Vale Mandy Martin: teacher and mentor

I had just taken a call from Yirrkala informing me of Dr Marika’s passing when I looked at my phone and saw the sad news of Mandy’s death on the weekend. Much has already been said in the press about Mandy’s stature as a major Australian painter, printmaker, teacher, conservationist and mentor. To me, she was, first, a lecturer, then a gracious colleague who treated me as a fellow artist the moment I graduated and included me in some of her fabulous trips in the Top End. We ran workshops at Mount Borradaile, worked on a folio of prints with four generations of Janangoo Cherel’s family in Fitzroy Crossing and, again, a series of prints with artists from Mulan, WA, on the Paruku Project. Mandy organised, cooked, inspired and painted on her famous ironing board easel. I was so fortunate in my “choice”of lecturers at ANU. Sadly Jorg Schmeisser, Gillian Mann and, now, Mandy have all left us now, when they had so much knowledge and experience still to share.