Featured artist, Outback Magazine
Ronalds, Pepi: “Sometimes river”, Outback magazine,
issue 90, Aug/Sep, p. 100­101, 2013
Collections
Commissions
● Tawonga Primary School Gardens redevelopment ­ Salvaged steel
sculptural fence panel. 2009
● Albury City Council ­ Collaboration on Fallon Timbers Public Seating
Project. Design and construction Lin Baird, embedded etched plates,
Steve Baird. 2015
Steve has works held in private collections in;
● Melbourne
● Sydney
● Adelaide
● Brisbane
● Canberra
● Perth
● USA
● UK
● France
● Germany
● New Zealand
 

Horsemyths - Artists statement
The scenes depicted or alluded to in most of these paintings are of various places in Central Australia and the Western Deserts, as first described by Ernest Giles on his 2nd expeditionary attempt to cross the continent from the settled areas along the overland telegraph to the Gascoyne region in Western Australia in 1873-4. This is the traditional country of the Anangu, Pitjantjatjara, Yankunyjatjarra and Ngaanyatjarra people's.
The misadventures of the Giles’ horse, Fair Maid of Perth and her human companions was, for these people, their first contact with white fellas and what would become a cataclysmic shift in their relationship with country, their culture and the wider world. There were clashes, violent exchanges and blood on the sand. Important waters and places of great cultural significance were despoiled. The mystery of what happened to The Fair Maid of Perth pales into insignificance against the human tragedies that followed. I have been privileged to be able to visit these places as a guest of the Custodians of this mostly remote and special country and acknowledge their generosity and vast connection to Country.
Giles was a man of his times and his writings are overtly descriptive and wash the whole experience of landscape in a romantic and adventurous way. Many places are given names suggesting a European acardia and his sketches often depict features as far grander and monumental than reality. This has informed the form and palette of my landscapes. I have used the icon of the Fair Maid of Perth to populate the landscape with a visitor, an observer, to mark a time of change. The FMOP stencil is based on the only recorded image of the actual mare, as depicted in illustration 27 “The first view of the Alfred and Marie Range” in Giles’ book Australia
Twice Traversed - the Romance of Exploration. In these works I have placed her in the landscape of her misadventures, wherever Giles mentions her in his book.
The FMOP stencil I cut out on the tray of Toyota Landcruiser somewhere down the Canning Stock Route and started leaving spray stencils in the sands of the Gibson Desert, where the image would blow away and disappear, leaving no trace and inviting conjecture and myth making. FMOP has bolted a few times since and stencils have showed up in street art, and as photobombs in exhibitions around town and eventually in these works.
For a different artistic perspective on these events I recommend these links Warakurna Artists The history paintings
 

ODE TO THE MARE
SCENE 1
We were fat and playful on the pretty plain
At the Fairies Glen it was surely best,
That sweet idle was the making of our mob
That ranged across the mystery of the west.
SCENE 2
We strung along the stony edge
Out to the Circus where we meet,
at the end of our imagination
I am strong and sound of feet.
SCENE 3
We take a wider pad and way
past the pastel coloured ponds,
beneath the Ruined Ramparts
we build our strength and our bonds.
SCENE 4
I am a horse I am a mare
beneath the She domes on the sand,
I feel the ancestors in my blood
And the mob listen when I stand.
SCENE 5
Then we four are the chosen ones
turned away from the rising sun,
to float across the dry soft bed
of a salt lake on the rim.
SCENE 6
The sand comes up to meet my strength
And mark the country beneath our feet,
as the Cob and I walk on
our tongues are thick with heat.
SCENE 7
Then the cob is all knocked up
and falls at the whispering oaks
as his last breath is cast away
into red and liquid sand it soaks
SCENE 8
I’m turned away from a crazy rush
and we set back to the east,
the sorry mob is split apart
and I must find a place to drink.
SCENE 9
Then the stars roll across the sky
and by thirst my sense is bent,
to the Circus or the watered south
I am unsure which way I went.
SCENE 10
In the Stockyard in the sky
the wise mob sometimes say,
that a ghost horse just like me
flashed by the Circus way.
SCENE 11
But my fading tracks in flowing sand
are a long and clumsy line,
Fleet horses are born with a burden
to carry to the end of time.
 

