A Spirit of Independence Dawns

Mosman Bay Dawn by Ken Rasmussen – Oil on Canvas

I didn’t kill anyone.

None of us did that day. We were all very lucky.

My first lesson about how institutions work didn’t end up costing the lives of several young men.

However, it came very close.

As an art student, I was part of the Army Reserve. I was a member of the 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment.

A group were firing rockets and machine guns down the range. Some of the explosions started a fire. A Jeep load of five guys were sent in to put it out. At least that’s what we found out later.

My group arrived at the range and were directed to our practice positions. For hours we fired several thousand rounds of rockets, shells and machine gun bullets. Late in the afternoon, five young men emerged from the trees to the side of the range. They came out sweating, hot, sunburned and scratched. “We were down there!” they told us.

I felt sick.

The range officer stepped forward and responded briskly, “Oh, well. You’re still alive.” That was it. Nothing more was said. Nothing happened. I guess it’s not surprising that the officer failed to report himself.

I was a teenager and I’d just seen a graphic demonstration of how institutions operate. The lesson was impossible to miss. Institutions, like the army, are run by people. Those people will be competent to degrees that vary. Accidents will occur.

You can’t blindly trust institutions, or just let people do things for you. If you do sign up to the institution, you need to accept that mistakes will happen.

That was my first year at art school. As a result of that afternoon, I concluded that the institutions weren’t going to work for me. I was better off just trying to make my own path.

My spirit of independence was further reinforced when I went to the Biennale of Sydney later that year. I came to see that if you put out the sign saying, “Free money,” with arts grants, you wind up destroying a lot of people’s lives.

Young artists queued up for that free money. I saw them spending an endless amount of time tapping out grant applications, subscribing, believing and hoping that they’ll be taken up. The notion that even a moderately talented person can make paintings and sell them seemed to be lost in their focused quest for grant funding.

I remember hearing someone once say, “It’s not known, which was most dangerous, to turn up or not to turn up.” That was a young woman referring to an arts organisation that she was attending in the hope that her career would be advanced.

I don’t think it’s wise to assume that any institution is going to look after your interests. That’s the valuable lesson I first learnt on that firing range and went on to apply to choices I have made in my career.

Life is full of coincidences. Perhaps you are one of those young men who escaped my bullets that afternoon. Just in case you are, I don’t think it’s ever too late to say – hey, I’m so sorry.

View: Mosman Bay Paintings

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