can tell you the funniest of that. Is he your solicitor still? Yeah, he's if he gets on the telephone he'll rattle on about it better than me. Maybe we should ask him what your role is. Well, we've got our own very good solicitor... became necessary. Did Brett have any other jail, any other...? Oh yes, there were many stories about it, when they got picked up for some fracas at at the Town Hall before... ...before I really knew him, when Ginsberg was out here, there was some... It was a funny story about that, but he tried to be funny with the cops that time, and they stuck his head down the toilet in the police station.

Sandra McGrath Oh no, that was when we were, oh, Brett... that was when we were doing the, uh, protest against the, bombing of the, atoll when we did, I think when we did all those banners, with black and white ribbons. It would be, it was signed for him. We had 50 of them, we had made. It was a poster of the mushroom coming up. Mmm. What other police incidents do you know he was involved with? Oh, none really. I desperately tried to stay away from those sort of things. He had such a problem with authority figures that it didn't matter whether it was a park ranger or parking policemen, he'd have some fight with them. I remember when we went to a national park at Jenolan Caves one day, there was a great big sign that says, 'No animals or pets allowed.' So he had Oxygen bottle, which was Terry Stern's dog, and the ranger came along and said, 'Look, you can't have the dog in here.' It seemed to me to be quite fair, I mean there was a big sign, 'Leave the damn dog in the national park.' But, anyway, Brett had a panic and a verbal altercation, and the outcome of that was that I ended up carrying Oxygen back to the car. What were you doing at Jenolan Caves? That was one of those trips.

Tim Storrier I think I think it was a journey where we went out to get some for the some get some marble for Joel. There were quite a lot of those trips we made together. Brett mostly did drawing, but quite often he did some paintings. We'd light a fire and make some tea or get some whiskey on or something, and he'd He was a fantastic plein-air painter, he never really did enough of it, I don't think. He loved it, actually. He... painting out-of-doors. The thing about him, which is really funny, if you look at his work, really it has very, very little to do with any sense of modernism, looking at it now.

Sandra McGrath That's right. His only his only real sense of modernism was what was when he first went to London, where he was painting those fantastically accomplished abstract pictures when he first got there. I think if one being... what could describe he'd describe abstraction as, as, you know, like a personal highway, that if you arrive at it, and that's it. You don't You can't take it any further. But if you actually look at the work, the subject matter is, it's very, very conservative work in terms of... It has always been conservative, except for the Christie series and the... That's only... Yeah, but I mean the that's because of the subject, but it's treated, and I suppose... A car fell on his car, wasn't it? Did I dream that, too, that a car fell on his car from a parking lot?

Tim Storrier He was parked outside a Japanese restaurant in the Cross. Those two men were killed because they put the car into reverse or something and went straight straight off the ledge and landed on his landed on his BMW, landed on the back of it. Apparently one of the funniest things, I don't know whether you've ever had a motor accident, but with a motor accident you've got to do a diagram of how this happened, well of course he just had an arrow pointing, you know, through the roof. Well, the car came from up here, you know. He remarked, "Bad karma, man." He's very worried about the karma of that happening to him, you know. And then he got a new one— taxi went right into the back of it and wiped it out. And then there was a BMW before that that he completely wrote off by sort of rolling it.

Tim Storrier I'll repeat it. I said, I asked him, I asked him one day years ago, I said, you know, "What is it with this stuff, Brett?" You know, what should it feel like? It must be great.

Sandra McGrath There's really a lot of myths about it.

Bill Wright And I said, "What is it?" And he said, well, I can't remember the exact words, but it was to the effect that he he and Queenie had gone along, and Wendy had gone along, and she changed her name by deed poll to Queenie. And that he then was able to quite legitimately, when the Queen came along, say to her, "And this is my wife, Queenie."

Tim Storrier I think, I think that if I was there, and if it had been in those days, it couldn't be, because it was artificially created, that site. It was a brilliant, a brilliant, er, site, and it is a brilliant site.

