111 Catalpa St, Clarksdale, Mississippi

With the $AUS getting close to parity against the $US this must be one of the bargains of the year – if not the decade.

Clarksdale is one of those small towns that was always going to be on its uppers when the Mississippi River decided to wander on it relentless course away from the town and it then lost a whole lot more when the railway closed down a few years ago.

When I was there earlier this year the town felt just a little bit like one of those “cultural museums” in that much of what was going on now was related to people and events from the past.

But there was also a very real sense of cultural, economic and community re-creation – the downtown area had some new storefronts, new business and ventures are finding their way into town and there is a very busy roster of blues music and literary events and festivals in and around this part of the Delta.

Plus you can all kinds of fun just cruising around the bayous and backroads and dropping into great jook joints like Po’ Monkey’s down the road at Merigold for a cooling ale and some of the raunchiest R & B you won’t hear on any radio – anywhere.

Roger Stolle and Cathead Music – among others – have led the rejuvenation of Clarksdale.

Today, Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art, Inc. is a 6-day-a-week store that features a full selection of blues CDs, DVDs, books, magazines T-shirts, artwork and collectibles. It’s kind of like shopping in a juke joint, I like to say. It’s the kind of store I always dreamed of finding but never did. It has become a base of operations for other blues projects and a clearing house of information about area musicians, juke joints and festivals

The cool thing is that Clarksdale, Mississippi, has a lot to offer. Great blues music four or five nights a week, every week — plus killer festivals a few times a year. Wonderful musicians, artists and characters live and work here. Since I moved here, I’m sure at least a dozen others have as well — from the Netherlands and all over the United States. Clarksdale is lucky also because in addition to its rich cultural history, it’s an hour or less from Memphis, Cleveland, Helena and Tunica. Because we’re part of the “roots music corridor” that runs from Memphis to Chicago, we get tourists from all over the U.S., Europe and Asia every single week. They come in search of the “land where blues began” and when they finally reach the blues mecca of Clarksdale for the first time, and they drop by Cat Head, I know they’re hooked!

And if you like the idea of cruising on the Sunflower or Mississippi Rivers on a canoe then John Ruskey and the folks at the Quapaw Canoe Company will look after you in the finest way.

One of Quapaw’s specialities is making hand-carved replicas (and modern versions) of the wooden canoes that local first nations peoples used on the rivers for hunting and travel – they are truly magnificent creations.

Launching the Wanbli Eagle

Quapaw’s website says that:

More blues musicians come from Clarksdale & surrounding Delta region than any other single place on earth. The main channel of the Mississippi River used to flow adjacent downtown Clarksdale, and it was once the center of a thriving Native American community of 2 – 3,000 known as Quiz-Quiz. There is evidence that Hernando de Soto and his conquistadors passed through this area during their 1540-42 ravage of the Southeast (and became the first Europeans to view the Mighty Mississippi River, which they called “The Rio Grande”). Jolliette & Marquette (1673), LaSalle (1681) and John James Audubon (1820) traveled this section of river.

…

Quapaw Canoe Company provides custom-guided canoe & kayak expeditions, day floats and other paddling adventures along the Lower Mississippi River from Cairo Illinois to St. Francisville, Louisiana. Spectacular reaches include the Kentucky Bluffs, Bessie’s Bend (20 mile bend of the river to go one mile), the 4 Chickasaw Bluffs, Memphis to Vicksburg (300 miles of remote river, only 2 bridges, only one town), Confluence of the Arkansas River & surrounding wilderness areas (rich habitat for the Louisiana Black Bear), Vicksburg to Natchez-Under-the-Hill, Natchez to St. Francisville. Long stretches of river, almost no industry or point-source polluters, few towns, few bridges, big islands, big forests, most varied inland fishery in North America, 60% of America’s songbirds, 40% of its migrating waterfowl. Longest free-flowing River (1160 miles). No dams. No schedule: we go whenever our clients are ready.

