Skip to main content

White's Mine and Doll & Bear Display.

Road Trip Day 5: 27th May 2007 (Morning)

Kevin White's Mineral Art and Living Mining Museum and Betty White's Handmade Doll & Bear display is an unlikely pairing of themes and subject matter but makes for an interesting experience for the whole family.

Located in Broken Hill, a slight detour off the road to Silverton, visitors are greeted and then directed to view a short video that covers the history of mining in the region (up to 1983... leaving you to wonder if some of the future projections made in the video have come to pass). The video gives a good over view of the Broken Hill story to a trip to the town could easily begin at White's Mine.

Betty was our guide for Kevin's replica mine museum. She did an excellent job pointing out the contrast between early mining and the mostly machine driven, push button technology used today. She made the point that when people talk about the 'good old days' of mining, the only thing 'good' about them is that they're gone. Such was the appalling conditions early miners had to work in.

A feature of the mining museum is Kevin's mineral art. Images made entirely from finely crumbled mineral rock. Kevin has, what seemed like, hundreds of artworks created this way ranging from mining scenes, to iconic Broken Hill buildings to important events and stories in Australian history.

An unusual feature of this museum is that you are encouraged to take photos of the exhibits. Betty and Kevin understand that there is a lot to take in so they are happy to let you snap away.

Betty's collection of Home made dolls and bears is exceptionally large, filling up the other half of the museum. Her collection consists of dolls she has made and dolls she has collected. There are dolls of all sizes and made to many different themes from wizards to barber shop quartets.

The White Museum also has an extensive gift shop featuring a number of unique mining souvenirs that you can't buy elsewhere.

Comments

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art  image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

Jimmy Barnes, Working Class Man 40th Aniversary Tour - Barossa Valley, Peter Lehmann Wines

D espite being in the middle of Summer, and experiencing some record temperatures across the state, we got a perfect day for the South Aussie leg of Jimmy Barnes' Working Class Man 40th Aniversay Tour. Lightly overcast. Almost no chance of rain. The cloud cover taking all the edge out of the sun, which was still quite fierce during the brief moments when it did break through the clouds for a little while. Guest artists supporting the show included, Jon Rooney, Kate Ceberano, Ian Moss, and Ice House.  Unfortunately, while my partner and I had every intention of being at the concert  when the show actually started, so did quite a lot of people. We didn't quite anticipate the traffic getting into the venue, Peter Lehmann Wines, Barossa Valley, and we certainly didn't expect the 5-10 minute hike from the carpark to the concert area itself. Kate Ceberano By the time we found our seats, Kate Ceberano was already part way through her set. Prior to this concert, I certainly knew w...

The Lego Man - He's got all that!

Who would have thought that owning one of the worlds largest, private Lego collections could take you so far. Tom Lucieer of Angaston, South Australia, not only has met the Queen (of England) but is a frequent guest of her majesty and family when they are in Australia. He's also met Prince Charles, Lady Diana and Camila Parker-Bowles. Not only that, he grew up with TV Vet, Dr Harry, and is a friend of the Irwin family (yes, that's Steve Irwin's family). Tom will happily tell you all this as part of the guided tour of his collection, which, aside from Lego, includes much railway memorabilia and colourful anecdotes about days gone by, his achievements and more. Frequently he will finish each particular monologue with the phrase, "Have you got that?", just to check that he hasn't confused you because, as he points out, his display and the stories behind it are a lot to take in at once. In the photo you can see Tom holding a special award, which I think is for bei...

Bruce, South Australia - A Forgotten Aussie Town with Spectacular Landscape Views and Potential

The Bruce Railway Station. Now a private residence. V isiting the almost forgotten town of Bruce reminds me of visiting Silverton back in 2007, except Silverton has been revived into a kind of arts town with a very famous pub. Bruce, on the other hand seems a little too spread out, and a bit too out of the way to make a similar 'arts' kind of revival. Bruce's Pub appears to be an art studio with signs of restoration work in progress. The main part of town appears to be the Bruce railway station (now a private residence) and a pub, also privately owned and possibly was, or still is, and artist studio. Other buildings and homesteads are set fairly wide apart, and are mostly privately owned homes. You don't get much sense of being in a town as such. I'm told there are approximately 14 local residents/families? Once earmarked to be a commercial centre, Bruce fell by the wayside after successive floods and drought in its early years. Obviously the railway line is no lo...

TV Series Review: Wonder Man (2026) - Disney+ *No Spoilers*

F or those of you that aren't adverse to your superhero content being a little more character driven and a lot less big action set pieces then Marvel's TV series, under the 'Marvel Spotlight' banner, Wonder Man , is a real underrated gem. Wanna-be actor, Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a suspected superhero in hiding who believes, he was born to play the title role in a new superhero movie, Wonder Man. A chance meeting with fallen actor, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), formerly known as 'The Mandarin', at an audition, puts them both on a path to success but, everything isn't quite as it seems. While you will certainly relate very quickly to Trevor if you know his past from the movie Iron Man III , or, to a lesser extent, Shang-Chi , neither are essential viewing. You get all you need to know about Trevor as the series unfolds. That said, Ben Kingsley must have jumped at the chance to play Trevor a little less as the comic relief, and a little more ...

Whyalla Foreshore Steam Train Found!

Road Trip Day 12: 3rd June 2007 Whist visiting the Mt Laura Homestead Museum, Rose and I spotted this Steam Locomotive - the only one in the museum - and thought just maybe it was the one I remember playing on at the foreshore as a child. On closer inspection of the information board we were amazed to learn that it is in fact the very same steam engine! I was even more surprised to learn that this locomotive is more than 100 years old (I bet it didn't get a certificate from the Queen). Bought new by BHP in 1891 it was used to cart ore along the tramway between Iron Knob and Whyalla. It has a fairly busy history but the key dates for me are that it was placed on the Whyalla foreshore in 1962 where it remained until 1983 when it was moved to the museum. Back then it was all painted black rather than green as you see in the photo. In fact it was the green paint that made me think it couldn't be the same train at first. Not being able to find any trace of where this train stood on...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...