Do you ever wonder how streets, roads and lanes get their names? Parkville resident Tess Pryor's recent hunt to solve a local naming mystery had a positive conclusion.

There’s a bluestone laneway that runs behind and parallel to Gatehouse Street in Parkville. I’ve walked down it and crossed it possibly thousands of times. For some reason, a few weeks ago I noticed the street sign at its entrance. It looked newish and said: Redpath Rise.

Redpath Rise – hang on! Could it be? Please let it be!

For nearly 30 years I have lived a 20-minute walk from the centre of Lygon Street, Carlton. Around 2008, during my twice weekly jaunts to the strip I noticed a woman, I guesstimated was in her late 70s, who seemed to always be in the supermarket at the same time as me.

She noticed me too and over a few months we’d say g’day and have small fun conversations. She had beautiful curious eyes and one day I told her so. She deflected the compliment back at me; “You can talk!” she said with a little grin.

There was something about her that I couldn’t quite work out, yet. She told me her name was Norma. Over time, she grew frailer, and it was obvious that pushing her shopping trolley was becoming a painful task. She told me she was having a lot of trouble with her hips and knees.

One day I helped her take her groceries home. As we walked slowly along Elgin Street, I told her I had a feeling she had lived a big life. She once again deflected the attention. She eventually told me that she was an artist, a sculptor, and she still had a home studio. I asked her surname. I told her with a grin that I was going to Google her and find out her story.

Norma asked:” You are going to do what?” I repeated that I was going to Google her.

She said she had no idea what I was talking about. I explained that I would do a search and share it with her to demonstrate the power and reach of the internet.

My search certainly vindicated my suspicion: my now physically vulnerable but invigorating friend was Norma Redpath, a giant of the arts world, specialising in modernist sculpture; studying and practising here and in Italy. She had studios in Carlton and Parkville.

In the 1950s and 60s, as a founding member of renowned sculptor groups: the Group of Four and the Centre Five, Norma was in the vanguard of getting progressive sculpture publicly accepted, exhibited and commissioned. Over decades, her work received recognition and acknowledgement through major commissioned works, scholarships, exhibitions and prizes including being appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to contemporary sculpture.

Her works can be found in the grounds of the University of Melbourne, above the entrance to the National Gallery of Victoria (Victoria Coat of Arms), as a bronze fountain outside the Treasury Building in Canberra, at the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, at Monash University, at the Canberra School of Music and the Victoria College of Pharmacy Parkville. (Look them up: they are big and heavy!)

From the search, my husband Chris printed out a selection of documents detailing Norma’s history and bundled them up. We took the parcel to her home studio but there was no response to our knocks, so we left it on her doorstep with a note.

The next morning Norma rang me. She was flabbergasted but excited.

“Where did you find all that information about me?” she asked.

I explained again that through the internet you can find a lot about most things.

She asked me over for a cup of tea so I could fill her in more about what information was out there.

A few days later, I popped by her home but there was no answer. Weeks and then months went by, and Norma disappeared from the shops. I assumed she had finally had knee or hip surgery and that over time I would see her again.

In January 2013 I saw her death notice. She was 84.

Now, eleven years later, could the Redpath in Redpath Rise possibly be Norma?

I contacted the City of Melbourne, and they confirmed that the lane was indeed named after Norma Redpath; “a sculptor who had a studio in Parkville” with Redpath Rise Gazetted on 19 January 2023. The Gazettal date, I noticed, was almost ten years to the day after her death.

Coincidentally on the same day I heard back from council, The Age reported that a survey of places and roads across Victoria found a huge discrepancy in those named after men, compared with those honouring women.

And that Geographic Names Victoria, had called for nominations of “significant women who have been influential in areas such as healthcare, science, the arts or public service”.

Norma’s legacy and influence on modernist sculpture and public art continues to be felt in a number of ways. In the year of her death, Jane Eckett writing in the Art Monthly Australia, celebrated Norma as one of Australia’s most significant public artists, describing her individual style and commitment to designing site-specific installations.

Norma’s Carlton home studio where we dropped off her parcel was bequeathed to the University of Melbourne and is now the Norma Redpath Studio. It is managed by the Victorian College of the Arts and offers residencies to artists, writers and researchers.

And now Redpath Rise; 600-metres long, bordered by green open space and historic homes. Its entrance sign is about 70 metres from my front gate: an uplifting daily reminder of human connection.

It is a permanent and public honour: fitting for an artist who created large, enduring works embracing an innovative dedication to honouring each site and to exploring ways people would potentially engage with the artworks long into the future.

In choosing to name the way after a woman who had significant influence - locally and internationally - in a discipline traditionally dominated by men, the City of Melbourne has also taken an inspired step in addressing a cultural gender gap.

Tess Pryor is a Melbourne-based writer specialising in health promotion and community engagement

Tess Pryor