Sylvia Martin has brought out of the shadows a number of fascinating characters, women who have lived their lives with distinction and achievement without sufficient fanfare or public acclaim. My reading of Martin’s work began with her biography of Aileen Palmer, Ink in her Veins: The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer. This absorbing work led me to Sky Swimming, a beautifully written collection of stories from Martin’s own life. Martin’s exquisite prose has kept me coming back to her work.
Martin may be best known for her biography, Ida Leeson: A Life, which won the Magarey Medal for Biography in 2008. Ida Leeson became the first female director of the Mitchell Library. Martin’s first book, initially written as her PhD thesis, is her three-part biography, Passionate Friends, the lives of Mary Fullerton, Mabel Singleton and Miles Franklin. This brilliant book delves into the work of these writers, their travel and their personal lives through their letters. Martin explores these women’s views of their own sexuality, living as they did in times when lesbian relationships were not openly acknowledged, and brings their lives and their loves to light with sensitivity and in loving detail.
In her latest book, Double Act, Martin once again has recognised two women who deserve to be remembered: Eirene Mort, a professionally trained artist and designer, and Nora Kate “Chips” Weston, a skilled metal worker, woodcarver and carpenter. Eirene studied in London, returned to Sydney in 1903 and met Chips not long after. By 1907 they were sharing a studio in Sydney.
Martin’s book is not only a tribute to these two strong women. It also presents an absorbing and detailed picture of the artworld of Sydney before, during and after the first world war. The Arts and Crafts movement drew many artists together and Eirene and Chips were both active in expanding the status of women in that movement.
Double Act is beautifully illustrated with Eirene’s sketches, bookplates, designs and watercolours as well as photographs of Nora’s metalwork and furniture. Eirene Mort’s designs for pottery and bookplates using brolgas, kangaroos, swans and waratahs are superb. At times the two women collaborated, with Eirene creating designs to be fashioned in timber or metal by Chips. The two women travelled together through New South Wales with Mort sketching and gathering ideas for designs, always with Australian motifs.
Nora and Eirene lived quietly together for sixty years in what Martin calls a “homosocial” world of women artworkers where female couples were not unusual in the early 1900s. Women — especially professional women of a certain class — could live together as “friends” in a way that was not acceptable for men. Eirene and Nora created their home, Weld, at Vaucluse, where they made their art and took in students.
Martin presents visually striking plans of the Vaucluse house and the tone of her writing as she describes this home is quiet, calm and feminine, just as this work and living space must have been for Eirene and Nora. I found Martin’s discussion of the gendered nature of design very persuasive and I think this aspect of the work will be of great interest to readers.
Double Act is a book to treasure. Both Eirene and Nora descended from prominent colonial families. Their stories are told against the history of Sydney and New South Wales in the first half of the nineteenth century, through wartime and the progress of women’s rights. The book shines with illustrations of beautiful arts and crafts work and with spotlights on the particular forms the women produced.
Most movingly, Double Act tells of the developing and enduring love between Eirene and Nora. Selections of Eirene’s writing taken from her letters, together with Martin’s intimate writing style make this an immersive and satisfying read. Eirene and Nora have been brought back into the light.
Martin concludes this book with a poignant and meaningful poem by Mary Fullerton who shared her life with her “friend,” Mabel Singleton, two of the subjects of Passionate Friends:
Feelings can have no framed
Solidity
Nor love a stable shape
Nor can you measure me
Double Act is a superb addition to Sylvia Martin’s important body of work. It is a book to savour. •
Double Act: Eirene Mort and Nora Kate Weston
By Sylvia Martin | National Library of Australia | $36.99 | 256 pages
