Rex was born on Flinders Island in Bass Strait in 1942 and he currently lives on Tasmania’s mainland in Launceston. As part of his family life on the Furneaux Islands, from a very young age he was deeply involved in his family's, and his community's, cultural life. Some of his earliest memories are of his grandfather Silas Mansell introducing him to the community's cultural life and Silas teaching him about the community's cultural practices that sustained it. Among other things, this included mutton birding; the making of snares to catch kangaroo and wallaby; and the important elements of cray and scale fishing – craypot making, boat craft etc.
When Rex left school he became deckhand to his father, a professional Furneaux Island based fisherman. He also worked closely with his brother Bruce, also an island based fisherman. Growing up on Flinders Island in the islands' Aboriginal community meant that Rex and his family spent a great deal of their time 'at sea' around the Furneaux Islands and along Tasmania's coastline.
In due course Rex became a professional fisherman in his own right. Indeed he spent almost 40 years at sea as a 'fisherman' in various fisheries around all parts of Tasmania's coastline – and much of Victoria's coast during season breaks.
Since retiring Rex’s has used his sea experience to inspire him to start building paper bark canoes. At that time very little was known about these watercraft. Rex prepared himself for his new 'enterprise' by reading extensively on the subject and especially so the compiled research on the early Tasmanian Aboriginal watercraft and like watercraft in other cultural contexts.
Early on, Rex became involved as an Elder mentor in a Cultural Camp run by Aboriginal Education for Aboriginal youths. Rex and Uncle Ronnie Summers demonstrated the collecting of bark and making processes paper bark canoes at larapuna (a significant Aboriginal site in the north east of Tasmania) as a five days cultural camp.
In recent weeks he has been working with his son Dean to teach him the methods of creating a bark canoe to pass down to grandson Harrison.
Rex's first full scale paper bark canoe was made in 2008 and it has been acquired by the Museum of Victoria for its collection. In 2010 his second large canoe was selected for the 27th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in Darwin and its now held in the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory's collection. His third large canoe is now a part of the National Gallery of Australia's collection while the National Museum of Australia commissioned his fourth canoe, now in production.
January 2012
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