Sandra McGrath That was happened to have been created by the government landscape artists.

Tim Storrier No, no, no. That was it. That became the site, at that moment, that was it.

Sandra McGrath I don't think it'll be cool with all these ladies shrieking, you know.

Tim Storrier No, probably not.

Sandra McGrath Take your time.

Tim Storrier Well, there's a there's a fundamental dumbness about realism per se, just putting it down as close as you can get it, as you see it. I just got bored with that.

Waiter Would you like to order, or shall we leave you a few moments?

Sandra McGrath No, we're fine now.

Tim Storrier Yeah. Listen, um, James and I are going to have, um, the casserole, the lamb casserole. How Is it Is it quite large?

Sandra McGrath Can they share it?

Waiter Well, it's served in a casserole dish. If he wants to just have a little bit, it'll be plenty.

Sandra McGrath That would be lovely, yes. Is there some rice with it?

Waiter No, no, it's just the casserole and vegetables.

Tim Storrier Well, could could we have the casserole and a side salad?

Waiter And a side salad?

Tim Storrier And a side salad.

Waiter Yes.

Tim Storrier That'll be That'll do me. And could I order the dessert later?

Waiter Mm.

Tim Storrier What kind is it?

Sandra McGrath Whisky, that's not your favourite. Um, orange juice? That'd be all right. That's not your favourite either.

Tim Storrier Lemonade. You'll have it, though.

Waiter Well, I don't think I have any lemonade, but I'll check for you, but I don't think so. And for you, madam? So you want salad for two and the carbonara?

Tim Storrier I think the salad for one will do, actually. I'm not that hungry. You said that, you little monkey. Jesus. Olsen's right about that image.

Sandra McGrath You said the fundamental dumbness about putting down just what you see.

Tim Storrier Mm. So you have to screw with it, either with poetry or make it literary.

Sandra McGrath It gets boring. So you have to what?

Tim Storrier Screw it around a bit. And also...

Sandra McGrath Around with what?

Tim Storrier Well, there's a sterility about realism in a way that...

Sandra McGrath Wait a minute, finish the sentence: "So you have to screw it around with poetry," you said.

Tim Storrier Screw it around with poetry, or or or literature, I think.

Sandra McGrath And what's the next thing? This is interesting. You said realism is...

Tim Storrier Sterile. There's a sterility about just pure realism, yeah. And once you come to that state of mind, you come up against a very, very difficult problem, and that's how to combine realism with, say, gestural painting. I think that's correct, isn't it? Yeah, um, yeah, you know, interest, quickness, you know. It's also playing with paint, slashing it around a bit, you know. And I didn't want to completely delete the delight in rendering something. And that raised a very difficult problem.

Sandra McGrath Actually, this is why I refuse to use a tape, because it makes everyone think more what they're about to say, rather than... I'm turning it off, actually.

Tim Storrier James, do you want to go and have a walk up and down the street? Go on then. Yes, probably the the most difficult one, and that is the the result of this dilemma is it's just an absurdly contrived picture, and then the gesture becomes contrived too. And I think that I possibly got around it by using realism, but using objects like wire, tape, even print, what, um, by using objects such as wire, tape, um, bearings, fruit, objects taped to the canvas. And using using these in in purely abstract term terms, and purely, you know, using them as just abstract objects, and avoiding the disaster of of the journalism, i.e., of Kitaj. [inaudible] [inaudible]

Sandra McGrath Kitaj? K-I-T-A-J?

Tim Storrier A-J, yeah. Or G, maybe. I'm not too sure. And that was that that that was the fundamental problem with that big picture, you know, that that having solved it, it flowed over into the other picture. It's called Towards an Innuendo of Impermanence No. 2.

Sandra McGrath Has that got the, um, this thing?

Tim Storrier Yeah. See, that's the aspect of the tapes and the canvas, and also, also, this was worked out by using unstretched canvas, very much like paper.

Sandra McGrath What effect do you think that had?

