Communities

Sun - May 11, 2008

Warlayirti Artists, Balgo (Wirrimanu), WA

The very last art centre we visited on the 2007 Austrade American tour was Warlayirti Artists in Balgo, WA. For me, there was an undeniable tinge of melancholy that this fact brought to what might otherwise have been among the most thrilling destinations on the tour. As we flew over the township, memories of years of admiring and collecting the works of the famous, forgotten, and fresh new talent from Warlayirti mingled with anticipation of meeting on their home turf artists I had been introduced to on earlier trips to Darwin and Sydney. And beneath it all was the growing knowledge that this extraordinary two weeks' adventure was drawing to a close.

An aerial view of part of Balgo; note the location of the airstrip beyond the town.
Our first view of the local art practice was an unexpected one, discovered as we entered the small "terminal" beside the airstrip.

The mural in the airport lounge at Balgo. Photo by Khadija Carroll.
This mural had clearly been around for a while, and showed signs of weathering, despite being indoors. It was also obviously being repaired, and I couldn't help but think of the repainting of sacred designs on the walls of desert caves.

Detail of water damage, restoration, and overpainting of the mural.
This surprise encounter with local art spread a buzz of excitement through the group that was heightened a few minutes later when we spotted the art centre troopie's dust rising in the air and Annette Cock spun up in front of us to speed us on the short ride to the Warlayirti Art and Cultural Centre. Annette warned us that it was "money day" at the centre, a fact that had two-fold implications. Many of the artists, along with family members, we would like to meet would be there to collect their paychecks. We were warned to be prepared for a hullaballoo.

As we stepped through the door of the art centre, though, the first and overwhelming impression was that of an enormous, marvelous kaleidoscope, miraculously frozen in an instant of time. Display cases immediately to the left glistened with fractals of fired glass coolamons, racks of unstretched canvases crowded the entry, and the walls were hung to the height of eight feet with a mosaic of stretched works. The effect was a cross between an apparition of enormous stained glass windows and one of those paintings of a nineteenth-century exhibition where human figures are dwarfed by ranks of framed salon entries.

A coolamon of fused glass. Photo by Khadija Carroll.
It was only after the initial stunned moment of superabundance passed that the activity in the rest of the room sank in. There were indeed dozens of people waiting for money day to commence. The oldies were seated in rows of chairs, children were erupting with the excitement of seeing visitors, and young men were circulating in and amongst the crowd with business of their own to attend to. Annette gave us a quick introduction to the layout and to what we might find, went over some business rules with us, and then turned us loose. Within minutes the beautiful mosaic walls were being disassembled as the members of our group started collecting the stunners off the walls.

For a while the two groups--artists and art collectors--tended to their business separately and with equal enthusiasm. But as the checks were passed out and the members of the community started to scatter, the artists themselves began to engage in their own aggressive marketing to the whitefellas in the room. First among these was Eubena Nampitjin, whose tiny size and lack of English should deceive no one who meets her. The moment she spied one of our group inspecting one of her canvases, she was instantly in play, making sure that we knew it was her work, giving us a thumbs-up, telling us it was "number one," and bringing her daughter Stella along, introducing her to us and pointing out examples of Stella's work as well.

Bai Bai Napangarti was another equally driven marketer of her art. Reunited with Kerry after an absence of several years, she grinned and launched into a torrent of Kukatja before abruptly disappearing out the door. In a moment she was back, dragging a canvas almost as large as she herself, presenting it to Kerry in a gesture that was equal parts bestowal and bargaining. Or so it looked from my amused position on the sidelines.

Annette, having finished with the majority of the money business, was able to once again turn her attention to her guests, and began circulating, helping us locate works by particular artists, noting our interests, and making more introductions. Elizabeth Gordon Napaltjarri, quiet and shy, was introduced as many of her new canvases were being circulated and examined. Marie Mudgedell, in the midst of all the excitement, quietly and with great determination, laid down a half-finished canvas on the floor of the room and began to work assiduously at it.

When I remarked to Annette that the iconography in Marie's work reminded me of an early painting by Patrick Smith Tjapaltjarri that I had purchased several years ago, Annette said, "Oh he's around here somewhere; let me see if I can find him and introduce you." A few minutes later the introductions were achieved. At the time that I first learned of his work, Patrick was described to me as one of the "younger artists" working for Warlayirti, and I was once again surprised (although I am always surprised at myself most of all in these circumstances) to be introduced to a man who appeared to be about my own age (which he is). Unlike many artists I met on this trip who were excited to learn that I owned one their paintings, and that the painting had traveled all the way to the United States, Patrick seemed much more interested in finding out if I knew any American cowboys and was eager to tell me about his own status as a "cowboy," or stockman as they're more commonly referred to in WA. His pride in that work was clearly as significant to him as his prowess as a painter was to me.

Eventually the moment of financial reckoning began to approach for our group, as we were under pressure to be on our way back to Darwin before military exrecises closed the airspace we had to fly through that day. (The situation was compounded by strong headwinds that would require us to fly south to Hall's Creek for refueling before turning northeast to Darwin.) While the other members of the delegation finished up, I took the opportunity to wander across to the adjacent Cultural Centre.

The exterior of the Warlayirti Cultural Centre
The Warlayirti Cultural Center was one of the first major casualties of funding cuts to ATSIC in 2001, closing just three weeks after its opening (See "Arts Centre: open and shut case" in the Alice Springs News of August 22, 2001 for details.) Since that time, it has served primarily as a meeting space for the community, and has thus met an important need. But the hopes for housing a permanent collection of paintings, artifacts, photographs, and documentation relating to Wirrimanu have foundered for lack of staff, and although there were some stunning examples of early work by masters like Sunfly and old man Tjapanangka that evoked memories of days gone by from Michelle Culpitt, the space was sadly bereft.

As we gathered to leave, a few artists were coaxed outdoors for photographs (photography is not permitted inside the Art or Culture Centres). Well, truth be told, Helicopter didn't need much coaxing, although his daughter, Christine Yukenbarri, did take some paternal encouragement to join her father for this shot.

Helicopter Tjunugrarry and Christine Yukenbarri Nakamarra. Photo by Wolfgang Schlink.
The next thing I knew we were airborne, still buzzing with the excitement of the morning's activities. As a sort of farewell to the country, I took several photos as we lifted off and circled around. In the first of these, below, you can see the very end of the airstrip approaching the dropoff at the edge of the escarpment the town sits on. Have a look back at the first photo above to get a sense of the situation of Balgo in the desert landscape.

In the first days of our journey as we flew over the landscape of the APY lands farther south in WA, I was constantly in awe of the geology unfolding beneath us and impressed repeatedly with a sense of how the people of this country saw the ancestral power embodied in it. That sense of wonderment had subsided a bit during our time in the north, but as we headed for Hall's Creek that afternoon, it returned in full force.

***
And so, with this story, I'm forced to conclude my narrative of my own journey through Dreaming countries. When I left the USA, on May 21, 2007, laptop in my backpack, I was determined to record my adventures as they happened, and was excitied about the opportunity to report live, from the road, on my experiences in the Outback on the trail of Indigenous Art Centres. Now I've finally finished that reporting, ten days shy of a year from my official departure date, and a couple of weeks before the second American delegation starts its journey along a similar path. (If you haven't been with me for the whole journey so far, you can click on the "Communities" link in the sidebar to the right to follow it back in time.)

I've already written of our final night in Darwin, reflections composed and posted from the Darwin airport the day after we were in Balgo as I was started my journey home alone. I was lucky to get three posts up during the two weeks of our travels: there was just so much that I was unprepared for on the trip. We flew over 6,700 kilometers in thirteen days, logging more than twenty hours in the air. We visited twenty-four art centres, meeting dozens of artists and the dedicated people who help mediate between Indigenous and Western cultures to bring that art to market and to those of us who cherish it and draw inspiration from it. In the evenings, when I thought I might relax with a bit of blogging, the camaraderie of my traveling companions became indispensable; there were invitations from generous new friends to be honored, campfire nights and sunset cruises. Strangely enough, I never seemed to be exhausted by the adventures until the moment I fell into bed without having written a word.

