National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | Home Sweet Home

PF: A very great friend of mine, Nigel Lenden, found one of Slim’s boats in an op-shop in Lakes Entrance, and he rang me immediately and said ‘I’ve found something here that you’re going to be absolutely interested in — it’s right up your alley’. So, down I went, and met Slim, and found a man who for the last three years has done nothing, and I mean nothing, else but make his art, twenty-four hours a day. I don’t think the man ever sleeps. He has been making a series of boats, and the boat that we are looking at here is called Lady driver. Its form and function would scream ‘boat’. It’s made out of cardboard, and decorated in the most idiosyncratic way. It also doubles as a penholder. Slim’s a great one for making sure that we’ve always got a pen, because, as he says, you never know when you’ll want one. So, it doubles as that, but at the same time it plays around with that idea of the various problems of incorporating found objects, whether they be gum nuts, or yoghurt, or biros, or jewellery; all of this