Hetti Perkins. The Roma Bar, Darwin August 2010

I caught up with Hetti Perkins while I was up in the Top End of the NT for the wonderful Darwin Festival a week or so ago.

I’d not met Hetti before and I spent some time distracting her from the very important business of breakfast at The Roma Bar (two flat whites back-to-back, toast on the side, Champion Gold rollies) long enough to ask a few questions and have a yarn about her work, the animals (human and otherwise) she shares her life with and the things she likes in life.

For those who are unfamiliar with Hetti she is the Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales…and much more besides. She is the eldest daughter of the late and much loved – in many quarters at least – Aboriginal activist Charlie Perkins.

The Northern Myth: Good morning Hetti, how are you on this fine Darwin morning?

Hetti Perkins: Yes, I’m good. It is so nice to be sitting here at table 14 at the Roma Bar. It is an excellent time to be in Darwin, though it is a bit more humid than I like…

TNM: Cats, Dogs, neither or both?

HP: Both…and rabbits…two rabbits. Two cats, two dogs, two rabbits. Four kids.

TNM: Are the animals inside or outside pets?

HP: Inside of course!

TNM: On or off the bed?

HP: Off the bed! And off the lounge! Otherwise free-roaming. The rabbits live outside – they used to live inside but then they did unspeakable things like eating electrical cables and so on. So for their own good they now have the whole of the backyard to themselves.

TNM: Are the rabbits for meat?

HP: No! The rabbits are for…I like to think they are for our mutual pleasure.

TNM: Pen or pencil?

HP: Mostly pencil. I carry a sharpener and a rubber and a pencil with me at all times. When I use a pen I use a black, felt-tipped pen. One day when I’m grown up enough I’ll have a beautiful fountain pen with real ink.

TNM: Apple or PC?

HP: Definitely Apple.

TNM: What is your most treasured possession?

HP: Probably this ring. As you can see I don’t wear much jewellery but I always wear this ring, which I love. It was given to me by my late husband. It is a wedding ring. We didn’t actually have a wedding ring when we got married but a few years later he gave me this lovely ring.

TNM: Your Desert Island Disc?

HP: It would have to be Nina Simone. Anything by Nina Simone. I love all of her work. She was an amazing revelation when I heard her the first time. My favourite song of hers is “Wild is the Wind”.

Love me love me love me

Say you do

Let me fly away with you

For my love is like the wind

And wild is the wind

Give me more than one caress

Satisfy this hungriness

Let the wind blow through your heart

For wild is the wind

My son is in a band and they make fantastic music. At the moment they just have demo’s – which I play constantly. His band is called “The Future Prehistoric”.

TNM: And your Desert Island Book?

HP: I like reading, so narrowing it down to one would be very tricky. Apart from childhood books like Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals – that was another childhood obsession that I’ve read I don’t know how many times. Susan Sontag’s Volcano Lover and Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family. And anything by Toni Morrison as well. I read an excerpt from Toni Morrison’s Jazz at my sister’s wedding – it is a beautiful book that transcends it’s genre.

TNM: I only asked for one book – we are into excess baggage territory now. But what is it about those writers that captures you? Do they take you somewhere else, do they give you something to reflect upon?

HP: I think it is their individual styles of writing. Not only what they are writing about, but that they give you an experience unlike any you’ve ever had before. I just like their different styles and the stories are interesting. A lot of books have wonderful stories and are totally captivating but some just stand out from the crowd. It is just like listening to different styles of music.

TNM: Are there any Australian books that get their hooks into you like that?

HP: Yes, Thea Astley. Just about anything by her. And Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide.

TNM: What do you sing in the shower – if at all?

HP: No, I do not sing in the shower! (laughs) I leave that to my sister Rachel who has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard but who hardly ever sings (laughs).

TNM: What is your Sunday morning record?

HP: My Sunday mornings are usually spent finding a coffee as soon as possible! What I have been listening to a lot lately is a great album by a Sydney band called The Mess Hall called For the Birds. That has been on high rotation around my place lately.

TNM: What was the first record you ever bought?

HP: I think that it was by someone like the Bay City Rollers or maybe an Abba album. The first record that I bought when I was a little more better informed, and using my own money, was a record by The Clash at an import record store at Civic in Canberra.

TNM: What about fiction – what are you reading right now?

HP: Right now I am reading a very interesting book by David Mitchell,  “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet“.

TNM: And non-fiction?

HP: Non-fiction? Oh god, I hardy ever read non-fiction, mainly because I don’t really have time. I dip in and out. But one book I have to catch up with is Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man. The other book I’ve been reading a lot recently is the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature. It is a mix of fiction and non-fiction. There are a lot of early letters, letters from Bennelong to a Mr Philips, Lord Sydney’s steward and a wonderful pleading letter from an Aboriginal man from Tasmania-whose name slips my mind right now asking “What hope is there for us Tasmanian Aboriginals?”. The Anthology is a really fantastic book to dip in and out of and to pick up at any time.

TNM: When did you last break the law?

HP: Oh, just on my way here in fact. The sign said left turn only and I turned right. But I’m a good girl…really! (laughs)

In Part two Hetti talks about her recent work, her views on the Aboriginal arts “industry” and what her father may have had to say and do about the state of Aboriginal affairs in Australia today.