The US Art Mob sporting hats emblazoned with "The Territory," a farewell gift to us from the NT Government.
That last night in Darwin I found it impossible to believe that the trip was coming to an end, despite a bit of sadness that I couldn't shake off. Maybe I couldn't believe it because I didn't want to, and maybe because I knew that in other ways new adventures were beginning. I remain to this day deeply grateful to my traveling companions from the US for the insights their own perspectives and experience brought not simply to the days of our travel, but to my appreciation of the art and the communities that we saw. Joel, Wayne, and Bernie, our guides and gurus from Austrade and the NT Government, have helped to keep alive a sense of community and connectedness in the months that have passed since we parted company on the Darwin Esplanade, and I'm eagerly looking forward to reunions to come.

Before this trip, I'd had only limited opportunities to visit a few communities, despite the urgings of everyone I spoke with to get out and experience life on the ground with the artists. I will be grateful to our sponsors to the end of my days for giving me this extraordinary opportunity. It became all the more precious to me a week after I returned to the US and heard John Howard and Mal Brough announce their plans to intervene in the lives of the people I so lately met for the first time, a story that is still unfolding under the Rudd Government, and still full of uncertainty and confusion. The news of the Intervention was doubly shocking coming as it did immediately on the heels of the release of the final report of the Senate Inquiry into the Indigenous Visual Arts and Crafts Industry, Indigenous Art--Securing the Future .

The Intervention effectively buried that report. Its key recommendations remain unimplemented, although it is uncertain how many of them might have come to fruition anyway. (Of course, the key recommendations of Little Children are Sacred remain largely unimplemented as well, but that is another story.) While the Senate Report recognized repeatedly the importance of art centres to an Indigenous economy, the Intervention initially put those operations at great risk through the threat to abolish CDEP (for starters).

And so I feel doubly blessed to have been able to visit all these amazing communities before the threats burst, at a moment in time when there was real hope that the government might recognize the fullness of the gifts that come out of Yuendumu and Yirrkala, of the sustenance that art means to the old men and women of Patjarr and Warmun. I saw the coexistence of the Dreaming with Christian traditions in Nguiu and bought Ngaanyatjarra rock 'n roll recordings in Warburton, met movie stars in Ramingining, and played ball with a young girl in Kintore.

At stops along the way, from Sydney to Alice Springs to Darwin to Brisbane, I was able once more to immerse myself in the other end of the cultural continuum, visiting galleries and museums, meeting scholars and journalists. Perhaps another reason that it has taken me a full year to write up these reports is the need to come to terms with the fullness, the richness of the whole experience. I'm not quite sure I've achieved that even now. I expect that when I next return to Australia to immerse myself again, in different ways to be sure, I will discover things I learned a year ago and still don't fully appreciate.

Writing in the Darwin airport on that final day, I noted how Wayne had promised at the start of the tour that the next two weeks would be a life-changing experience, and how I foolishly disbelieved him. I knew that day in Darwin and know better today how right he was.

Posted at 03:17 PM

Thu - May 8, 2008

Papunya Town Planning

My thanks to Alec O'Halloran for pointing me to the answer to last week's question about the topography of Papunya, where a ring road around the center of the settlement is surrounded by the semi-circular tracks of an Aboriginal iconographic design.

In Janet Maughan's introduction to Dot & Circle: a retrospective survey of the Aboriginal acrylic paintings of Central Australia (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 1986) she refers to an earlier publication, J. H. Downing's Aboriginal 'Dreamings' and Town Plans: a report on traditional Aboriginal camp layout in relation to town planning (Institute for Aboriginal Development, 1979). She writes:

So important is this story [the honey ant dreaming] in the linking of the site to the community that in the face of ordering a town plan, the honey ant story provided the underlying concept.. The Rev. J. H. Downing wrote --
The people already knew what they wanted and after I had shown them the various designs, produced a painting of the honey ant dreaming (tjala) (Downing, pp. 22-23).
Thus the imposed physical constructions which accompanied European administration were to be grouped centrally with the concomitant housing in semi-circular arrangements around these service buildings (Maughan, p. 15)

The following illustration appears on page 14 of Dot & Circle.

Thanks also to Jan Svenungsson, whose curiosity prompted me to pursue the answer to this question.

Posted at 08:56 PM

Sat - May 3, 2008

Mangkaja Arts, Fitzroy Crossing, WA

Fitzroy Crossing, home of Mangkaja Arts, was the third stop of the day on our blitz through the Kimberley. We came down out of the brilliant blue at three o'clock in the afternoon to be met at the airport by manager Mandy Mcguire for the short drive across the Fitzroy River floodplain into town. Located on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, Fitzroy Crossing has seen waves of migrations in the last hundred years. As pastoralists moved in and displaced the original inhabitants, other Indigeneous people moved in from the Desert regions. The result is a most pluralistic art centre where the local Bunuba meet and mingle with Walmajarri, Wangkajunka, Gooniyandi, Juwaliny, and other people.

This historical migration led in recent years to the spectacular pair of paintings known as the Ngurrara Canvases, completed in 1996 and 1997 and documenting the traditional ownership of the surrounding country. In 2000, another large collaborative work once more laid out the Martuwarra and Jila country (respectively the Bunuba and Gooniyandi river country and the Walmajarri and Wangkajunka desert lands). Glimpses of this later work, along with Ngurrara I (which was auctioned at Sothey's in 2003 and was the subject of an extensive article in The New Yorker for July 28, 2003) can be had at the website of the 2002 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Ngurrara II is currently on tour to museums around Australia and can be seen at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra until June 22, 2008.

Ngurrara II, 1997
Today, Mangkaja Arts operates two facilities. The older of the two is an unprepossessing affair from the outside, located in the Tarunda Supermarket Complex. This small strip mall is the unlikeliest setting for an arts centre that we encountered on our trip, where you would expect to grab a quick meal at the takeaway shop or load up the van with groceries, but not meet up with dazzling displays of art. You can get some sense of the place in a short video clip from Cathy Freeman and Deborah Mailman's Going Bush television series made available by Ninenmsn.

Across the road, a brand new building that had barely opened before our arrival in June 2007 served as a spacious gallery for the display of new work and a storehouse of paintings both on offer and awaiting shipment to galleries and exhibitions around the country.

Mangkaja Stock

Mangkaja's new studio and warehouse space. Photo by Margo Smith.

In this new space we were joined by Paul Miller, who helped us sort through the stacks of framed canvases leaning against the walls and even more unstretched works laid out on large tables for our perusal and selection. Although an examination of the styles comprised in the Ngurrara canvases affords some taste of the variety and breadth of expression that is now collected under the banner of Mangkaja Arts, it cannot truly do justice to them all. The boldness of Wakartu Cory Surprise's blocks of color seen on the wall at the left in the photo below easily survive translation to such a large framework; Daisy Andrews' delicately colored landscapes (on the floor below Wakartu's work) need to be savored and absorbed slowly and in their small scale.

Mangkaja stock

Wolf examines the stock. Photo by Margo Smith.

Many Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture

of the older men, including

painters such as Pijaju Peter Skipper, Mawukura Jimmy Nerrimah, and Spider Snell paint bold ceremonial designs that clearly show their connections to the iconographic traditions of the Western Desert. (Spider can be seen dancing on the Ngurrara canvas in the photograph on the cover of the Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2001; his painting Ngunjawali, 2003, which describes a story from the Tingari cycle, is on the right here.) The women's paintings constantly surprise with the richness of their floral imagery. The theme of jila, the everlasting waterholes in the desert, flourishes in the works of all these painters, whether through intimations of the great serpents that live in them or in the fecundity they bring to the desert.

