Shane Wombat's Droppings: Vale Maggie

Vale, Maggie

I had to visit her home late one afternoon to deliver some prints and after sitting me down at the dining table was asked, ".... glass of wine?" "Yes", I replied and Maggie went into the kitchen to get glasses, which arriving full, she again disappeared to get something else.

I thought the wine glass looked a little odd.. and picking it up to examine it, found a conical container, ball stem below, uneven base, bubbles within glass of a greenish tinge. Maggie returned with some nibbles and seeing me looking at the glass intently said, "Like it?"

"Yes .....it's really lovely...."

"I got six of them just today... they're C18th."

And I nearly dropped it on the table in shock. " Geez...I'll have to be careful..."

"No...", Maggie replied, "....we're only using them for what they were intended ."

And so we sat to look over the prints.

Flemington, 70's with Bruce Morrow

There was the (perhaps) apocryphal story of a student in class expressing the wish to have a rest being advised that, "....rest is for the dead".

There was also the time at the Ballet Centre where Gailene Stock, Maggie's successor at "The School" had called me in to photograph some auditioning students to illustrate for them a technical fault: Maggie was sitting there and I popped down into place next to her. Eventually she leaned over and whispered, "What do you think? " I was a bit ambivilant about the group and said so, "None of them are sweating, are they, " she said "they're not working."

Brunswick St 66-67 and Elphine Allen

Both of our daughters had met Maggie for the first time at a "Dance Creation" Garden party and because we had arrived quite early with food to lay out, had spent some time conversing with her. Driving back home they couldn't stop talking about her. "What an impressive woman..!" exclaimed the elder, and "So easy to talk to" said the younger.....animatedly recounting all what they had both discussed.

Jurgen Schneider, Master Class

Shooting rehearsal shots for the Dance Creation web site of the time, Maggie was sitting near and during a break she enquired what we had planned for the next year, on being told we were going to France to visit our eldest who was teaching there and also to investigate Romanesque architecture, she got very excited and said "You must go to Burgundy... there's a particular village and church which is exquisite, you must go there, I'll call you when I remember it's name."

Two weeks later the phone rang, it was Maggie, "I've found the name of the Village .. ..and church, It's Ve'zelay,"

"Which church, the Abbaye, St Madeleine on the hill or the smaller Saint Pe're in the village below?" ( I had been doing a lot of Google street walks as research)

"You know it..." she squealed in delight, "....how wonderful" and went on to explain that she and her then new husband Derek had 2CV'd through there with artist Donald Friend who did drawings for them as his contribution and that this place had really impressed.

And it did.

Sant Pe're, Vezelay

I asked if I could sculpt her portrait and started with the most restless model I've ever had... got about four hours into it when I really needed 20 and later, finished it from photos.

It has different aspects on different sides and when I said that it was deliberately Baroque in its perspective and that the gaze was toward the distance Maggie nodded and said quietly "Well, that was the beginning of ballet wasn't it?"

She got it.

Energetic, imaginative, creative, teaching herself about art she said, by visiting galleries and concerts whilst fending for herself in wartime London and learning her profession at the same time: later knocking back Vodkas with the Russians in Germany.. being part of Macmilllan's first choreographic effort ...and then "The School". A place that was vibrant, innovative and nurturing particularly after it had established itself during the 70's.

Sadness has crept up on me slowly as I recall these anecdotes about this formidable woman.

I'll miss you and the privilege of knowing you....