News Archive

Kings Park – Some myths, legends and a little history

‘Kings Park, myths, legends and a little history” is an illustrated talk originally written for the staff and guides of Kings Park to coincide with the launch of my book A Joy Forever: The Story of Kings Park commissioned by the Parks and Garden Authority primarily to assist the guides and staff. The talk is a gallop through the history of the park debunking a few legends and illuminating corners of its history previously not part of general knowledge.  It touches on the origins of public spaces as lungs for cities to provide fresh air for newly urbanized workers, on the original inhabitants of the area, of the people who steered the development, shows images from its history and engages with a few of the controversies.

About the Speaker

Dr. Dorothy Erickson has had a varied career commencing in the 1950s as a primary school teacher in Western Australia (even becoming a ‘Headmaster’). She has also taught in England where she studied at the Chelsea Institute and researched at Kew Herbarium and the British Museum of Natural History. Returning to live in Australia she undertook art and design degrees at the newly established WAIT (Curtin University) and launched an international career as an artist jeweller. She has held almost forty solo exhibitions in as many years with her work represented in prestigious art museums in Australia, Europe and America. A crippling illness caused a break in her artistic career in the 1980s so she embarked on a PhD in art at UWA undertaken jointly with the Royal College of Art in London and was the first fine art PhD awarded by UWA. This has led to a multidisciplinary career as art historian, curator, editor and author and, when invited to be part of an ABC TV series, successfully returned to her career as a jeweller in the 1990s. An interest in heritage saw her engage in historical research for conservation plans for buildings and landscapes in the nineties leading to her being commissioned to write the history of Kings Park. As the daughter of botanist historian Rica Erickson this was indeed a joy and has led to a new series of jewellery based on her mother’s drawings and since her death in 2009, to a series of exhibitions in honour of her mother, Her Mother’s Daughter, featuring Rica’s paintings and Dorothy’s jewellery based on Western Australian wildflowers.  She is the principal of Erickson & Taylor, Art, Design and Heritage Historians and Consultants and has published widely in this field. She is the principal of Erickson & Taylor, Art, Design and Heritage Historians and Consultants, and has published widely in the field. She is currently working on: a book Spanish Eyes on Western Australian expatriate painter and illustrator Miguel McKinlay.

Tuesday 14th May 2016, Reid Library 2nd Floor Conference Room

Doors open 7:00pm – Talk commences 7:30pm

Cost: $5 donation (Free for Friends of the Library Members)