A Year with Wendy Whiteley: Conversations About Art, Life and Gardening

Description

We sit at the table, opposite each other, a tape recorder and a microphone between us, and I begin by saying that I don't want to start with Brett. 'That's a good idea.' Wendy looks at me and smiles. 'I didn't start with Brett.' These days Wendy Whiteley is a legendary figure in the art world, the keeper of the Brett Whiteley legacy, best known for creating the Secret Garden on the land below her house on Sydney Harbour. But before she met Brett, Wendy was herself a budding artist; her creative work ever since has been under-recognised. Wendy is a survivor: of drug dependence, bitter divorce, the deaths of Brett and their beloved daughter, Arkie. More than that, she is a remarkable figure whose life has had its own contours and priorities. Now in her early eighties—reflective yet outspoken, with a dry wit—she has much to tell about it. The product of many hours of candid conversations at the kitchen table in Lavender Bay with acclaimed Brett Whiteley biographer Ashleigh Wilson, and supplemented by extensive research and interviews with others, this is the unforgettable story of Wendy's life. Ashleigh Wilson is the author of Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing (2016) and On Artists (2019). He was a journalist and editor for more than two decades, based in Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin, and won a Walkley Award for a series on unethical behaviour in the Aboriginal art industry. Wilson lives with his partner, a designer, and their son, and works at the Sydney Opera House. 'This astonishing, glorious book reveals Wendy Whiteley as she really is—an artist in her own right, a unique personality. Wendy tells the truth: she made a garden for Australia. And found the right person to tell her amazing story.' Miriam Margolyes