Sitting in one of Quapaw’s big canoes, doing not very much but watching that big river slide by under you with a soundtrack of the world’s finest blues and the American outback’s songbirds surrounded by the vast wildness of the Mississippi River – couldn’t hope for much better that.

And the house?  By Australian standards it is pretty well fitted out – and at this price…you’d be laughing!

And I just love this pitch from Roger for his house for its frankness and humour:

The front porch really is pretty big and cool. When you walk into the house, you find spacious, connected living and dining room areas that are loosely separated by built-in bookcases (that also work for blues CDs). There’s a long hallway with plenty of wall space to hang cool stuff, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a back office/sunroom, main floor washer/dryer, kitchen and butler’s pantry. There are decent closets throughout. The kitchen has a walk-in pantry and includes the built-in stove, dishwasher (sold to me by one of bluesman Big George Brock’s 42 kids) and garbage disposal; the two small fridges and the deep freeze are negotiable. (By the way, a full-size fridge fits/works fine; I just didn’t own one when I originally moved in.) The attic is unfinished but very very large and could be finished out, frankly, as an office or guest room. The basement is mostly crawl space; like most in the Delta, it’s fairly useless… except for housing the hot water heater, pipes, ductwork, etc. The house has modern, forced-air central heating and air conditioning, by the way; I like to stay comfortable. The yard is pretty nice sized and includes holly bushes, magnolia tree, etc. There’s a tool shed in the backyard that’s nothing special but holds plenty of junk. The backyard is mostly fenced in. The house is wired for cable/internet and has two ornamental fireplaces with mantles. A long driveway runs along side the house, conveniently linking Catalpa Street with Maple Street (nice for parties/visitors — though at least one visiting bluesman with the alias ‘T-Model’ has parked in the front yard, anyway, to my dismay!). In short, 111 Catalpa is a cool house located just across the Sunflower River from a neat little Delta downtown, and priced well below $100,000 — now at just $79,900 — it could easily be your next home or home-away-from-home! By the way, I’m only moving into a different house because my sweetie and I want to buy one together that is truly ‘ours’ if you know what I mean.

You can see the flyer for Roger Stolle’s house here.

Got a tip on a bargain-basement house of the week – anywhere?

Got some thoughts about what you’ve read here?

Predictably the Bolter has picked this up and Australia’s blog with the most hits, and perhaps the least sense, has attracted the usual raft of ill-informed comments.

The Northern Myth isn’t familiar with the work of Mark Hughes, but Helen Hughes is a familiar conservative commentator with an interesting twist on matters indigenous and who has recently turned her attention to remote Aboriginal education in the NT.

And not without some controversy.

As reported by the National Indigenous Times in April 2008, Hughes wrote an opinion piece, published in The Australian, that drew on examples from one small north-east Arnhem Land homeland, drawing the following very general analysis from that meagre dataset:

“There are about 10,000 of these illiterate non-numerate teenagers who have been going to school … What is the government of the NT going to do about these 10,000 children?”

But [then] NT Deputy Chief Minister Marion Scrymgour has dismissed her findings and says the claims are “absolutely insulting and offensive”.

“I just find it astounding that she bases a report and a generalisation across the Northern Territory Aboriginal communities based on one small homeland centre that she has visited,” she said. Ms Scrymgour said Prof Hughes had left out “some fundamental pieces of information” and denied the government was providing misleading figures on education standards in the bush.

Nadine Williams, NT president of the Australian Education Union, said Prof Hughes needed to “stop generalising”.

“It would be helpful if Helen Hughes had ever been to some of the places she’s talking about,” she said.

Anyway, now it seems that Hughes and her research assistants are at it again.

In their opinion piece of last Friday, the Hughes’ say that, due to the NT Education Department’s training requirements for remote-based teachers:

Homeland Learning Centres lose eight weeks – almost 25 per cent of the school year – while their staff attend courses for the first and last weeks of each term.

Taking that statement on face value you would think that in each of the hundreds of small homeland schools across the NT students spend two months of each school year sitting in classrooms without teachers.

