The following information is from the exhibition 'STORY BOARDS'
a collaborative project organised by the Fremantle Arts Centre and Mangkaja Arts
Fremantle, Western Australia, July 1999
Mangkaja Arts
Resource Agency in Fitzroy Crossing encourages and promotes
Aboriginal involvement in the art market. The centre runs many
community
based projects
which have evolved slowly over the years. The ceramics project
developed this way, beginning in 1997 when Maureen Spencer,
professional potter, and Lurgo Green, technician at Mangkaja Arts,
held ceramic workshops in Fitzroy Crossing. Participating artists
made hand-built pieces, some of which were sold through Mangkaja Arts
Centre.
During 1998, Maureen worked at Kadjina Community 200km south-west of
Fitzroy Crossing,
where the artists made tiles for the entrance to the
school.
Mervyn Street -
Gooniyandi Lurgo Green -
Bunuba
The following year, once the wet season had abated and the roads were
passable, a number of three-day ceramic tile workshops were held in
remote and town based communities. These included Pullout Springs,
Yakanarra, Wangkajungka, Moongardie, Junjuwa, Bayulu and Kadjina.
Completed tiles were transported back to Fitzroy Crossing at the end
of each trip, to be fired at the local high school.
The glaze used on the tiles is a terrasigilata developed from pindan
(red dirt of the Kimberley) and fired to 1100o C.
The Fitzroy Valley
covers a wide area from Looma Community, 220km to the west of Fitzroy
Crossing township to Yiyili Community 190km to the east. The area
follows the river as it passes through the region with several
far-flung communities reaching out into the Great Sandy Desert. There
is a strong contrast in country of origin for the local indigenous
population, that of river to desert. The country around the town,
reaching up into the Oscar and Leopold Ranges to the north is the
traditional land for the Bunuba people. Gooniyandi country reaches
along the river towards Halls Creek in the east. These two river
groups have been hosts to the Walmajarri and Wangkajunga speakers
who moved in from the desert in the fifties and sixties. As one old
Walmajarri man said not long before his death in 1996,
In Fitzroy
Crossing we're sitting down now in this little murnturu (island).
This is Bunuba country.
They are the bosses for this country, for this land. We came in from
Cherrabun Station. Before that I was in the bush.
Lurgo Green - Bunuba |
The cattle stations which lay along the fertile river country offered work in return for stores, tobacco, boots and clothing and many of the locals became experienced and accomplished stockmen. The women worked as cooks in the stock camps or in the 'big house' on the station.
Doris Dougherty's story illustrates this,
My mother was from Bililluna (desert) side and my father was from Go Go. I was born at Go Go Station. When I was a teenager, I was working at the manager's house. I was mopping the floors, cleaning the bathroom and the toilet. Then I worked in the kitchen. In the morning we had to walk a long way to round up the nanny goats. We took them to the station for milking. From Monday to Friday we had to stay at the camp. On the weekend my aunty would take us fishing.
Patsy Bonny -
Wangkajungka Gracie Green -
Wangkajungka
The tiles in this
exhibition piece together these histories from images of distant
waterholes in the desert to building stock yards on the station.
There are several threads which can be seen in the work of each
language group. The tiles of the older Walmajarri and Wangkajunga
artists tend to be of waterholes and bush foods such as the seeds and
meats which they hunt and gather. They reflect the lifestyle of their
youth.
As Molly Rogers, a Mangkaja artist and Walmajarri elder says,
A long time ago when I lived in the bush we would go hunting
for animals, we hunted for wirlka (sand goanna), lungkura (blue
tongue lizard). We would light the fire, the smoke and the fire would
bring the animals out, then they were easy to catch. We would catch
mingajurru (golden bandicoot), minijarti (great desert skink),
ngiyari (mountain devil) and raltartu (hare wallaby).
The Gooniyandi and Bunuba tiles abound with the life of the
river with fish of all kinds, river plants such as bush fig and plum.
They have a detail and patterning which mimics the abundance of the
wildlife and bush food around the river and permanent waterholes.
Sam Cox -
Gooniyandi Pampila Boxer -
Walmajarri
Most of these artists are known as painters nationally and some
internationally. Many are represented in state and national
collections. They have recognisable individual styles from the
energetic work of the Wangkajunga artists, the quirky work of Nipper
Rogers and Janet Williams, the iconographic desert imagery of Jimmy
Pike, Peter Skipper and Paji Honeychild, the recording of ceremonial
life by Mervyn Street and the reference to station life in the work
of Lurgo Green. Few, with the exception of Maryanne Downs, Paji
Honeychild and Butcher Cherel, had had any experience in working with
clay until the recent workshops run by Mangkaja. Still, the work in
the exhibition is testimony to the statement that we hear time and
time again regardless of the medium which is used, that the artists
images are always the same.
The stories they tell are from and about their country, always
their own country, no one else's, never.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|