From paint brushes to pavers

FROM Koonwarra to Te Papa Tongarewa, Mel Carlisle is best known in Bass Coast as the feminine side to Wonthaggi Garden Supplies.

However, Mel has not always hauled around concrete pavers and been seated in a loader, instead she once followed artwork to Japan, worked in national galleries and even spent time living in New Zealand as an art conservator.

“It started for me in high school,” Mel said.

“I loved art, and I can remember there was a class for careers, and you had to say what you were going to do when you left school and what that meant for your subjects in VCE.

“In the Jobs Guide there was a bit where you could say what you liked, and it would tell you the career options. I didn’t mind science and chemistry and I loved art.

“I put those in, and I remember conservator came up and I didn’t even know what a conservator was. I read about it, and it just sounded amazing, and that was the beginning of discovery…”

Growing up in Koonwarra and attending Leongatha Secondary, Mel recalls the school shuffling around classes – most students didn’t mix art and science.

“I chose my VCE subjects of art and chemistry, much to the confusion of teachers trying to coordinate classes, not many people did chemistry, maths and art, so a lot of the maths and science classes were on at the same time as art classes.

“I remember going in and saying no, this is why I want to do it.”

It wasn’t until after finishing school that Mel got a taste in the real world.

“You do work experience in year 10, and none of the galleries would take a 15-year-old kid into the Conservation Departments. I had to wait until I’d finished year 12 and I volunteered at the NGV.

“I loved it so much and I got into the course in Canberra.”

A Bachelor of Applied Science at the University of Canberra, Mel was one of four school leavers, everyone else was postgraduate, in the limited class of 30.

“It was the only course in the southern hemisphere.

“It was a big learning curve moving from Koonwarra to Canberra – I was 17 years old and studying this very challenging degree.”

Moving back to Melbourne, Mel started volunteering at the NGV and then secured a job with the relocation team, moving the collection back to the St Kilda Road building after the renovations.

After six months at the War Memorial in Canberra, Mel headed back to NGV to the Painting’s Conservation Department.

“I worked at the NGV on all sorts of contracts in the paintings and the exhibition departments for five years – it was such an exciting place to work. The NGV has such an incredible collection and so much of their collection is behind the scenes in storage; it’s an old painting collection too.”

The sheer volume of the collection (over 75,000 works) means there is not enough wall space to display the whole collection with the largest donation established in 1904 from the Felton Bequest.

“A lot of the collection was built on (the Felton Bequest) so they have a lot of incredible paintings and because they have such an amazing collection, there’s a lot of loans that go out all over the world.

“You work to prepare paintings for travel and sometimes you get to go with the paintings.

“I got to go to Tokyo with a few colleagues from the Conservation Department for the big exhibition on Emily Kame Kngwarreye in 2008.”

Accompanying Anwerlarr anganenty (Big yam dreaming) a 2.91 metre by 8.01 metre artwork, and stretched in situ. The exhibition attracted record crowds and signified one of Emily’s dreams: that her work, her stories, be seen by people around the world.

“It was such an exciting trip to go on. My colleague Carl from the NGV and I went, and we stretched the painting in the exhibition space.

“It’s so big, it doesn’t fit in lifts or through doors and exhibition spaces. It gets rolled up every time it moves.

“It’s incredible all the people at the NGV, there’s mount makers and frame makers that help build systems to transport these paintings along with the conservators.

There’s a lot that goes on that you wouldn’t think about, and that’s the whole idea. 

“I worked on a little project investigating the types of pigments that were used by the Australian Impressionists, and we were able to track the travel that those artists did to Europe. Bringing back these new modern pigments to work within paintings and identifying when they first painted colours like cerulean blue.”

Meeting her husband, Chris through mutual friends at a New Year’s Eve party in Venus Bay, the pair have been pretty inseparable since.

“We had to do a bit of long distance. But then Chris (a landscaper) has always said he can dig holes anywhere, that’s when I applied for the job in New Zealand.

“I worked in New Zealand for five years at Te Papa Tongarewa on some really beautiful artworks there.

“My colleague Katherine and I worked on a painting by Colin McCahon ‘Northland Panels’. It couldn’t be displayed for a long time because there was a lot of cracking and loose paint. It was a type of paint that is really matte and almost chalky, and a lot of the traditional materials couldn’t be used.

“We had to find a consolidant to stick the paint down to allow it to be displayed because it hangs on loose canvases.”

Studying conservation, individuals can specialise in a particular area: for Mel this was paintings.

“You can specialise in paper, objects, textiles and go even further.

“In the southern hemisphere we really only do easel paintings. In the Northern Hemisphere, a lot of people specialise in frescoes.”

Moving back to Australia heavily pregnant with their second daughter, Mel and Chris decided Melbourne was not for them and they brought a little farm in Outtrim.

“We moved initially back to Melbourne and felt a bit overwhelmed by the city.

“Chris has been a landscaper for over 20 years and this business came up for sale. He thought, he could do this, and I might work here one day a week. We now spend a lot of time here!

“It was 100 per cent new for me. I’ve haven’t done customer service since I was a high school girl working in a supermarket. I had a lot to learn about materials and what everything is used for.

“But I get to help people and I still get to be creative. I help people work out what works in their gardens, what colour stones, pebbles and mulches, and I really do like working with customers. It’s really satisfying.

“Meeting people and getting to know our regulars and talking to people about what they’re working on and helping them work out a plan. It’s really nice.”

A far cry from multi-million-dollar artworks, Mel now proudly has her truck licence, drives a loader and gets her hands dirty on a daily basis, but she wouldn’t say no if NGV opened a mini gallery in Wonthaggi.

“I do miss the collections that I was working with, but I really love the life that we have here in the country, owning our own business and what that means for bringing up our family.

“It’s such an amazing place to live down here – the beautiful coast and we are so close to the city. If we want to go to the NGV for the day you can drive up in the morning, see an exhibition, have a great lunch and drive home again.

“My youngest daughter, Coco, likes coming to the gallery with me…”