If there was a disappointment to the finish of this day, it was that changes in schedule and our consequent late arrival meant that all the artists had departed for the day (and we were a day early to boot). However the wealth of work available for us to look through easily made up for the missed opportunity.

Paul Miller helps Nana makes some tough decisions. Photo by Khadija Carroll.

Eventually we all walked across the road to the storefront Art Centre to conclude our business and to peruse the ample selection of catalogs, prints, and paintings by emerging artists. There another surprise was waiting for me: Greg Wallace and Jen Ford were hard at work in the back room, sorting out the photographic archives of Mangkaja Arts. They were there as part of a pilot project being run by Desart to further apply the benefits of technology to the operations of art centres across Australia. Having managed to install the appropriate equipment and software to enable each of Desart's members to capture their output digitally and to begin the work of building websites, John Oster was now committed to exploring the digital options for preserving the history of these hardy organizations.

Two pilot projects had been selected to examine the resource requirements for building differing kinds of digital archives at two Kimberley art centres. At Warlayirti Artists in Balgo, scanning of the entire physical archive of painting certificates documenting in photographs and stories the history of artwork produced for Warlayirti was underway. Here in Fitzroy Crossing Greg and Jen were still at the stage of assessing the riches on hand. Jen took time out to leaf through a set of scrapbooks that appeared to contain hundreds of photos of the painting of one of the Ngurrara canvases. They hoped at some point in the future to scan all these into digital images and document the people appearing in each along with stories being painted.

Night was falling by the time we began to caravan towards the Fitzroy Crossing River Lodge, where we were to spend the night (unknowingly in the company of several tour bus loads of bemused seniors also stopping for the night on a very different tour of the Kimberley). Once we had checked into our rooms, though, it was not yet time to rest and relax.

There was indeed more art to be seen, as Paul Good from Austrade and Linda Butterly of the Kimberley Development Council had just arrived after a long, long drive from Carnarvon, to treat us to an exhibition of new art of the Pilbara region. Artists from the Shire of Roebourne had, in 2006, traveled to Florence, Italy, for an astonishing exhibition called Antica Terra Pulsante (Ancient Land Pulsing). Their work rivaled that of the Mangkaja Artists for its variety and in many cases the intensity of the color they applied to the canvas.

Kathleen Nangala Njamme's squares and roundels recalled the classic works of many Western Desert artists and would not have been out of place on the walls of Warlayirti Artists in Balgo. Yindjibarndi artist Clifton Mack builds fields of color out of an infinite number of small dots and dashes. Some of his work was reminiscent in color and composition of faraway Anmatyerre or Alyawarre painters; other paintings looked startlingly new and spoke eloquently of the seaside light of the Western coastline. But I think we all agreed that Karratha Murniba's shimmering fields of color, once of which is reproduced below, were the star attractions of the show that Paul and Linda had so generously arranged for us.

Murinba is the most dramatic and the freshest of the painters working today out of Roebourne.

After feasting all day on Kimberley art, from Kununurra through Warmun, and westwards from Fitzroy to Roebourne, it was time to replenish the body as well as the soul. To that end, we all repaired to the Fitzroy Crossing River Lodge, where Paul Miller rejoined us while Paul Good and Linda Butterly made sure that the wine flowed as smoothly as the conversation. As this was to be our group's last night on the road--prior to our very last night of the tour in Darwin--it was with real reluctance that we gave in to the need for sleep as the clock ticked past 10 p.m.

Dawn's early light in Fitzroy Crossing

Dawn brought another perfect day and I took the opportunity to wander the grounds of the Lodge, the cool morning nearly silent but for a few birdcalls. After a quick breakfast, we loaded our gear for the return trip to the airport, where Paul and Linda sent us off with a hefty gift of catalogs and books to help us remember the land we hadn't seen, the iron-red Pilbara. Their generosity and kindness, their invitations to return, were the perfect send-off for our final day touring the art centres of the West.

Posted at 05:43 PM

Wed - April 30, 2008

Papunya Topography: Request for Information

If you search for Papunya using Google Earth, you'll find* the following image of the town:

In what must be the surest example of life imitating art, the landscape surrounding the settlement has been scored on four sides with semi-circles that reproduce Western Desert iconography.

I'm hoping that some of my readers can provide some information about this striking terrestrial inscription. When was it done? Who arranged for it? What's the story here?

My thanks in advance to anyone who can enlighten me.

*In order for you to see this for yourself you'll actually have to navigate about 15 kilometers north of the spot on the map where Google Earth locates Papunya. Zoom in a bit and follow the roads to find it.

Update: See my subsequent post on Papunya Town Planning for the answer to the riddle.

Posted at 10:15 PM

Sat - April 19, 2008

Warmun Art Centre, Turkey Creek, WA

The second stop on our tour of Kimberley art centres was in Turkey Creek, home of the Warmun Art Centre. We landed around noon, which meant that this was to be the shortest of stops on our tour, as we needed to be on the ground in Fitzroy Crossing a mere three hours later. But somehow, we managed to forget all that almost the moment we stepped out of the plane onto the roughest airstrip we seen in our travels.

The Turkey Creek airstrip.
For one things the surrounding countryside was among the most beautiful scenes we'd encountered. The blazing blue sky had only grown brighter as the sun climbed higher in the sky, and the air was full of the sharp smells of cattle, smoke, and dry grass. Pretty soon the familiar plume of dust announcing the arrival of the troopie to carry us back to the art centre appeared among the trees. A steel-haired cattleman jumped down from the vehicle and introduced himself to us: Patrick Mung Mung.

Warmun cattle country.
We piled into the truck and began our drive through high grass and deep glades of green trees. As we bounced along the rough red road, we passed what appeared to be a small, fenced garden on our left, filled with a riot of colorful flowers. The blossoms appeared to be piled on top of wire frame; we learned later that we had passed by the Turkey Creek cemetery where the graves of Rover and Queenie are honored still by the members of the community.

The green countryside at Turkey Creek.
We bounced through Turkey Creek, still holding water, as the greenness all around suggested it might be, and soon pulled up at the art centre compound. We were enthusiastically and warmly greeting by Roger Taylor and Jackey Coyle-Taylor, the managers, who were smack in the middle of a two-week orientation to their new responsibilities, having arrived in Turkey Creek from Adelaide only a week before. Megan Buckley and Eamonn Scott had another week on site, and then the new managers would be on their own.

Roger Taylor after a week on the job as manager at the Warmun Art Centre, June 2007.
Someone suggested lunch, and since a table was spread with platters of baked goods and plenty of tea was to hand, we could hardly resist. A few of the old ladies, including Mabel Juli and Nancy Nodea, quietly joined us as we tucked into our airplane lunches...which quickly lost their appeal in the face of cakes and scones the like of which we hadn't seen in all our travels. The hospitality was beguiling, the company charming, and I think we would have been content to sit there under the tall trees for a good long while.

Patrick Mung Mung and Betty Carrington painting in the shade near the old art centre building. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)
From our seats we could see the lovely old building that had been the home of the art centre for many years, the as yet unfinished, very modern new exhibition space and museum, and the large storehouse where paintings destined for major exhibitions were stored. (The new, $1.3 million facility opened in August 2007, a little over two months after our visit.)

A panoramic view of the new Warmun Art Centre, located just behind the old building. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)
But being in close proximity to all that art was an irresistible pull, and we soon scattered, climbing the steps of the old art centre to admire hundreds of paintings hung on the walls and sorted into bins. In the office there were etchings and art cards to supplement the ochre canvases, and we heard about plans to introduce jewelry and hand-painted silk to the centre's inventory. They had a good selection of books for sale as well, and I managed to secure a lovely, short monograph on the late Hector Jandany.