Where did the Fair Maid of Perth name come from

The Fair Maid of Perth was the name of a mare, belonging to Ernest Giles, who disappeared in
the Gibson Desert in 1874, in mysterious circumstances. The disappearance of the mare is a
subject in my Horse myths project.
The question here is why did Giles named his horse "The Fair Maid of Perth"? I have a notion
that the events described here could hold the answer.
Late 1300's
Earliest mention of Scottish legend concerning the Fair Maid of Perth, first referred to as
Catherine Glover, the Glover's daughter.
1475
Parts of the Fair Maid's house in Perth Scotland date the house as the oldest secular building in
Perth.
1629
Simon Glover did live in this house at this time, with his pious daughter, according to Sir Walter
Scott in his novel published later. Glover Corporation purchased the property in 1629 and
occupied it for 150 years.
1758
Building sold to Lord John Murray and leased back to Glover.
1828
Sir Walter Scott writes his historical novel "Saint Valentines Day" also referred to as "The Fair
Maid of Perth". The novel was roughly based on historical and legendary materiel from Rob
Roy, The War of the Clans in 1396, and many other events in Scottish history with little regard
for timelines.
1852
Earnest Giles arrives on the Victorian Goldfields. Visits Marvellous Melbourne on numerous
occasions. Giles was reported as a bit of a dandy around Melbourne, enjoying the pleasures of
Gold Town.
1854
Celeste De Chabrillan, wife of the French Consul to Melbourne arrives 1854 and sets up home
in St Kilda. Celeste makes a big impression on Melbourne society, with her notorious past and
grand balls. I imagine Giles was enchanted by Celeste. Celeste wrote 3 Australian novels. ref
"The French Consuls Wife" by Patricia Clancey and Jeanne Allen.
1858
Celeste is widowed and returns to France, where she establishes herself as a novelist.
1861
Giles embarks on his career as an explorer in Western NSW.
1865
French composer Bizet meets Celeste De Chabrillan. He later claimed Celeste was an
inspiration for the character Carmen in his Opera of the same name, written in 1875.
1866
Bizet is commissioned by Carvalho to compose "La Jolie Fille De Perth" an opera based on
Scotts novel, "The Fair Maid of Perth".
1867
Bizet's "La Jolie Fille De Perth" is first performed at Theatre Lyrique, Paris.
1872
Dr Mueller organises an expedition into the centre of Australia, led by Ernest Giles.
1873
Second expedition organised by Giles. He sourced and named his chosen mare "The Fair Maid
of Perth". I speculate that Giles, as he is about to depart into the loneliness and remoteness of
unknown territories, gives his mare a sentimental name that invokes his fond memories of
Celeste De Chabrillan.
1874
The mare disappears in mysterious circumstances in the Gibson Desert.
 

1. Personal details.
Steve Baird (b 1952 Australia) lives on a farm, Tawonga, Victoria
www.stevebairdart.com
steve@stevebairdart.com.au
0427 544 849

2. Education.
Born to a family that valued experiencing the Australian landscape, as adventurers, discoverers and recorders, Steve developed an early interest in a view of the world around him. Creative endeavour was encouraged and he attended community art classes from as young as a 7yo in an old tin shed near the footy ground. Those early works explored the world he lived in, sandy tracks through the Melbourne bayside tea tree scrub as suburbia grew around him.
Weekends away to the mountains, the coast, the deserts, any wild landscape within 5 hours in the family car, nurtured and developed a passion for the Australian landscape.
After secondary school, a couple of years of study for an architecture degree (RMIT 1970­71) confirmed Steve's passion for getting out into the natural world, and formal education was abandoned for a life of knocking about the bush, as a carpenter and builder, forever restlessly looking for new horizons.
Along the way Steve developed a lifelong habit of recording his observations and adventures in travel journals.
Now long settled in the High Country, Steve has built a life of family, horses and adventure, with his wife Kath, sons Lin and Clay and their successful horse tour enterprise Bogong Horseback Adventures. Along the way as expedition leader and guide, both with the horses in the High Country and regularly with Diamantina Tour Company, conducting 4WD tours of remote outback Australia, Steve has continued his travels through the landscape.

After making a personal commitment to embracing an arts practice, Steve completed a range of short courses. Certificate 1 Fine Arts Riverina Institute TAFE 2004 Printmaking Workshops Creators Artspace,
● Caryn Giblin ­ drypoint 2011
● Mary Rose Riley ­ overview 2013
● Linda Fish ­ soft cut Lino 2013
● Chris Dormer ­ multi­plate 2013
● Abi Thomson ­ reduction linocuts 2013
● Barbel Ullrich ­ collagraphs 2013

Mountain Creek Studios, Barbel Ullrich copper sulphate saline solution etching 2015