The first thing I noticed when I walked under Laurie’s house wasn’t the artwork. It was the smell of timber stain wafting through a workshop that has been lived in, worked in and loved.
Laurie Eastough was standing amongst the evidence. Paintings leaning against walls and windows, brushes scattered across benches, frames being stained and prepared and a giant artwork stretching across one wall. And, of course, a shark carved from a tree stump watching over it all.
But there was something else about Laurie that caught my attention. He claims he doesn’t know how old he is. I’m still not entirely convinced whether he genuinely doesn’t know, or whether he has simply decided that numbers are overrated and, like me, prefers the idea of being eternally thirty.
Laurie says he was born on a farm in Western Australia, delivered by a midwife who never got around to the paperwork. When he later needed a passport, his sister discovered there was no official record.
“My father reckons I was born in 1939,” he says with a casual shrug.
For Laurie, that was enough. Perhaps that attitude comes from growing up in a very different era. One where families were large, resources were limited and entertainment was something you created yourself.
Laurie was one of fifteen children; eight boys and seven girls; growing up on a wheat and sheep property near Geraldton. They didn’t have television, they had imagination. They told ghost stories at night, searched for birds’ nests, made up games and lay beneath wide open skies counting meteors; with a dozen shooting across the sky in a night considered nothing out of the ordinary.
Most of the children slept outside on the verandah because there simply wasn’t enough room inside. It was a different world. One where you caught ducks for dinner, trapped rabbits and learnt to shoot a rifle from a young age. One where you fixed things because replacing them wasn’t an option.
It is perhaps why Laurie still sees possibility where others see something discarded. A tree stump isn’t just a tree stump, it’s a shark or a female torso sculpture. Old timber isn’t rubbish, it’s waiting to become a frame. That way of thinking has followed Laurie throughout his life.
Laurie has always been a maker. Long before paintbrushes became his tool of choice, his hands were busy operating earthmoving machinery, steering fishing boats, racing motorbikes and building homes from the ground up. If something broke, he fixed it. If something didn’t exist, he built it. Art simply became another way of creating something with his hands.
When Laurie bought his block of land on Russell Island more than 30 years ago for $14,000, he wasn’t chasing luxury. He was chasing possibility. He built his own home for around $24,000, a figure that says as much about the era as it does about Laurie himself. It was a time when people didn’t wait for someone else to make things happen; they picked up the tools, worked it out and built what they needed.
That same philosophy followed him into art. He had always dabbled in painting, but after attending classes with his daughter-in-law, an art teacher told him he had talent. Fifty years later, he is still proving her right. Even arthritis, which has changed his hands and made painting more difficult, hasn’t managed to convince him to put the brushes away.
“I just keep going,” he says, as though there were never any other option.
His recent exhibition, Lajasper, named after the street he has called home for more than three decades, was more than a collection of paintings. Held at RicArts, it was a chance for the community to celebrate the imagination, humour and stories of a man who has quietly created his way through life. But the exhibition was about more than paintings, it was about community and friendship.
When I arrived at Laurie’s studio, Julie Menzies was there beside him, staining and painting the handmade frames that would showcase his artwork. It was such an ordinary moment, yet somehow it captured something extraordinary. Two people from different generations on two completely different life journeys, united by art.
Julie and Laurie found each other through RicArts, a place that has become a significant part of Laurie’s island life. For Laurie, the group represents connection. For Julie, it represents a friendship she never expected to find.
“He’s just a wonderful person, and he brings so much happiness to everyone around him,” Julie says.
And while Laurie has watched plenty of things change during his time on the island, some of his memories belong to a very different Russell Island. He remembers when there was a small convenience shop where Mitre 10 now stands. When the arrival of the IGA supermarket was a major milestone. When island life moved at a slower pace and people knew each other differently. The landscape and population has changed, but Laurie believes some things remain. People helping people.
Just when I thought I had seen the full extent of Laurie’s creativity, he introduced me to his water lift. I had never seen anything like it; a clever homemade contraption that uses water pressure to carry people and supplies to the top floor of his home without electricity. Laurie explained it with the excitement of someone unveiling a brand new invention, rather than something he has lived with for years.
Laurie wasn’t quite finished with the tour. He ushered me into the garage where a fluorescent green 1961 Wolseley sat basking in the afternoon light. It’s the sort of colour that would leave Kermit feeling understated and a car that seems to reflect its owner perfectly; impossible to overlook and entirely unconcerned by what anyone else thinks.
But perhaps what Laurie will be remembered for isn’t hanging on a wall, sitting beneath his house or tucked away in his garage. It’s the community around him. The friendships formed through RicArts, the people who have admired and bought his work, and the quiet way he has made this island a little more colourful simply by being part of it.
