Meet Billy Reid – Aboriginal Artist

Extract

Billy Reid, whose photograph appears on the front cover of this issue, is the illustrator for this journal, and its sister journal The Aboriginal Health Worker. Before becoming a professional artist, Billy had a varied experience of Aboriginal life which he can now draw upon in his work as illustrator. He was born in 1948 in the town of Warren in north-west New South Wales, thirteen miles off the Great Western Highway. Dad, known as Bill Reid, was a drover then. Billy remembers, as a child, driving along the outback roads with the horses and the stock. His mother, who died last year, used to drive the wagonette behind Dad, the twenty-odd horses and the cattle or sheep.

Billy spent much of his early life moving between towns in outback Australia. As a child he lived for two years with his aunt at Coonamble while his parents kept working and on the move. Back and forth between Bourke, Coonamble, Brewarrina and Walgett gave him little chance to settle down to schooling. This meant Billy didn’t get going with his education till fairly late. Then, due to constant middle ear infections, which have left him partially deaf, he couldn’t hear his lessons. A good part of Billy’s childhood was spent at the Far West Home in Manly, Sydney. He left school at thirteen.

Billy taught himself to draw whiling away time absent from school, on the Bourke Reserve. His artistic gift clearly runs in the family. Bill Reid Senior, who was later to become Pastor Reid, specialises in intaglio art: he carves emu eggs. As the shell is scraped away different colours are revealed, allowing beautiful pictures and textures to be formed about the shape of the egg.