Artist's life in Sketchbooks

Late last year I picked up a recently published book which presents local history from a rather unusual perspective.  The book entitled 'Sketchbooks; An Artist's Life on the Tableland' by Ellen Danaher uses the sketchbooks of well-known artist Val Russell as a basis to relate Val's life story while at the same time telling the story of Atherton's development as Val saw it through her lifetime.  Val Russell (1925 - 2009) arrived in Atherton, with husband Eric, in 1946 only intending to stay for about a year but the town was to become their home for almost sixty years.  During that time she sketched and painted throughout North Queensland, producing almost 1200 quality works of art.  Although most were sold and dispersed across the country and some overseas, her original sketchbooks survive as an intact collection.  These thirty-nine books, which span almost forty years of work, contain over 900 pencil sketches, all works of art in themselves.  They represent a unique pictorial record of North Queensland as it used to be and is the basis to tell this story.  The story is very much a personal history which follows her life through her artistic achievements and her long involvement in the development of the local arts community in which she occupied a central position.  I enjoyed this book as I had personal involvement in many of the events written about and many of her sketches of long vanished buildings brought back memories from my carefree childhood in that long past Atherton of the 1960's.