Bringing together a unique skill set drawing from the fields of performance, art and education, Claudie Frock aka Peggie Popart has become a fixture at the Lismore Regional Gallery as a unique kind of tour guide to the world of art.

My official position here at the Lismore Regional Gallery is I'm the learning officer or education officer. I work with children and families and run education programs around those, but also community groups, tertiary education as well, and secondary and primary. 

It's really about being able to support people to learn more about the art exhibitions and public programs. The thing that is so great about having a role like that is that children don't bring themselves to a gallery, so they'll always have a parent or a grandparent or an uncle or a friend. If you make a gallery attractive to children, then you are increasing the audience and it means that more people will be coming into the gallery and having great experiences because they feel comfortable to be there. We try to make it a very welcoming place for people. 

When I finished high school I studied performance at the University of Western Sydney, but only for a couple of years and then I went traveling but I continued performing and in Tasmania I met up with a group of women and we performed together. 

So I have a long history performing and working for different theatre companies. I’ve worked for NORPA, for Roundabout Theatre, the Greenhouse, educational theatre and the Clown Doctors... but as well as doing that, I also did an art degree partially at Sydney College of the Arts and also at Southern Cross University. I came to Lismore from living in Newtown, to check out the university, and was like, this place is paradise. That was around 1994.

I kind of went back and forth to Sydney a couple of times. I did my honors in printmaking, paper making and sculptural installation at Southern Cross University, all that time still performing, and then I went traveling to Japan studied papermaking there. 

I’ve worked for REDinc for the past 19 years and still work there two days a week as the arts coordinator for their studio arts program. Working with artists with a disability is a huge passion of mine and we have some amazing artists working out of that studio. Lucas Wright has just recently received the Bundanong Trust Residency, which is incredibly prestigious and fantastic for him. That's a pretty long enduring relationship I've had with that workplace and with a lot of those artists. I reckon I would've known Lucas for 15 years and seeing him grow as an artist has been really exciting.

When I came back from Japan I decided to do a Dip Ed [Diploma of Education] and because I had this toolbox full of all these different skills like performance, education and art, the gallery actually asked me if I could develop a character for them. They didn't have a big space in the old gallery, so they asked me to develop a character that does tours and small activities with the kids. That’s when Peggy Popart was born. I developed Peggy just on that request and since then she's been just about the best thing in my whole life. Seriously, just fantastic. 

I thought it needed to be a character that is playful but slightly bossy because it was a small space and if you get a big group of kids close to art, you need to be able to let them have fun but not run riot. So she's kind of absurdly bossy and she's an expert on art, she’s a little bit magical, a little bit sci-fi, so she has a time machine and can travel back through time and space and meet different artists. She also has a banana phone that she can call artists on. 

Peggy Popart running a workshop. PHOTO: Supplied/Natsky.

The idea was to develop this character that could be kind of more than just a tour guide. She's a very special tour guide.

My favorite kind of tour guide are those ‘50s tour guides with their little signs and she's almost a little bit like an airline hostess. So that's how she came about. 

These days I do tours, I develope activities and worksheets, I liaise with schools, run workshops and that sort of thing. Lots of different things to engage the schools and families. 

My main approach is to really allow the young people to lead. Whenever I do a workshop, I'll have a basic kind of skeleton of an idea, but I really want the young people to lead the activity. 

The Reggio Emilia educational philosophy is that children already have all the languages to describe and understand, but we often tell them that they don't. The languages include speaking or singing or dancing or using their hands to make things - these are all ways to be in the world and describe and understand the world. That is probably the strongest focus I've had in terms of an educational sort of philosophy.

We have all the different levels of education come in. For example, Lismore Preschool wanted to have a whole term of activities. It's almost like we're opening ourselves up to be a bit of a precinct that's open to all the different educational groups to be able to use. 

I also do monthly Peggy Popart tours on the second Sunday of the month, which are free and open to the general public and they always have a Auslan (Australian sign language) interpreter. 

It’s very important to me that we have strong focus on accessibility. When Peggy Popart first came we got an Auslan interpreter. I've got quite a few friends in the Deaf community and that sort of came out of having an interpreter and meeting more Deaf people. I also help Sigrid our Auslan Tour Guide organize the Auslan led tours. 

I think that having access to a cultural facility like this is incredibly important for everybody, but especially for children because if you start early then they can really start to understand the different cultural perspectives in the world. I think that's really important, particularly these days where we are in the world where people can sometimes be very black and white and unaccepting of different cultures. 

That's the biggest thing - to just understand - and also to experience things through their senses. It's very important. I think that's really grounding and it’s important for them to understand that it's okay for them to have a feeling about something. It’s also good for the parents because they'll hear their children talking about something from a very sort of basic level of color, texture, composition and not feel as afraid to maybe to talk about their own experience of art.

I still practice my own art. I have a studio underneath the Northern Rivers Conservatorium. I'm painting work at the moment for a show. Hopefully it'll be in September at the Silver Cloud Studios. They're setting up a gallery at the moment.

The show is with Leona Bolt, Heidi Tansy and Heather Jessup - three women I went to uni with who I'm still really connected to. We went on a trip last year Tenterfield to climb Bald Rock and we all decided that we wanted to have a show together that is in part inspired by that landscape out there. 

I've also been working with Roundabout Theatre a little bit again. We went up to Bingara to the Orange Festival where I was a giant snail called Helix. Helix is very slow and has a huge suit so that you can only see my face and the huge suit is connected to a big metal caravan/snail shell. It's a little bit like a very small car. I pulled that along and my human friend feeds me lettuce and he just talked to people. That's pretty fun.

I'm studying Auslan at Tafe. There's a free year long course at Tafe. I decided that I wanted to do it because there's a lot of Deaf people who are coming to the gallery now and wanted to be able to talk to them - and my Deaf friends - in their language. It's such a beautiful language. I'm such a visual person so I’m enjoying it.

I’m pretty happy with the way things have worked out. It’s pretty sweet. I do work really hard and I'm really passionate about art and education and also providing free opportunities for families who may not necessarily be able to pay for things - that's why we always keep Peggy Popart free - and because I think that it's also about creating aspirational opportunities for our communities to see that there is more in the world and there's some interesting experiences and adventures to be had. 

I feel very grateful. This is just the funnest job. The other day we just got to build a replica of the Hannah Cabinet out of cardboard boxes with a bunch of kids. Oh my goodness, just so much fun. I really enjoy being playful, but I also I take it seriously. I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily a frivolous person. I want what I do to be good quality. That's what I really get out of it. I want to make good quality experiences for people in the community. 

I'm aspirational for my community. That's what kind of drives me. I want to bring everybody along and have a good experience. I find that very satisfying.