Tim Storrier Well, it tends to There's a tremendous rigidity about stretched canvas, you know. You know, it's it's It's very much that. I mean, basically this whole thing is is is really just talking about extending the medium, without going into that without going abstract, which is, you know...

Sandra McGrath Extending the medium?

Tim Storrier Just just making a picture, just the terms of, you know, the cleverness or what the hell about making a making an interesting object.

Sandra McGrath The issue is extending the medium without going into what?

Tim Storrier Without becoming abstract. For me, I mean, that just deletes It deletes an area that I really want to pursue, which isn't, you know, trompe l'oeil. Can I tell you one? Can you put this in? I don't know whether you'll find this funny. This is my joke. I've made I've bored Whiteley to tears with it, but he's not too sure about it, about the artist, the artist that became so poor that he used his mosquito coil as an alarm clock.

Sandra McGrath The joke isn't very good, but the way you choose to use it is another matter. I mean, that is interesting. Why do you find that amusing?

Tim Storrier Because it's mine. It's the only joke. I'm quite I'm quite sure it is an extremely good joke. I mean, everybody else is wrong, you know. I'm right on that. That is a very, very intelligent, funny remark.

Sandra McGrath Or as Hughie would say, "I'll be the judge of that." How long does that take?

Tim Storrier Quite a while. The other one that Brett always yawns at is that I heard it on the radio, and every time I get drunk I tell it to him, and he does he never thinks it's funny anymore, about the the circus manager who fired his human cannonball and was very worried about whether he could find another bloke of the same calibre. No?

Sandra McGrath Give me that one again.

Tim Storrier Oh, you'd better leave it out. That's a joke I heard on the radio, don't worry about it.

Sandra McGrath No, we'll leave that... Yeah, I'll leave that one out, because that's a bit of a joke. But tell me why you What is this? Why do you think that's What is How do you relate to that?

Tim Storrier I don't know.

Sandra McGrath Well, you can think about that for a minute.

Tim Storrier Well, I mean, it's just pure logic.

Sandra McGrath There's no logic in it at all.

Tim Storrier Yes, there is. You put the mosquito coil on early so that the thing stops. If you want to wake up at You work, you know, they take a certain time. You put it on two hours earlier, you're going to get up two hours earlier because the mosquitoes hit you. And they wake you up. The mosquitoes wake you up, eh?

Sandra McGrath Okay, okay, okay.

Tim Storrier Oh, you're as bad as bloody Brett on that.

Sandra McGrath Maybe it isn't very funny. No, it's not.

Tim Storrier You don't think so at all?

Sandra McGrath No. Well, in a way, but it's very surreal. I'll write it all down, I'll think about it later. But I'm interested why you make that analogy. I mean, do you think you're poor?

Tim Storrier No, but I mean it's an absurd I don't know any good artist that's poor, to be quite honest.

Sandra McGrath Oh, that's a bit savage, I think.

Tim Storrier I mean, politics and art, I think, are is very boring. There's a fair bit of art being produced in this country since the Labor Party, and even before that, that, you know, that was dealing with politics, and it's a transitory thing, and there's not one picture through history...

Sandra McGrath What do you mean by politics?

Tim Storrier Well, conceptual, I suppose. As far as I'm concerned, it's just boring. You know, that's what you do in your head anyway. I mean, you know, that's that's It's not going through with it as far as I'm concerned. And most discussions about aesthetics is very boring too. You know, I mean, I was convinced of that after going to the Art Gallery that day where, you know, you had the moguls of Australian art up up there on a bloody table, boring the Christ out of the audience. Jesus, don't put that down, Sandra.

Sandra McGrath Yeah, well... What did you think of those paintings, by the way?

Tim Storrier Well, I thought they were interesting pictures, but I don't think... I don't think they're They're not They're very good material for students to look at, to give them credit for that discussion. You know, they involve many areas of, you know, just making a picture.

Sandra McGrath What was his name, John Walker?

Tim Storrier Walker, yeah.

