PROFILE: Roger Saunders - An Interesting Life

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PROFILE: Roger Saunders - An Interesting Life
Journalist: Jenny Oldland

Your Yorke Peninsula News - Tuesday, May 4, 2004

Photo: Roger Saunders with this third painting, "Place of Turtle".

Anyone looking at his paintings or reading how artist Roger Saunders "scooped 
the prize pool" at the recent Cheetham
Salt Art Exhibition at Ardrossan, would never guess he'd only been painting 
since October, it was the first exhibition
he'd ever entered, and his prize winning entry in the indigenous section was 
only completed three days before the
exhibition opened!

Roger, a man who embraces life with gusto, credits a shark with the start of 
his new found painting career. While he's
always been a dab hand at sketching and cartooning, it was when he was advised 
not to go anywhere near the water for
two weeks, or risk getting blood poisoning, after he had been bitten by a Grey 
Whaler shark in shallow water off a
beach in far north Western Australia, he decided he'd paint to fill in the time.

Nicknamed "Bushfire" many years ago by Aboriginal acquaintances because of his 
colouring, he later found his great-
great-grandfather boasted Kamilaroi blood, which would explain his affinity 
with Aboriginal people.

Last year, he and his wife, Christine, spent six months travelling around 
Australia, visiting many Aboriginal
communities including Arnham Land, Beswick and Mataranka. However, it was while 
nursing his wounds he spent five days
at the famous Roban Co-op, watching and learning from the artists there.

"It was the first place I felt I could really paint, and it was a phenomenal 
experience. Everyone involved, from the
elders to very young children, has a unique style, his/her own interpretation 
of the dreaming, and I was fortunate
enough to get individual instruction each day", Roger said.

His own dot paintings attracted a great deal of attention at Ardrossan, with 
two selling during the weekend of the
exhibition.

"I have always been interested in the dreamtime, and the artists advised me to 
follow my heart when it came to putting
my thoughts on to canvas. And I think I've found my niche, it's like a 
fairytale and I got a real buzz when elders from
Point Pearce said they could see the feeling in my paintings."

Mind you, it's not really the first time he's painted, his early "career" 
ending abruptly when he started to paint his
father's blue car black at 16!

An hour in Roger's company and you know you are in the presence of a man who 
has led an interesting life.

During a 20-year stint in the army, he served two tours of duty in Vietnam, 
where he entertained other soldiers with
catchy cartoons on envelopes - one a cheeky dig at the slowness of the mail 
bringing deliveries to a halt until, Roger
suspects, his commanding officer offered an apology on his behalf!

Retired after many years working on cotton farms in New South Wales, Roger and 
Christine now spend six months of the
year on the road, dropping in to visit numerous family and friends around the 
country, before heading back to Coobowie
to spend time with nephew Peter, his wife, Pat, and children, Kia and Cody, who 
are currently learning dot painting
from their great-uncle.

"We're a bit like the 'fairies at the bottom of the garden', and come back to 
help Peter and Pat restore their old
farmhouse, and find they've always got a list of jobs for us to do", Roger says.

He is a man who definitely looks "outside the square". Like Christine says, 
he's always been an individual, and a man
of many talents, having even managed to convert an old boat hull into a 
sensational kids' cubby house, complete with
flying fox.

The painting style he's adopted, which includes the difficult triple dotting, 
Roger finds therapeutic, the quiet time
spent recreating a story from the dreamtime probably the only concession he 
makes to the fact he suffers from
hereditary Parkinson's Disease, and has had nine strokes. Not that it has 
affected his desire to tackle life head on!

SOURCE: Yorke Peninsula Country Times, Australia
Your Yorke Peninsula News - Tuesday, May 4, 2004


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