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Sandhills - Original Painting

Sandhills - Original Painting

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$11,000.00
Regular price
$11,000.00
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original artwork, acrylic on canvas 

90cm x 110cm - ready to hang 

 

SAND HILLS
Painting and story by Garry Purchase

Back in the 1980’s, I grew up right next door to a primary school. It was the same one I used to attend as a kid.
I was the last one there in the morning and the first one home in the afternoon every day.
I could go home for lunch and i had the pick of any balls that landed over the fence. If they belonged to kids that were nice I’d throw them back over, and thats only if I could beat my dogs to them....They were usually ripped to shreds by the time I got home.
I had good mates back then (a lot of which at 40 years old, I’m still good mates with now), but there were quite a few that gave me a hard time because of my skin colour. I remember getting called all the names “ABC”, “Boong”, “Black C”... all the usual names.
I’d regularly find myself in fist fights and having to defend myself. It was hard.
About 200 metres from my house on the other side of the school was a fenced off area that contained some pretty big sand hills and heaps of bush and scrub. There was always bits of dumped plywood and tyres and all sorts of random things in there too.
It was my escape.
Here was a place that I could let my imagination run wild and I could be anything I wanted in there.
In the centre was one huge hill that was way bigger than the others and was strategically the best spot in the whole place.
On top of that I could build things with the scrap and regularly built cubby houses and forts with my friends. We played all sorts of games... Most of which were completely nuts looking back at those days.
There was heaps of slivers of slate in there and we used to have shootouts and throw them at each other. You’d often stick your head out from behind a bush and one would whizz past your face missing by millimetres.
We’d have rock fights and make BB guns with pvc pipes and rubber gloves, make slingshots and all sorts of other crazy things. It was always a battle to the top of the hill.
I guess as innocent kids you don’t think about the dangers of what you’re doing.
It’s amazing none of us ever got hurt. Must’ve been lousy shots!
We’d play everyday after school until it was dark. The streetlights coming on were our indicator to go home for dinner.
They were fun days.
My mother still owns the house next to the school and the sand hills are still there.
It’ll always be home to me.