Senior, emerging, and future artists of the Warmun Art Centre. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)
The new building was still quite clearly a construction site and although we were all eager to see what it would look like, caution prevailed, and we left the workmen to their business, undisturbed. I'm most grateful to Roger and Jackey for providing me with photographs of the new display areas. It's a lovely, open space that many urban galleries would be jealous of. Designed by Monsoon Architects out of Kununurra, the new building was constructed largely with funds from the sale of artwork.

Inside the new gallery space. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)
The large, air-conditioned storerooms were enough to make a collector weep. The painting tradition at Warmun goes back two decades now, making it one of the oldest centres in Australia, and the first to make a mark on the national consciousness in the medium of ochre on canvas in a modern idiom. The characteristic depictions of countries and stories of the Gija people, combining a traditional aesthetic with Western genres of landscape and history painting defined a third way in Aboriginal art, neither desert dot painting nor Top End clan designs.

Mabel Juli. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)
Instead there was a visual tradition that hovered on the borders of representation, reflecting the metamorphosis of ancestral beings from what the Gija call Ngarrangakrni into landmarks and celestial orders. The boldness of the design, the large, balancing fields of color, find an equilibrium on the borders of representation and abstraction in a way that is unique to the Kimberley and has inspired artists across the region to develop new adaptations of their traditional designs.

Stock in the art centre "shed." (Photo by Margo Smith)
With one last look around at the abundance of spectacular color inside the shed, we were led back out for the short trip back to the airstrip. I left feeling that of the many places we had visited in the preceding two weeks, we needed far more time, and much more traveling the vicinity to really grasp the special relationship between what we saw inside and outside the Warmun Art Centre.

The Turkey Creek Roadhouse. (Photo by Rod Hartvigsen, Muranji Photography; courtesy of Warmun Art)

Posted at 11:46 PM

Sat - March 22, 2008

Waringarri Aboriginal Artists, Kununurra, WA

The final leg of our tour of Aboriginal art centres took us to the Kimberley in a whirlwind couple of days, even by the fast-paced standards of the trip overall. Among the complicating factors to touring this part of the country are the enormous distances between settlements, the paucity of places for an airplane to refuel, and the strength of the prevailing winds, which multiply the effect of miles on fuel. And just to make things more interesting, on the second day, when we were scheduled to return to Darwin, the military was conducting air exercises and we needed to be back on the ground before air space was closed to small commercial flights like ours.

As we took off from Darwin, though, a cool, clear autumn day promised great adventure, and some relief after the dense humidity of Arnhem Land. We were joined for this leg of the journey by Michelle Culpitt from ANKAAA. The chance to meet many people, like Michelle, with whom I've corresponded for years was one of the real bonuses of this tour. We flew in over the lush landscape, altered forever by the creation of Lake Argyle and the Ord River project in the 1950s. After landing at Kununurra Airport, we were quickly loaded into the Waringarri Artists troopie and whisked off to the art centre.

According to the Wikipedia, Kununurra is a name derived from the Mirriwong language and means "big water."

Thanks to the time change from Darwin into WA, we arrived early on a crisp morning, but the chill in the air hadn't stopped the artists of Waringarri from turning out to meet us in full force. Indeed, I don't believe we ever got a welcome quite as expansive as the one that we received from the Waringarri Artists. When manager Cathy Cummins and her right-hand woman, Louise Mengil, presented each of us with a carved boab nut, I was delighted to find that mine had been made by Alan Griffiths, now the senior law man at Waringarri.

The building shown above is the "storefront" for the art centre, with lovely open display space. It also contains a special side gallery that features the work of both emerging artists from the community as well as schoolchildren who are beginning to learn the fundamentals of painting their country from the old folks. A second large building nearby functions as a painting studio, social center, and storehouse for works awaiting dispersal to galleries around the world.

Cathy told us the story of the origins of Waringarri, when old man Carlton from Bullo River walked in and asked for a place where his people could start to paint the stories of their country. He sat down for a few weeks and decided that the experiment would work, and gradually the other old people joined him. Today, Waringarri Aboriginal Artists is a prime example of how a community can come together and build a successful place for themselves. Both Louise and Griffth's grandson Kim represent the industrious entrepreneurship of the younger generation. Their skills, from accountancy to carpentry and marketing to auto mechanics, help to make the enterprise thrive and complement the traditional knowledge that the old people bring to painting. Kim, who is learning to paint from his grandfather, was among those whose gave testimony to the Senate Inquiry when it sat in Kununurra in February 2007.

A veritable who's who of Waringarri talent: from the left, Judy Mengil, Phyllis Ningamara, Agnes Armstrong, Mignonette Jamin, Peter Newry, Minnie Lumai, Daisy Bitting, and Peggy and Alan Griffiths with one of their younger grandchildren.
As it was quite early in the chilly morning, most of the artists had gathered for tea on the sunny side of the studio building. Phyllis Ningamara, however, was already hard at work on a body of work that was to be submitted to the Xstrata Award in Brisbane later in the year. Daisy Bitting was keeping her company as she worked on a vast portrait of Gerran, the Stone Country, 300 cm long, that would be the masterpiece of her contribution to the exhibition.

Phyllis Ningamara at work on Gerran
Some of the boab trees that cluster around the painting studio bear ochre signs.

The boab trees around the art centre are marked with lustrous yellow ochre discs. In the photo on the left, a future footy star awaiting the kick, is half hidden behind one of the trees. Photos by Margo Smith and Sherry Thompson.
A younger generation of Waringarri artists is engaged in some interesting experiments in painting and modeling with ochres. They are not simply tracing the outlines of rivers and hills in their country, but bullding up the surfaces of the canvases in a sort of three-dimensional mapping project. Carol Hapke and Rebecca Bray are among the practitioners of this new style, adding to the diversity of artistic expression coming out of Waringarri today. Bray's Mulawun Dreaming tells the story of how the eagle and the white crane passed the knowledge of crushing the leaves of the mulawun bush and tossing them in the river to stun the fish for capture.

Detail of Rebecca Bray, Mulawun Dreaming, 2007.

An even younger generation is clearly enjoying what the community has to offer, and under the supervision of their artistic grandparents, were having a great time racing around the grounds of the art centre practicing their football moves. As the time came for us to gather our things together and leave, and the cameras came out to record our visit in group photos, the kids had no hesitation at all in lining up for their share of the limelight.

Having done our duty to immortalize the youngsters, we visitors lined up in front of the Waringarri troopie for the only opportunity on the trip to catch artists and visitors arrayed together.

The Waringarri mob pose with the US mob. Manger Cathy Cummins is on the left; Kim Griffiths is the young man kneeling, in the bright blue shirt, at the right.
Then it was off into the air once again, this time flying southwest over the unmodified Dreaming landscape toward Turkey Creek.

Posted at 12:24 PM

Sun - February 24, 2008

Maningrida Arts and Culture, Maningrida, NT

Maningrida Arts and Culture is a powerhouse warehouse of Indigenous art. Of all the art centres we visited across the Territory and adjacent WA, Maningrida had the most impressive array of work on offer, certainly in terms of sheer quantity. The marketing genius that Apolline Kohen has exhibited in the last five years means that it may be hard to find the work of the community's international superstars--John Mawurndjul, Samuel Namunjdja Ivan Namirrkki, or Timothy Wulanjbirr--amidst the ranks of bark paintings, sculptures and fiber work on offer: the demand for these works is so great that they are almost out the door before they arrive. But there is an enormous variety of other work to be had, which in part reflects the centre's operations as outlined in their mission statement:

Maningrida Arts & Culture (MAC), formally established in 1973, is one of the oldest Aboriginal Arts Centre in Australia. Based in Maningrida community (North Central Arnhem Land), MAC is currently servicing more than 700 artists from Maningrida and its surrounding 34 outstations, covering an area of more than 10,000 square kilometers.