Sandra McGrath Second-rate English artist.

Tim Storrier Yeah, right, you know, I mean, they're not that good. I mean, I kept I kept my [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Not that good. I mean, I kept, I kept, my eye kept going over that beautiful Morris Louis, you know, which was a fantastic solution, or even the Stella, which is a solution, but...

Sandra McGrath I think the English have peed out again or something. Sort of a dribble-off from, uh, mid-American 1950s, plus a bit of Braque, whatever, probably don't bother.

Tim Storrier That's right. Just make the, make the, the cutouts a bit bigger, and, yeah, and a lot of times draw a bit of black... ...take them down, get some chalk, you know. I don't know, I mean I was, I went in and listened to the whole thing and watched people shifting from foot to foot, you know, and I couldn't hear. I mean, I was... It seemed to me that if that discussion was going to be at all fair, why wasn't there a figurative artist on the panel? Because figurative painters deal with exactly the same aesthetic problems. You know, they deal with depth, colour, tone, line, all the same things. It seemed to me that it's a, it's not... Students should be, have, have that explained too, you know. Like why... why wasn't Lloyd Rees, or you know, a man like that on that panel? It seemed that... the whole thing was very structured to a certain train of thought, which is what, what's happened in a lot of the art schools. And I don't reckon they should be at art school anyway. They should, should, should learn, do their training in a magic shop. I mean, they'd get more out of it. The whole thing's about illusion. Mick Johnson will bloody flog me if he ever... I'll flat out. I still believe it, though. What do you think about that? Do you agree with that?

Sandra McGrath No, there is not to make comment. I'm just a scribe, the village idiot scribe, huh?

Tim Storrier The explainer is also good.

Sandra McGrath Paris also, now he's master. No, no, no, we're not talking about the image. Okay. Why uh the images? How do you choose your images, the way you use them?

Tim Storrier Well, sorry. It goes back to, um, to this. That they're fetish images, you know. The beef is a fetish image. The indifferent carcass is a fetish image.

Sandra McGrath It goes back to Camus, you mean?

Tim Storrier No, that explains it. It doesn't really go back to Camus. That explains it much more elegantly than I could ever put it.

Sandra McGrath But your images are basically chosen for you. Images are fetish.

Tim Storrier Yeah. They are for me. And that, you know, at this point is the tank, the, the pyramid, the carcass, fruit, pots, yeah, and wire, and ground at the bottom of your, ground immediately in front of you, pebbles, you know, fire.

Sandra McGrath Can you relate that to anything in your life, maybe being on the land or something like that?

Tim Storrier Well, it does sound a bit trite, I mean there's a sort of a rather silly logic to that, but possibly, yes.

Sandra McGrath Possibly because why? Possibly these images are made because why?

Tim Storrier Well, you know, I've been intimately involved with all of those things, you know, when I was on the land. Right, settle down there. And dogs, but I have to reinvent the dog, get... I can't find a dog out here because I've seen that Bacon painting of the dog, you know that? Mmm, he's done it. I don't think I can do better than that. You know that? I don't think I can do better than that. There you go.

Sandra McGrath Where was it?

Tim Storrier Wellington and Coolah.

Sandra McGrath What was the name of it?

Tim Storrier Oh, it was a lovely name actually. Two of the, the two names were lovely. The station at Wellington was called Umagarlee. U-M-A-G-A-R-L-double-E.

Sandra McGrath G?

Tim Storrier U-M-A-G-A-R-L-double-E.

Sandra McGrath Where?

Tim Storrier Out from Wellington. Near Dubbo, you know. Or as you Americans call it, "Doo-boo".

Sandra McGrath I don't. I've been here too long for that. What does it mean?

Tim Storrier It means, um, many springs. And the place at Coolah was called Mount Hope.

Sandra McGrath Where? Was that the second property you were on?

Tim Storrier Yeah. One was sandy and the other one was stony, and neither of them were much good.

Sandra McGrath The second property you were on was called?

