Lee Blacker-Noble - May 2021 Artist of the Month
Many people would be familiar with the name Lee Blacker-Noble, as one of the iconic artists of her hometown of Leeton, who has been in countless exhibitions in her longstanding career since her first solo show in 1976. Lee is somewhat of a visual historian with the reflective nature of her public mural work. She describes the theme that connects her various bodies of works together as ‘remembrance’. Lee has worked in many mediums, such as oils, watercolours, ceramics and textiles and has many talents beyond the paintbrush. Lee has played the push pedal organ for 20 years at St. Marys Yanco Anglican church, taught art classes at the Leeton Technical College, and has mastered short-hand typing as a Stenographer.
Lee’s works have gained popularity to the point that they’ve been stolen. When relocating in between houses in Leeton in 2000, she found to her immense disappointment that a huge work of hers had been stolen from her hallway. The theft is a complete mystery to Lee. She notes due to the size and weight, it would have been a two-person job. Lee would like to see the painting returned to her all these years later, and would encourage anyone who knows anything to come forward.
“Two Chronometers The Captain Had”. The case of the missing Lee Blacker-Noble work is unresolved.
Lee has long been involved in Leeton’s evolving artistic history. She was one of the founding members of the first iteration of the Leeton Art Society which held its first art exhibition in the basement of S Richards Department Store (now Best & Less), in 1956. Lee won this first competition and sold the winning piece to the judge, the artist Douglas Dundas. Lee is now an active member of the current Leeton Art Society (LASI) which was revived by Penny Paniz in the 1990’s.
Lee in her garden with her companion King Tut.
Lee recently partnered with fellow LASI member Lynne McQuillan, on the Partners In Paint & Pastel exhibition which was held at the Leeton Museum and Gallery in February. This show signaled the unexpected return of Lee to the exhibition circuit, as she had previously stated her 2017 exhibition ‘Journey’s’ would be her last one. Lee also experienced a personal artistic hiatus during 2020 as she battled and overcame ovarian and bowel cancers.
‘The Hidden Dragon’ 1987, (centre) was one of the works exhibited at the ‘Partners In Paint & Pastel’ Exhibition.
Lee’s most ambitious public mural resides in Casino, NSW. At an enormous 36 metres long and 6.5 metres high, Lee’s mural was a collective community effort which has withstood the test of time from 1988: “In my last year at Uni in Lismore, we all had to apply for grants. I won mine with the NSW Arts Council to do it. So I got $2,000 from them and I had to get $2,000 locally, that was the conditions of the grant. The municipal council insured me and did the paperwork, and the district council gave me free use of their bridge building equipment because we had to have a mobile and a tower. The skill-share supervisor had done 6 years of scaffolding work in Sydney. He was able to write a scaffolding certificate for the boys who completed the mural’s scaffolding as a course. Quota was a donor, Rotary and the Apex Lions Club spray painted the wall for me. Then I put the grid up on it and put the design on it. We had the primary school coming in half hour waves to paint. K-1-2 did the sacred snakes along the bottom. The Aboriginal Community came down from Tabulam to paint their motif. I used to bring the paint in a wheelbarrow and had soup cans for the kids, each one had a different colour and they were told which bit they had to do. Four adults did the top and I did the finishing off. I had a friend who was learning signwriting and he put the signs on the street. We started it in early February and we finished it in May. It was really good, we finished in time for Beef Week. The Mayor opened it and there’s a plaque on it. The town loves it - the whole mural has never been vandalised.”
Lee’s mural in Casino, New South Wales. Source.
Lee’s twenty year stay in Casino led to her pursuing other creative avenues as well, joining a choir and the Casino Music and Dramatic Society which saw her painting and designing backdrops for shows such as The Sound of Music and Aida. Lee was 50 years old when she started her tertiary education, and was one of the first intakes of her art course: “Those three years, I learnt so much about painting. We were taken to every big exhibition. We were taken out to camping trips painting. The whole course was about 85% if not more practical. You were judged on what you actually produced.”
Lee’s graduation from Southern Cross University, Lismore in 1988
Upon returning to the Riverina, Lee’s first public mural in Leeton was painted in the Historic Hydro Hotel’s bar in 1997. Being friends with the proprietor of the time, she suggested the blank space above the bar would be a great place for a mural. The hotel owners paid for the materials, and Lee planned out the design from historic photos lent from the archives at the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission. Ringed with iconic fruits and vegetables, Lee imagined her own colours on the black and white images she worked from, sneaking portraits into the mural of local residents that she knew, all of whom have since passed on. As a huge opera fan, Lee requested payment for artistic services in the form of tickets to see Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung in Adelaide. The mural is still adorning the walls of the bar and one of the most iconic features of the Historic Hydro.
Lee went on to paint other public works of note around Leeton including, at her former place of employment, the Yanco Agricultural institute, at St. Peter’s Hall and also the base of the water feature at Chelmsford Place, which was designed by Lee with the mosaic work laid down by members of the Vitelli family. Lee’s murals feature a repeated theme of depictions of the past, as she finds great importance in remembrance of the past to stop people forgetting “I think they need to have it there in front of their eyes.”
Water feature in Chelmsford Place, Leeton.
The large historical mural at the Yanco Agricultural Institute by Lee Blacker-Noble. The mural features depictions of the POW camps, the introduction of rice and the Aboriginal Rural Training Program logo which was originally created by Aboriginal artist Mini Heath.
Lee advises that the next generation of artists need to just jump in and get involved: “I really don’t think anything is better than actually doing it yourself. It’s all very well to look at what other people have done, until you actually put the brush to the canvas. We had to stretch our own canvases and size them. We had to make all our frames. We had to learn to use a drop-saw and drills. Find what you want to do. It may be different to what’s popular. It’s got to satisfy you first, otherwise it’s not much good.”
Lee teaches the next generation of budding artists at the Leeton Museum and Gallery.
Lee believes that the future of regional art will be influenced by local artists being given the opportunity to show their work in public spaces: “I’d like artists to be able to exhibit their work. It’s so great to have the new gallery (Leeton Museum and Gallery) because we hadn’t had that before. It was a real job to stage an exhibition in Leeton, and now we have this space which is marvellous. I’m quite pleased with all the work the Leeton Art Society is doing and the new people that are coming into it. This will give them an outlet to be seen.”
Lee has combined her love of gardening, Lord of the Rings and art in these works.
At 87 years of age, Lee isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, perhaps partly due to her belief that art makes you live longer. “There’s nothing better than painting. I think that’s what’s kept me going all these years, the ability to be able to paint. It’s a lot better than sitting in front of the tv – I can tell you that. When you’re painting you can’t worry about anything else, you are completely involved in what you’re doing when you’re painting.” Although she is an active member of many clubs and communities within Leeton, Lee still finds time to work in her home studio surrounded by her carefully curated Lord of the Rings themed garden. She has already begun the research for her next body of work which will return to some of the previous themes and mediums she explored decades ago. If you would like to enquire after one of Lee’s collectible works you can ring her on 02 6953 5033 or contact Western Riverina Arts on any of our platforms.
Lee Blacker-Noble researching and getting inspiration for her next body of work at the Yanco Powerhouse Museum.
Story and images by Camille Whitehead, Monday 19th April 2021.
