Teaching Peter Graham. Quadriplegic, amazing man, my dear friend and pupil.

One of my students wanted my opinion on a painting done by someone she knew. I noticed it had been painted with numbers and it seemed a little rough round the edges. That was my first encounter of Peter Graham’s work, a quadriplegic, living at; what was known then as,

The Home For Incurables. It was changed years ago to The Julia Farr Centre.

Peter was injured when his station sedan slid off a bridge, during a torrential Queensland downpour. His large toolbox damaged his spine. Years before, his wife had died of pneumonia and his little girl had died from a hole in the heart complication. His life now was reduced to laying in an iron lung with the smallest amount of movement, only turning his neck a few degrees.

The doctors told Peter that if he came to SA, where the humidity was far less than Queensland, he would be able to live without the constraints of the iron lung. This meant leaving all his friends and relations and heading south.

I felt so deeply for this poor man and his incredibly devastating situation, that I offered to teach him. In order to accomplish this, I had to firstly, learn how to mouth paint myself. I indeed, mouth painted myself ! Paint was flung everywhere. On my face, clothing, walls, our cat. My jaws and neck ached from holding the brushes. After several weeks of this, I realised that my teaching methods had to change somewhat.

Peter used to get $7.00 each one he sold, but he paid $5.00 for each paint with numbers kit. The remaining $2.00 bought him a packet of cigarettes. He loved the Tigers footy team and would puff away, whilst listening on his tranny.

The first thing he needed was a wrap around easel and special little aluminium film containers to put his paints in. They were then mixed with a little oil of cloves, to slow the drying time down and permit Peter to continue painting for longer periods. An amphitheatre curved palette arrangement held all his colours within a brush length of his face.

I contacted the Tigers Footy club about Peter’s plight and were kind enough to autograph his yellow and black cap. I painted a tiger on it and he never took it off. Even the easel was painted in his team colours.

He never looked back, never painted with numbers again and began selling his all of his work. He loved to copy Sir Hans Heysen’s work among the many he did. We arranged two, one man shows and in that time, he sold every painting he did for prices up to $120. He was able to get a chin operated motorised wheelchair, coloured TV, pyjamas and more cartons of fags.

I was with Peter when a couple of Lions club members came in to offer him a book, page turning device, based on a windscreen wiper with a thimble on the end. They showed Peter how well it worked but he thanked them and told them to give it to another handicapped man in the next room. Peter then showed them how he could expertly use a brush to achieve the same thing.

I taught Peter every week for 5 years, until sadly, he passed away. A beautiful courageous man, my dear friend and pupil.