I Shed My Skin, A Furneaux Islands Story is a large exhibition which toured Tasmania. During the four-year research into my family’s Furneaux Islands history I travelled up and down the eastern seaboard of Australia interviewing my father’s cousins in addition to some senior Furneaux community members, including several members of the Furneaux Aboriginal communities.

There are thirty members of my father’s generation and I was able to speak to all but two of them. Travelling for this purpose, to introduce myself, and then hold conversations folded with interviews was a new challenge. I have travelled into the landscape before, but only for drawing. This time I sought memories of Nana and Pop Willis, feelings about the islands, farming and birding as well as opinions about the change in access to land and tradition. I had to learn how to share and lead at the same time because I am progeny; I am emotionally biased. My father and his cousins welcomed my presence and shared their connection to the Furneaux and especially to their aunts and uncles and grandparents. I was lucky to step, briefly, into their lives. They are very diverse, of course, yet all are proud of their Furneaux origin. The interviews revealed great love for family lives and the unifying rituals of gathering together seasonally for work, hard work, in the earth’s dirt and by the sea, in Franklin Sound, on the islands, and on Flinders.

As I began talking about the project to island locals, every one of them suggested other people I should contact. I sought them out, and again, people welcomed my sharing, my queries and gave their memories of my family and their own. Most of them remembered my great aunts and uncles and some, wonderfully, had stories to share about my great-grandparents. All of these were underpinned by being of the Furneaux.

This book carries my journey notes from sketchbooks which diarized my experiences and reflections. The many voices of those I interviewed exist among my notes. The poetry and prose writings of my project’s part-collaborator, Pete Hay, and my sketches, and art works produced during those four years are enfolded throughout.

Contents

• A Furneaux Island Story
• My Furneaux Tree
• A Daughter’s Voice
• An Island Birder
• Families, Inside The Skin Of The Sea
• The Trip Around Big Dog
• Garry In His Ute
• The Smallfield Family
• Badger Corner