What started as a retelling of a childhood memory and a sharing of yarns amongst women painting at an art centre in Far North Queensland, has turned into a history-making children’s book by Wanda Gibson.
Gibson, a Nukgal Wurra author-artist, was recently awarded Australia’s richest literary prize, the $100,000 Victorian Prize for Literature for her book, Three Dresses.
A talented artist and master weaver, Gibson was asked to design fabrics for the Aboriginal-owned fashion label Magpie Goose in 2019. Her design, ‘Family Washing’ tells the story that would become the inspiration for Three Dresses.
“They told me that the story was good for a child’s storybook and I said ‘really?’,” she laughs.
Now, she’s taken home the country’s biggest prize, is doing as many as seven interviews in a day, and tells Missing Perspectives she first wrote the story down for herself, to go back to and reflect on.
“I didn’t have any idea of writing books, I didn’t even think of writing a book,” she says.
Gibson’s win marks the first time the winner of the children’s category has also won the overall prize. She says she couldn’t believe she had won when she got the call and the hardest part was keeping it a secret.
“I kept it to myself, but I just told my grandson as he walked past,” Gibson says. “He just turned around and looked at me and said ‘Truly nan?’ then he went on his way,” she adds with a laugh.
Once Gibson could reveal her news to the rest of the family, the reality set in on what she had achieved and her grandkids couldn’t have been prouder.
“They kept saying, ‘Nanny that’s good, nanny that’s good,'” says Gibson.
Three Dresses is a moving autobiographical recount of Gibson’s childhood growing up on Hope Vale Mission in Far North Queensland.
As a young girl she would receive three dresses each Christmas from the Lutheran Church and her family were permitted to take just one holiday a year away from work on the mission.
Gibson and her family would walk 45km to the beach and could only take what they could carry. For Gibson, that was her three dresses – “one to wash, one to wear and one spare”.
“When I got those clothes that year, it sort of felt special to me because the clothes fitted me good and the colours I liked,” says Gibson. “The blue dress with the yellow flowers was my favourite. When we went on holidays it got burnt and I was really upset. It was good that my mum knew how to sew and she hand-sewed it down the beach and it was just like new again.”
Illustrated with Gibson’s own paintings, adorned with the colour and warmth of childhood, Three Dresses was described by the judges as “a real-life history, a truth-telling, woven with words.”
Gibson hopes that winning the prize can show the younger generation what is possible.
“I hope they try and do something like that,” she says. “It’s just that where we live those kinds of things don’t happen or don’t get into our minds, but now with me winning it, they might do something about it you know. I told them to just get a piece of paper, [and] try writing something down.”
On whether she has any more children’s books up her sleeve, Gibson remains tight-lipped.
“I’m thinking about it,” she says with a smile.
Top photo – Pictured: Wanda Gibson. Source: Supplied/Clair Hume