Tim Storrier Mount Hope. M-T H-O-P-E.

Sandra McGrath Yeah.

Tim Storrier Coolah, C-double-O-L-A-H.

Sandra McGrath C-double-O-L-A-H.

Tim Storrier One was...

Sandra McGrath ...sandy.

Tim Storrier Sandy.

Sandra McGrath The other stony.

Tim Storrier Mount Hope was... Mmm.

Sandra McGrath And then you went to school at... Shore? Shore. Where did you go again?

Tim Storrier Shore, Sydney Church of England Grammar School.

Sandra McGrath What's it called again?

Tim Storrier Shore, that's the nickname of it, S-H-O-R-E.

Sandra McGrath What's it called?

Tim Storrier Sydney Church of England Grammar School.

Sandra McGrath And then you left when?

Tim Storrier 16.

Sandra McGrath Left at 17 and...

Tim Storrier No, I went jackerooing for 12 months.

Sandra McGrath After that?

Tim Storrier Huh?

Sandra McGrath After that?

Tim Storrier Uh, I did three years at Tech. Yeah, I would have been better off doing it in a magic shop, you know, I mean, or studying painting. You see, what I did was design, which is advertising, which, you know, you look at...

Sandra McGrath Because is it, was it Tech in the design school?

Tim Storrier Yeah, but it's changed. When, when I did it...

Sandra McGrath Was it in the design school?

Tim Storrier Yeah, but everyone did design for the first, everyone did the same course, painting and the lot, for the first year or two years, I can't remember, and then you went out for the last three. The thing that was very beneficial about design as against painting, at that stage... ...you learned to use, you learned printing techniques, you know, like high technology, I mean, you know, like reproduction techniques. The other thing was just you learned to use a camera. And that wasn't, that wasn't at that stage. It is now, sort of.

Sandra McGrath You learned printing technology and how to use a camera.

Tim Storrier No, not really. I mean, I never use a camera anymore at all. You know, Olsen's right on that. I mean, you put it down by hand, you remember. And that's the difference between, say, Estes, you know, or Ralph Goings. They do actually use the negative to get the image onto the canvas, as against say Hockney, who uses a tremendous amount of...

Sandra McGrath Photographic reference, but puts it down by hand, so consequently you get a sense of line.

Tim Storrier Excuse me, could I have the, uh, can of that, please?

Sandra McGrath The difference is the Estes and Goings, and Hockney is the first two totally reliant on the camera, where Hockney puts it down by hand as well as he does.

Tim Storrier Yeah. Did you read his book?

Sandra McGrath Yeah.

Tim Storrier The thing I really liked about that was, he's naive in a way, but was that he was so candid and honest about his problems. I don't think I've ever read a book by an artist, you know, that's that bloody honest about it.

Sandra McGrath There you are, mate.

Tim Storrier Into it. What do you want now?

Sandra McGrath Here, use that as a plate.

Tim Storrier Thank you.

Sandra McGrath You really are hungry, aren't you? You're not kidding. You're a bloody field hand, Tim. A miniature field hand.

Tim Storrier That'd be right.

Sandra McGrath Ah, it's hot. Too hot. Why do you feel no interest in Australian landscape? It's so hot.

Tim Storrier I think there's not a picture in the show that isn't a landscape, you see. I mean, the only difference is that the horizon's not there. I think abstract painting's done that to landscape, actually, you know. It's also done for still life, too, actually.

Sandra McGrath Did you see John yesterday?

Tim Storrier Ollo?

Sandra McGrath Yeah.

Tim Storrier No, no, the last time I saw Ollo, I saw this little ball of meat going along down the footpath from the bar.

Sandra McGrath He was on the box at two o'clock.

Tim Storrier Did he? Yeah, I missed him.

Sandra McGrath What did he think?

Tim Storrier No, I'd like to hear Ollo talk, you know. I like John. Especially when he's relaxed. He's made a few bob now. He likes his art pipe, you know. He was terribly worried about his failure. Just like any artist is, really. He's like any artist is, really.