MAC pays its artists up front when works are brought into the arts centre and has a total acquisition policy which means that MAC buys each and every artwork that is brought by an artist. This creates certainty and security for artists, insures that their work is treated with respect, encourages the career of young and emerging artists and provides an income to ageing artists who are no longer producing their best work.

In some of the art centres we visited during our trip, there was not an artist to be seen. In others, the art centre doubled as a community centre where people of all ages--though often with a preponderance of oldies--gathered. In others, sales, stockroom, and studio shared space. In Maningrida, most of the art production is carried on at people's homes, whether that means bungalows within the township itself, or at one of the many outstations. But because of the liberal acquisitions policy, MAC itself seemed the most vibrant commercial enterprise we visited. A steady stream of artists of all ages brought work in during most of the time we were visiting and the staff worked diligently not simply to meet our needs as customers, but to accept, inventory, and record new work.

Beyond rack and racks of paintings and sculpture, the Centre boasts a large packing and shipping operation, a photography niche for the documentation of work (and here we had glimpse of some lovely masterworks), and a specially air-conditioned "treasure room" for materials destined for exhibitions down south and around the world.

Photographs of Maningrida art by Sherry Thompson

Treasures of a different sort are housed in the nearby Djomi Museum, which was established around 1980 by former arts advisor Peter Cooke, and is an official regional museum of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Inside the unassuming structure are displays of the history of the settlement, along with astonishing displays of weavings, cultural regalia like dance belts and headdresses, and a room hung with bark paintings by an earlier generation of masters, men like England Banggala and Jack Kalakala.

The day that we visited was a momentous one in terms of contemporary art history: James Iyuna and Melba Gunjarrwanga put the finished touches on a large copper-wire sculpture sculpture that was commissioned for the verandah of the newly renovated Darwin Entertainment Centre. Based on the designs of traditional fish traps, the piece totals 240 square meters. The work was the featured cover story in the June 2007 ANKAAA Arts Backbone, the newsletter of the Association of Northern, Kimberly, and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists.

Photograph of James Iyuna by Wolfgang Schlink
Later in the afternoon, a few of us took off for a stroll around the town. As you can see from the map below, there's a well defined set of paved roads to follow. At the left edge of the map the dock where the barge bringing supplies to be unloaded sits at the edge of a short strip of tropical beach. (Maningrida lies on the estuary of the Liverpool River at the edge of the Arafura Sea.) About midway between the barge ramp and the oval, a large white building is bisecting by an ochre diagonal--I think that's the art centre.

Empty petrol tanks and other shipping materials waiting for the barge's return

The fringe of the Liverpool River near the dock
There's quite a bit of Western style housing in the town, occupied by both balanda workers and Indigenous residents. Since school was out for the day, we encountered plenty of kids on the street, all of whom were eager to talk to us and to share a bit of their stories with the "tourists." We were invited to stop by the oval for the afternoon football match by an outgoing teenage boy, and a group of girls, probably not quite teenagers, demanded to know exactly where in the world we were from.

Maningrida street scene, with typical local housing
And finally, there were some famously impressive arboreal specimens to marvel at.

Although we were in Maningrida just weeks before the Howard government announced the intervention, and although the newspapers had been filled with stories of violence and predation in the town, our experience (much of it quite unchaperoned) gave the lie to the notion of a dysfunctional community. The whitefellas we spoke with grumbled only about the heat--intense even in winter--and the children we met were friendly, curious, and well-spoken. I was disappointed only to discover that Tupac seemed more popular than Nabarlek on the ghettoblasters, but I can hardly feel justified in complaining about American exports, can I?

To the contrary, we saw well maintained schools, and the newly opened swimming pool was doing big business. The sense of history, even in this tiny town that dates back only to 1957, was palpable, and the pride in the economy fostered through the arts centre well justified.

A banner brought back from the exhibition of Maningrida art Crossing Country at the Art Gallery of New South Wales hangs from the balcony over the main office at MAC.

Posted at 01:26 PM

Sat - February 2, 2008

Bula'bula Arts, Ramingining, NT

On the morning of our second day in Arnhem Land, we landed in Ramingining for a visit with the folks of Bula'bula Arts. Curator Belinda Scott and manager Geoff Willetts-Bryants met us at the airport and brought us quickly back to headquarters in town. There our official host for the morning took over: current chairman of Bula'bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation, Richard Birrinbirrin (who's also serving this year as chairman of the ANKAAA Executive Committee).

Anthea and Nana relax in front of Bula'bula Arts (photo by Wolfgang Schlink)

And so our first introduction to the art of Ramingining was this large painting by Birrinbirrin that adorns the exterior of the ground floor of the arts centre.

But one of the amazing things about visiting Bula'bula is the richness of the history you immediately find yourself in the midst of. This, after all, is the country where the work was done for the Aboriginal Memorial, the 200 ceremonial burial poles commissioned for the Bicentenary in 1988. It is the land that Donald Thomson made famous in his photographs of the 1930s and that the community, with the assistance of Rolf de Heer, then brought to global notice in 2006 with the release of Ten Canoes. It is the home of legendary artists like Philip Gudthaykudthay and Charlie Djurritjini and Dorothy Djukulul.

As we ascended the stairs to the main entrance of the centre on the first floor, we encountered some of that history right away in the form of two large panels representing the Dhuwa and Yirritja moieties. Like the arched ceiling of a European palace or cathedral, the entranceway to Bula'bula Arts prepares you for what waits within.

Yirritja and Dhuwa panels over the doorway to the arts centre

Dhuwa Panel. This panel was painted in acrylics by Peter Minygululu in 2000. “My father was Mandhalpingu. There are four wititj (olive python), two melkirri (forked sticks), and remu (Saratoga fish). Up the top is a stone axe, and at the bottom too. Woomera and spears. There is a woman with a dilly bag and digging stick. Above and below her are two men with spears and woomera (spear thrower). It’s from Mirrngatja country, for Mandhalpingu and Balawuy clans. On the outside are platforms (in a cross design) which we hang from the forked sticks. This makes a sleeping platform.” Text courtesy of Bula'bula Arts.

Yirritja Panel. This panel was painted in locally collected ochres by Charlie Djurritjini in 1992. Freshwater totems of the Ganalbingu people are depicted in this painting. There are waterlily flowers, leaves and tubers, long necked tortoises and frogs. The cross hatching represents water weeds that the tortoises hide underneath. There are also karr, the spider, in the painting, as well as circles surrounded by dots that represent the droppings of flying foxes. Text courtesy of Bula'bula Arts.

Lest I mislead you into thinking that this is museum to past glories, there is exciting work being undertaken. For instance, a new print workshop had just begun operations, led by Noel Doyle, who was profiled in the ANKAAA Arts Backbone last July (p. 5). On the day we were there Noel was working with Frances Rikili to produce the workshop's first four-color cloth (an earlier black-and-white edition by Bobby Bununggurr was the initial effort).

Frances Rikili with the first run of her new cloth print


Richard Birrinbirrin (photo by Wolfgang Schlink)	Noel Doyle

Inside the showroom at Bula'bula there's an incredible mixture of new work on offer along with historic bark paintings that form the heart of the community's archive. In the center of the room, a group of painted poles stand ready for sale. In my mind, though they carried me back to Canberra.


