It was shortly after a six month stint working as Martin Sharp’s studio assistant during Martin’s preparations for his first solo exhibition that I developed an interest in photography. It was 1965.

So when Sharp left for the UK I formed my own photographic studio, working in advertising, fashion and theatre.

When Sharp then returned to Australia in 1969 he invited me to join him and a group of other artists in ‘The Yellow House,’ an artist’s co-op in the old Clune Galleries in Victoria Road, Potts Point, Sydney.

I stare at my boyfriend, Ian, in a stoned haze across the small table in our Kings Cross flat. Wow, that pot we just smoked is some powerful shit! I vaguely remember it being mentioned that it had been soaked in DMT, a very toxic and dangerous chemical. The room faded in and out and I felt very strongly disembodied. The only thing to do would be to lie down and pray that it too shall pass eventually.

This is a brief extract of an extended memoir, a work in progress.

When I was 18, after work I occasionally made my way down to The Royal George Hotel in Sussex Street, feeling daring and hoping to catch a glimpse of someone bohemian like Germain Greer, or maybe strike up a conversation with a long-haired girl in a duffle coat. It was 1964 and the ‘George’ was the watering hole for the notorious group of intellectuals know as ‘Sydney Push’.