Sandra McGrath We've now taped everything James had to say.

Tim Storrier But, you know, getting over that, I mean, he's always, when he's relaxed, Olsen is just fantastic, you know. And he's always been very good to me. I mean, he's been very generous with me on his advice and help, and so has Brett. You know, they're the two guys that have really just been not so much on a stylistic thing of trying to change or move you, but just...

Sandra McGrath Do you consider Brett and Olsen your two major mentors?

Tim Storrier Well, mentors is a bit strong, I think, but definitely, you know, just on the thing of making pictures and knowing people who make pictures, yes, without a doubt. They're the only painters I really know very well. And they're both very clever at picture-making, you know, at the magic of it. I think the other thing though, out of all the blokes, they've been the least paranoid and the most generous in their remarks, just to keeping me on the tracks, you know, just working, you know, that sort of thing. And that's possibly got to do with them, you know, as successful individuals, I think, more than anything maybe.

Sandra McGrath Does it worry you that you've been seen for so long a time as, uh, sort of decorative, rather slight, beige and pink painter?

Tim Storrier Well, no, it didn't worry me really. I mean, if you don't take any notice, that wouldn't have changed anything, you know. How could you change that? You want the plate?

Sandra McGrath Do you know that your awareness has deepened in the last few years?

Tim Storrier Oh, absolutely. [Sandra McGrath: Yeah.] [Sandra McGrath: In what way?] Well, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, actually, becoming much, much more involved in, um, you know, absolute meanings about what you're doing rather than just fetish images, you know, in itself, you know, I mean... And most of I regard most of those pictures that I've painted so far,

Interviewer What do you think were your basic worries when you were painting?

Tim Storrier Making them trite.

Interviewer In this last show?

Tim Storrier The thing that I was just terribly worried about, that these pictures were just ridiculously contrived.

Interviewer You've always told the truth, haven't you?

Tim Storrier I've always told the truth. That's the big danger with those pictures. I think I got away with it, actually. I don't think they are contrived, but it was my greatest fear that they, you know... It's a very difficult line, of course, you know, to come to a picture and try to deal with so many different ramifications and make it an entity into itself without having it look, you know, like it, like the thinking behind it sticks out to you.

Interviewer Oh, it does.

Tim Storrier I've really, from a leaning to abstract painting, you know, I'm... I really like good abstract painting much, much more than I ever used to.

Interviewer Don't stick it in your eyes. You know, your own assessment of your painting is up to you. The conscious decision is so apparent to you that you know it's not painting.

Tim Storrier Painting, yeah.

Interviewer You know, to maybe someone from Eastralia...

Tim Storrier No, no, to an eye.

Interviewer To an eye, you know exactly what you do.

Tim Storrier What?

Interviewer Step almost by step.

Tim Storrier Right, and that was the thing that worried me most, you know. I don't know whether that makes them failures, these paintings, or whether it enhances them, you know. Brett just grunted when I suggested that. He didn't think that at all, you know, because you can apply it to so many sorts of things. No, Jesus Christ, he can stand on it. No, no, no, wrong.

Interviewer Brett's his own consciousness, funny, when he uses it, the viewer isn't so conscious of it.

Tim Storrier Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Interviewer His consciousness, the same as yours, doesn't come out as big, as apparent.

Tim Storrier No, it's just sensibility, isn't it? You know, I mean, it's the sensibility of a painter. And that doesn't vary much from one good painter to another, really. The thing that I've noticed is that good painters have a good eye, you know, to other paintings. And of course that's only bloody natural. It's really just getting over hurdles, actually, in painting. You know, you finish one and you're stuck with another lot of problems and trying to get your way around them.

Interviewer Did you like the Fred Williams show?

Tim Storrier Well, that's what I'm talking about, you see. I mean, he's consciously... ...in the last... many years of work, which is a very good description, the little dots of seagull shit all over, you know, which have a tremendous sort of Zen-ish power, great purity. And then he went into a thing where he thought, "No, I want to get the horizon," so he just started playing with horizons, which to me personally I didn't find very successful. And now he's trying to do the lot in these, you know, using horizons.