Work for sale in the showroom of Bula'bula Arts	The Aboriginal Memorial, 1988, National Gallery of Australia

New fibre work hangs above bark paintings and prints illustrating the ownership of clan designs and stories from the Bula'bula archives.
Interspersed with the artworks on the wall are numerous photographs. Some of these pictures are portraits of the artists. But on second look, you realize that some of these portraits of artists like Gudthaykudthay, Birrinbirrin, and Peter Minygululu are actually stills from Ten Canoes. You look closer and you realize that some of these group photos come in pairs: an original Thomson print with the scene as recreated in the film. It's a dizzying glimpse of the Dreamtime.

Artwork of the Daymirringu clan, historic photos, and film stills. Note the portrait of Birrinbirrin in the upper right

In the top row, Donald thomson's photographs of the platforn on which men camped during hte goose-egg hunts; canoeists in the Arafura Swamp; and a women's camp. Below, the same scenes as recreated in Ten Canoes

Peter Minygululu and Philip Gudthaykudthay

Perhaps the most amazing adventure of the day belonged to Margo, who engaged Gudthaykudthay in conversation, hoping to have him explain the iconography of the painting he had completed for her. Gudthaykudthay's English is almost non-existent, so he set about explaining the story by borrowing Margo's pen and notebook. By the time he was done, the story was still a bit unclear, but Margo had a spontaneous pen-and-ink drawing from the master's hand!

The view across part of Raminging from the art centre

Posted at 01:33 PM

Fri - December 28, 2007

Across Australia Fair, IV

This will be my final set in a series of holiday photo posts, this time from Margo's contributions (with a little help from a friend). As I was looking through the set of images that Margo had put together, I was struck by how many of them were portraits. And so, since I've focused to a great degree on country in the previous three posts, I thought I would make this last one all about some of the people we met. The first three pictures below are from Wolf, also a frequent portraitist, the rest are Margo's. So may I introduce to you ...

Makinti Napanangka (Papunya Tula, Kintore)

Judy Mengil (Waringarri, Kununurra)
(Check out that Wu-Tang Clan sweatshirt!)

James Iyuna (Maningrida)

Agnes Armstrong (Waringarri, Kununurra)

Margo with Philip Gudthaykudthay (Bula Bula, Ramingining)

And with Tjunta Lewis (Warakurna)

Pansy Napangardi (at Ngurratjuta, Alice Springs)

Paddt Stewart Japaljarri (Warlukurlangku, shown here at Ngurratjuta in Alice Springs)

June Smith (Keringke, Ltyentye Apurte)

Frances Rikili (Bula Bula, Ramingining)

Richard Birrinbirrin (Bula Bula, Ramingining)

Daisy Bitting, left, and Phyllis Ningamara (Waringarri, Kununurra)

Posted at 11:34 PM

Thu - December 27, 2007

Across Australia Fair, III

Today's contributions to the Austrade photographic chronicles come from Khadija. I have to confess to having indulged in a big of Photoshop foolery this time around, merging two shots of a Janus-faced carving of the Tiwi ancestors Purukuparli and Bima. I also removed the unlovely intrusion of my head into an otherwise lovely shot from the art centre in Ramingining. I hope Khadija will forgive me on both counts, as well as for a bit of cropping on a shot or two.

Uluru Fire

Yirrkala

Balgo

Kata Tjuta

Kayili Arts

Yulara

Papunya Tula

Munupi Arts

Yuendumu

Paddy Sims Japaljarri

Maningrida Frog

Bula Bula Arts

Yirrkala

Posted at 03:27 PM

Tue - December 25, 2007

Across Australia Fair, II

More photos as I look back over 2007. These are from Joel, and they chart the landscapes we saw: human and artistic, ancestral and geographical. The Dreaming, as it lives today, in whitefellas' world, too.

Warburton

Warburton

Nguiu

Alice

Yuendumu

Parap

Injalak

Uluru

Posted at 11:34 PM

Sat - December 22, 2007

Across Australia Fair

I recently received a couple of CD's from my friends at Austrade containing photographs taken by other members of the mob I traveled with back in May and June. I've already published a number of Wolf's photos back at the start of my still incomplete chronicles. Now the time and opportunity has come to share some of these new photos I've received recently. I'll begin today with excerpts from Sherry's contributions: Sherry herself is shown peering out from behind one of the painted signs that grace the road from the airport into the center of Kintore.

One again adhering the principle that a picture is worth a thousand words, I leave you to enjoy the magic that Sherry has wrought. More from the rest of the mob in days to come.

Injalak

Patjarr

Ltyentye Apurte

Yeperenye

Pirlangimpi

Red Desert

Darwin

Bathurst Island

Pirlangimpi

Meliville Island

Kintore

Uluru

Uluru

Centralia

Posted at 03:15 PM

Sun - November 18, 2007

Injalak Arts & Crafts, Gunbalanya (Oenpelli), NT

There were many moments on our trip across the Northern Territory and the Kimberley that were memorable, but none I think were as astonishing or breathtaking as our adventures at Gunbalanya, when we climbed Injalak Hill to visit truly sacred sites where stunning rock art still stands fresh near caves and crevices and overhangs that housed traces of ancestors.

Gunbalanya, or Oenpelli as it may be better known, is also the home of the Injalak Arts & Crafts Association, and surprises waited in store from us there as well. Immediately upon embarking from the troopie in which coordinator Anthony Murphy retrieved us from the airport, we were introduced to Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek, the senior artist of this stone country, rock painter, bark painter, fire warden, and perhaps the person who comes closest to the ideal of a national treasure living in Australia. His presence at the art centre is relatively rare, and so we felt both honored and fortunate to meet this giant among men.

Inside the art centre another surprise encounter awaited us, as Louise Hamby was stopping by on her way through to Maningrida. Hamby is an authority on Indigenous weaving and curator of the Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken exhibition, which showcases fiber art techniques from the community. (I was fortunate to later see this stunning show at the Dell Gallery of the Queensland College of Art; if you haven't been so lucky, the catalog is a superb recreation of the experience.)

We didn't linger long at the Centre, though, as time was short (always) and the climb up Injalak Hill is a somewhat strenuous exercise that really requires several hours to do it justice. So we quickly piled back into the troopie to head across the East Alligator River to where the base of the verdant and rocky outcrop rises above the floodplain.

The air and water along the river's edge were bursting with wildlife: fish broke the surface of the river with astonishing regularity, egrets waded along the banks, other water birds rested on lily pads, and hawks soared in black silhouettes low in the air, searching for a kill. Something of the lushness of the countryside can be seen in this aerial shot taken as we approached the airport.

From the base of Injalak, we were overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the landscape--little understanding then what lay in store as we ascended. Forested slopes mixed with grassy clearings stood before us, giving glimpses of rocky cliffsides, but not revealing the geological complexity that was about to be unveiled as we climbed higher. The sun dazzled as it broke through the greenery, giving the tufted heads of tall grasses a spectral quality that made me feel like we had truly entered an enchanted wood.

The path required a cautious ascent. Even though tours are a daily occurrence through the area in the dry season, the hillside still had an untouched feel to it, almost as if we were treading in only occasional footpaths. The stillness of the air added to the sense of having been taken out of time into a land of eternal sunshine.

As we climbed higher up the hill, the thrust of the underlying rocks became more and more evident and the nature of the countryside changed. No less welcoming, the country's sense of majesty increased, and the depths of time and true changlessness began to dominate over the seasonal beauty of the cool, sky-drenched day.

Soon afterwards we left grasses and trees behind, passing through tall towers of rock that felt like gates into another world, and our guide, Wilfred Nawirridj, asked us to move quietly and to stop taking photographs. Soon we were surrounding by rock walls, and skirting the entrances to shallow caves that had once been burial sites. The coolness, the dim light, the gray walls, all added to the sense that we had now truly stepped out of time. Despite the low ceilings, the mental comparison to cathedral space was inevitable: it took no imagination at all to understand this as sacred ground.