Interviewer He's getting greedy.

Tim Storrier He's also, yeah, and I don't, I personally... don't say that down, but I mean I personally don't think they're very successful pictures. There's a lot of Olsen in those pictures, too, you know. And you can see that, you know, they're talking about the same thing, you know. He distilled a mechanism there that was extraordinarily beautiful, but so did Olsen, you know, on those new beauties. It's got to do with Rudy Komon, somewhere in the mire, I think. One kept very precious and the other, the other went out on the street, you know. Both of them are just stances, you know, and neither one of them is, um, bad as far as I'm concerned. Olsen is untidy and he's flourishes, you know. He worries and he gets frantic.

Interviewer Don't you dare! Now, you've got to protect me a bit on this. I mean, you know...

Tim Storrier Well, we did two places. I mean, they're all in between Lithgow and Bathurst there, but he got on this very windy ridge and we went into town and had a few, we bought him a bottle of whisky, and it was an extraordinarily good afternoon, actually. Lit a big fire, got the fire rumbling, and I just sat around and watched and, you know, stared at the birds and things like that, not doing much at all, and watched him start a picture and bash a hole and stick a stone into it, you know, that's the first thing he does to break the canvas. Cut a hole in it, grab the nearest rock, cover it with PVA and stick it on, or into it. And then he sat there working, and he got completely shit-faced on this bottle of whisky, you know. The funny thing was, it was windy, but the wind died down luckily, and for some unknown reason it became completely still for about four hours. And he finished his whisky then, and he had his tape, and he was playing, he was playing Dylan.

Interviewer Yeah.

Tim Storrier And Dylan was, oh man, I got so sick of bloody Dylan, I must tell you. But anyway, he'd been playing Dylan all day. And then he tried to, to mouth the words of it, and he was so pissed that he could... ...just couldn't quite do it. And I just started laughing, you know, and he started laughing, and we both just laughed until he fell over in the stinging nettles, this absurd thing, and rolling this thing in a sting, [laughter] this mixture of laughter and the sting, it was just very funny. And then following that, that high, of course...

Interviewer What did you paint?

Tim Storrier Oh, I painted a little, you know, a very ordinary little landscape, an abstract sort of landscape. You know, forgettable and burnable. Not very good. It's very funny, it's taken us about five years to get comfortable with each other. He's a very, very, very funny man, Brett. I mean, he's got, the sense of humour is the thing I stick around.

Interviewer That's actually right. Most people don't know.

Tim Storrier Huh?

Interviewer Most people don't understand he's got a brilliant sense of humour.

Tim Storrier Oh, one of the best senses of humour of... Oh, absolutely. I think because he's got a fantastic ear for a mimic. Did you ever hear him do Webby Pidgeon?

Interviewer "Oh, g'day, Brett! Gee, what have you been painting, Brett?"

Tim Storrier We called in on Webby on the way back. We pulled in at the Longueville Pub and he asked, asked where Webby was. We went and saw Webby.

Interviewer "G'day, Brett! Gee, it's nice to see you!"

Tim Storrier I couldn't believe it. And every time he started doing this, it was because I broke up laughing.

Interviewer Do you think he did?

Tim Storrier Oh, it's the club, then. Keep it.

Interviewer King's Park?

Tim Storrier We done?

Interviewer Oh, yeah, good time.

Tim Storrier All right. Often when the cycle comes around, I mean, it's still, but, um...

Interviewer No, it's Brett and I really have...

Tim Storrier ...you know, the only mates each of us have, really, I think in a way.

Child but it's certainly not working, and I don't know what to do about it, but I'm sure they'll try. I'm sure they'll try, and I just wanted to wanted to know if I can help, um, if I could help, please, please Mummy. No one else has got one, and you know, I guess you near me really, but I'll ask when you come home.