We quickly passed beyond the burial sites and threaded our way along chasms and corridors into galleries of rock art. A different kind of awe settled on our group now. The freshness of the paint, even on designs that had long since been partially obscured by later generations of artists, was hard to comprehend. The artistry was magnificent, the brilliance of color vying for admiration with the delicacy of detail with which fins and claws and lungs and backbones were depicted.

All of these qualities can be seen at once glance in this barramundi. I have never seen such an expressive face on an aquatic animal before. The scales along its back are delicately suggested above an x-ray image of its spine, and the yellow infill gives the image surprising heft in contrast to the intricacy of the red line-drawing.

The exquisite workmanship is even more pronounced in this barra. The characteristic small fins below the jaw are beautifully detailed, and there is even greater strength in this fellow's backbone. The detail that enchants me in this photograph, though, is the depiction of the spines on the barramundi's back, airily suggested by short, quick strokes of white, without the red outlining that is used to draw in features everywhere else in the portrait.

In some places, nature has lent its own hand to artistic effect.

In this gallery of images, the blacks, gray, and white of rock and water create a marbled easel on which successive generations of artists have cast their imaginations. More barras jostle with a long-necked tortoise and what looks like the plunging purple figure of a spirit being in the right half of the photograph.

It is hard to capture in the flat medium of photography the sometime vertiginous effect that the curves and overhangs of the rock add to the imagery. The lizard shown in the photograph below clings to the curve of a roof as though startled by our sudden intrusion.

Similarly, you can barely glimpse the curve of the ceiling on which this assortment of creatures is painted.

At the right, the snake coils along the turn of rock. To the left, an inverted, x-rayed kangaroo slides across the ceiling's surface. In between, butchered segments of fish are archetypes of images found in many early bark paintings that invoke hunting stories.

The creation story in Gunbalanya country centers on a female ancestor, the mother known as Yingana. Perhaps a local variation on the Wagilag sisters, she emerged from the Arafura Sea and traveled across the inland regions. As in the Wagilag story, Yingana gave birth to the bininj, the people of this country, and taught them each their proper language. Suspended from a headband were many dilly bags that contained yams, which she planted and taught the bininj how to harvest.

I knew nothing particular of this at the time I arrived in Gunbalanya, only the general outlines of Arnhem Land creation stories. But even had I been prepared with this knowledge, nothing could have primed me for what we saw next, and which Wilfred, who frequently paints Yingana, revealed with a mixture of reverence and pride I have never otherwise experienced in my travels across the country.

As we slowly drew ourselves away from this extraordinary portrait, I had the sense that we had had our fill of marvels for the day, and that our journey would be (literally and figuratively) downhill from here. But the country surprised me again, and although nothing else we were to see had quite the transcendence of this painting, there was still much to marvel at as we emerged once more into the sunlight at the top of the hill.

Tilted masses and terraced towers sprang up out of the dried grasses at the summit. As we worked our way among them, vistas of the countryside began to appear in the distance. Even though, once I reach heights like this, my eye tends to be drawn towards the horizons, the complexity of the hilltop's construction drew gaze back, demanding that I give in to the sense of wonder once more. In many ways the landscape resembled the one we had left behind before entering the maze of caves and chasms that held the sacred spaces of the hill, but now we approached it with a new sense of its magnitude.

And then suddenly we came out into the unsheltered spaces at the very crest of the hill and still another world opened out before us. The panoramas changed each way that you looked. Dramatic rock formations still dominated the foreground view, their very size teasing me into believing that I could leap across the deep crevasses between them. I can be prone to vertigo in situations like this, but instead I felt as if I could easily take flight and soar from ledge to ledge.

Margo and Wilfred found a comfortable shelf of rock to seat themselves on and look out towards the town.

This was a moment to pause, and we broke up into small groups to rest from the climb and take in the multiple prospects spread before us. It was impossible to believe that just a few hours ago we had been standing on the other side of the water running down below us, gazing up at the spot where I now stood. Off in the distance, more stony hillsides tempted with visions of what they might be concealing.

Soon we were on our way again, descending into even narrower passages than we had encountered on our ascent. Vertical columns of light penetrated dark walls of damp stone, and the ground beneath us grew uneven and tricky to navigate. Our line began to attenuate as we moved along: a sudden opening would allow those in front to speed up while the stragglers and tarriers (of whom I was one) still struggled for solid footing amid the canyons of the hill's weathered ridges. On more than one occasion, I emerged from one of these narrow confines into what looked like a crossroads in a clearing with none of my company in sight ahead of me. At these moments I was seized by a sense of being all alone in the world, lost until the echo of someone's voice told me which turning to take.


Nana, leading Wolf and Anthea, takes a sharp left turn downwards	Wilfred Nawirridj, artist and guide

This sense of unreality and downright spookiness was only enhanced as we passed by a sunlit split in the wall that seemed to glow of its own energy and sparkle in the slightest puff of a breeze. We had encountered the largest kingdom of spiders I have ever seen in all my days, obviously undisturbed by the elements, and certainly by man, for an age whose duration was impossible to imagine.

I would gladly have given the rest of the day--maybe even the rest of the week--to remain in the grip of this magic, but we'd already spent most of the morning on Injalak and had barely visited the art centre at all. When we arrived back at the base of the hill, I looked at the arriving visitors with a mixture of superiority ("They have no idea what awaits them....") and envy at the journey they were about to experience. The ride back to the art centre was a quiet one, filled with backward glances as our distance from Injalak increased and the road gave us new perspectives on where we had been.

Our arrival back at the art centre, bustling now with midday visitors, was a bit of a shock after the tranquility of the morning's expedition. Anthony led us into the back storeroom of the centre, where bark paintings were crammed against the walls, some of them showing signs of water damage from the floods in March of 2007 that left the tiny building standing in three feet of water.

But there was still an abundant supply of beautiful work for us to choose from, and I have never appreciated the art of Injalak in quite the way I did at that moment. Anthony cleared a space in the middle of the floor and laid a series of exquisite compositions in ochre on Arches paper down one atop another for us to choose from. As one work spilled onto another, I almost felt like I was being transported back to the riot of images that graced the walls of the rock galleries we had just left behind. My resolve to be judicious in selecting works to take home with me was sorely tested at every stop on our tour, but never more so than at that moment.

Somehow I managed to choose among them all, and quickly retreated outside once more, to sit under an the spreading branches of enormous tree on the grounds of the art centre, content for the moment to watch the comings and goings of the resident dogs and reflect on the splendor we had partaken of.

That country is crucial to Indigenous people can become axiomatic. It is a truth the heart of every exhibition, every review, every decent critical piece of writing about Aboriginal art and culture. And although throughout ten days of steady exposure to masterpieces, meetings with artists famous and unrecognized, in flights over deserts and jungles, we had yet to become desensitized to the enchantment of it all, something truly out of the ordinary happened on Injalak. There was a physical immersion in country that became a psychic experience as well. I don't mean to imply some kind of New Age revelations. It was more a sense of recognition--of re-thinking--when we came back to the art centre and saw images scattered about and piled one on another: this was kin to what we had seen on the mountain. This was art and land and spirit.

Posted at 04:04 PM

Sun - November 4, 2007

Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, Yirrkala, NT

We arrived at the Gove Airport in the wake of a sudden downpour that left the runways and the red earth puddled and the air feeling like the Wet wasn't quite gone yet. On the way to the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, coordinator Andrew Blake explained that the rains were lasting a bit longer this year than usual. Mostly the dry weather has settled in but every now and then.... Well, this was the Top End, but luckily the temperature was still in the 20s.

While driving us to Yirrkala, Andrew also explained the meaning of the art centre's name. We were now in Miwatj country: land of the sunrise. Buku means face, but it also means mind. Larrnggay is the sun in Yolngu-matha. Mulka is a verb that means to touch. It also refers to a sacred public ceremony. Buku-mulka is an idiomatic expression that means to reach the end or climax. In my end is my beginning, said T. S. Eliot.

So, Buku-Larrnggay Mulka. The touch of the sun on one's face. Holding the sunrise and all it suggests in your mind. A ceremony, a place for keeping the culture of the Yolngu. It wasn't terribly far from here, less than a hundred kilometers, that the Wagilag Sisters, who had paddled in a canoe from the eastern island of Bralgu, first set foot on what we now know as Arnhem Land and began their journey across to the west, naming the land, giving birth to the Yolngu clans, leaving the languages. Bralgu in the east, the place where the spirits of the dead return. In my beginning is my end.

Yirrkala Creek
Jarringly, Andrew pointed to a long structure that we were passing just then, stretching as far as the eye could see to either side of the road. As we sped past, he explained that it was a section of a twenty-kilometer long conveyor belt that carried bauxite ore back to Nhulunbuy. In the midst of this humid jungle that looked so nearly primeval, the road that carried us (not primeval at all) was bisected by the signs of the mining that brought an end to the Aboriginal possession of Arnhem Land, prompted the Yirrkala Bark Petition (1, 2)and in turn gave birth to the modern land rights movement. We'd barely even arrived and my head was already spinning with the back-and-forth rhythms of the country.

Part of the bauxite processing operations near Nhulunbuy
Soon enough we were piling out of the troopie at the art centre. Things had changed since I was here two years ago. A new addition was nearly completed, which will house the centre's museum.

Buku-Larrnggay Mulka
The impact of this change was immediately evident as we passed through the reception area and into the space that had formerly been filled with exhibits of Yolngu history and bark paintings by the masters of forty years ago. Now the space was teeming with new work, racks of bark paintings tilted against the walls, and larrakitj towering down the central aisle and laid out in rows. It was a stunning richness, almost too much to take in.

Margo and Joel inspect the new work on offer
We headed down to see the Yirrkala Church Panels, which are housed in a tiny sanctuary reached by either of two semi-spiral stairways. Four meters tall, one illustrating the creation stories of the Dhuwa moiety, the Wagilag sisters, the other Barama and the stories of the Yirritja moiety. Andrew said they are the most important Australian art in existence, and it's not hard to believe that when you're standing in front of them. You can see reproductions of them in books, most comprehensively in Ann Wells's This Their Dreaming (University of Queensland Press, 1972), but nothing really prepares you for the surprise or the solemnity of the experience itself. It's an experience comparable only to two others in my memory: reaching Salisbury Plain and seeing Stonehenge in the distance, and turning through the Propylea for the first glimpse of the Parthenon, like this small room, sites where human ingenuity meets the ineffable.

Back upstairs, I ran into Randin Graves, Buku's yidaki coordinator who has also been helping out at the Arts Centre. Randin has spent years in Yirrkala studying with Yolngu masters, working on recordings, and generally spreading the gospel of the drone pipe in ways that affirm its connection to Yolngu culture and Yolngu law. He has assembled the best online information site about the instrument I've ever seen (and you know there are hundreds of them), Yidakiwuy Dhawu Miwatjngurunydka (Didjeridu Story from Far Northeast Arnhem Land). It covers not simply buying and playing yidaki, but aspects of relevant law and culture, discussions of thorny issues like women and the yidaki, and links to "useful websites owned or made with Yolngu." This last category covers topics ranging from Yothu Yindi to land managment and the Garma Festival to Arnhem weavers.

The sheer richness of the art on offer, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, made the next couple of hours fly past. And then, inevitably, came the time to sort out purchases, payment details, and shipping arrangements. Eventually I wandered out of the Arts Centre for a walk past the Mission Church across the road, and down towards Yirrkala Creek, whose supply of freshwater and sheltered location led the Methodists to choose this cove for their settlement back in the 1930s.

The Mission Church at Yirrkala
Walking back from the shore of the bay, we encountered a group of young boys near the football oval, riding their bicycles in the dusk, popping wheelies, and like all the young people we met in communities across Arnhem Land, eager for a chance to chat with the balanda visitors.

Basketball courts and football oval
We spent the night at the Gove Motel, a comfortable, low-frills establishment, and had dinner at the Gove Yacht Club. After an afternoon immersed in the art of the Yolngu, it was surreal to be dining out on the darkness of the lawn with the lights of the bauxite processing plant glittering across the water. At times like this I'm always tempted to ponder contradictions and cognitive dissonance. But I find it more useful in the end to remind myself of Djambawa Marawili's injunction: "Your knowledge, your education, your background, we are using it. ... OK and in the same way you must learn..."

The central courtyard at Buku-Larrnggay Mulka

Posted at 11:56 AM

Sat - October 13, 2007

Munupi Arts, Pirlangimpi, Melville Island NT

The third and final stop on our tour of the Tiwi Islands was Munupi Arts in Pirlangimpi, near the northwest tip of Melville Island. This general area was the location of the first British settlement on Melville Island, Fort Dundas, founded in 1824 and quickly abandoned. In the middle of the 20th century, the Garden Point mission was established near the ruins of the old fort, whence came the current community. "Munupi" is the traditional name of the the country that borders the northern end of the Apsley Strait.

Munupi Country

Clouds cast their shadows over the forests near Pirlangimpi
The art centre is a very short walk from the airstrip, not even a five-minute stroll. The centre comprises a painting shed, with attached offices and a small display gallery. A carvers' shed stands off to one side. Although there was some activity there when we arrived, the buzz of chain saws gave way to an intermittent pounding on an ax, and after a while, to silence broken by a voice calling out to the occasional passer-by.

Welcome to Munupi Arts

It was nearly impossible for eight of us to occupy the two small rooms where small sculptures and pottery were on display and racks of works holding unstretched canvases were ready for browsing. We all managed to keep out of one another's way until the selection process began, and then it became clear that we'd need to take shifts in the small galleries. Remembering a small patio with benches and tables outside, I decided to take a respite from the business of art and watch the men at the carving shed pack up their tools for the day.

The carvers' shed

The general air of quiet around the art centre seemed to have deepened at the afternoon wore on. Maybe I was still not used to the more tropical climate after the relatively cool and dry desert air. But I was about to doze off when a little fireball whose name I later learned was Bella appeared on the scene.

Like most of the children I met on the tour, Bella didn't have a shy bone in her body. She also seemed to understand that whitefellas and cameras go together: this was another nearly universal trait across the Top End's juvenile population. I'm guessing that she was four or five years old, and she had a pretty good grasp of the practical end of a digital camera, even though she clearly had a lot more experience being in front of one.

Bella with Margo (left) and Khadija (right)

We were also joined by Regis Pangirminni, the chairman of Munupi Arts, who was most generous with his time. He talked about the business end of Munupi, the work of organizing art for exhibitions, his role in community relations, and his suspicion of the forestry initiatives that are underway in the area.

Nina Purutatameri

Regis Pangirminni

As the afternoon waned, Nina Puruntatameri joined us briefly, along with her daughter. But soon it became clear that the art centre's business was drawing to a close, and people began to wander off towards the main part of town.

Looking towards the football oval

I walked around a bit, and discovered a wall of paintings that appeared to be the work of some teenaged graffiti artists. It featured a combination of traditional Tiwi designs, pukumani poles, clan animals, and the Aboriginal flag.

Tiwi graffiti

Our party headed back to the airstrip, where I found another example of local art, a map of Pirlangimpi, on the wall of the small building that serves as the "terminal." The black strip at the upper left seemed to be the airstrip, with the art centre below it, and the football oval just beyond.

A map of Pirlangimpi township

As we headed back to Darwin I had one last look over the islands, at a landscape that speaks of countless years gone by, and that in its very form seems to suggest endlessle the presence of the ancestors.