Fortunately for the students the Hughes’s version of events is at some considerable distance from reality.

It is true that at the top and tail of each term that a bunch of teachers from all over the NT – from homeland and “mainstream” schools – go off for professional development training.

But not all teachers go for that training at the same time. Depending on demand, individual needs or other factors some go several times a year, some perhaps once or twice.

And relief teachers and local Aboriginal team teachers are rostered on to fill the gaps.

How do I know this?

I asked a couple of the teachers here at Yirrkala where I’m staying with family while working on my Aboriginal bird knowledge book project.

The second line of attack that the Hughes’ make – on remote community festivals – suffers the same problem – a few facts and a dose of reality mug their story of apparent bureaucratic indulgence and neglect of the best interests of remote students.

The Hughes’s say that:

The limited school year is further eroded by cultural festivals and sports events regularly scheduled during school hours.

The commonwealth government is a serious offender with its Community Festivals for Education Engagement program. Under this program, 13 indigenous festivals are being held this year…all are held during term time rather than during school holidays.
…
As in previous years, the successful Garma Festival ran this year during the school term in August. Many children lost up to two weeks’ schooling. It would take little effort to reschedule next year’s Garma dates to the July school holidays. Financial sponsors of the festival, including the commonwealth and Northern Territory governments and high-profile private companies, should ensure this change is made.

Being in Yirrkala, just down the road from the Garma festival site at Gulkula, I was curious about the reference to the “many children” that apparently lost up to a fortnight of valuable schooling because of their attendance at Garma.

As the very informative Garma Festival website notes, the festival ran from 7 to 11 August this year – that is Friday through Tuesday.

I asked the organisers of the Garma Festival, the Yothu Yindi Foundation, about the Hughes’ claims.

The CEO of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, Alan James, told me that:

Garma formally starts at 4pm on Friday afternoon. The forums all finish by 4pm Monday afternoon – resulting in one school day “lost”.

Garma is not part of the Federal Government’s “Community Festivals for Education Engagement” program.

The music and multimedia training programs are integral parts of Garma and these operate in consultation and engagement with schools and other educational institutions and provides credits towards VET accreditation, so it is very much a part of formal schooling.

And in relation to the Hughes’ demand that Garma be moved to the June school holidays, Alan James said that:

Garma is strategically linked to a number of other events that are held in the Top End of the NT in and around August. Cooperation between Garma and the organisers of other large events is essential to ensure that logistical bottlenecks – on a national and local scale – are avoided where possible.

August kicks off with the week-long Darwin Cup Festival, then the three core days of Garma (with an extra couple of days for the tourists) the next weekend, followed by the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Awards in Darwin the following week. The fortnight of the Darwin Festival follows.

The other important consideration – bearing in mind that the more than 2,500 people attending Garma are camping in tents – is that August is the driest time of year – the last thing we want is for Garma to be rained out.

As the Hughes’ should know – but apparently didn’t bother to find out for themselves – one of the most successful events at Garma is the Garma Miwatj Youth Forum, a cooperative venture with Anglicare NT.

As Ann Buxton, Executive Manager for the Youth, Family and Remote area programs at Anglicare NT, told the Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities Inquiry at Hearings in Darwin in May this year:

Over the past four years Anglicare, in conjunction with the Yothu Yindi Foundation, started the Garma Miwatj Youth Forum, which runs parallel to the annual Garma Festival.

We bring together about 250 young people from communities in the regions and it has become a key event.

We promote youth leadership, do a lot of skills development work, and look at issues that young people are experiencing.
Garma has become an important event. It is a little event compared with the overall festival but it helps to give young people in that region a role.

For some time many elders have been interested in supporting young people, getting them engaged in processes, and putting some positive energy into some of the issues that they are dealing with. This forum, which has become important, also brings together about 40 organisations from around that region to help get it off the ground.

It is a great event.

A great event indeed – a bit of training, mentoring, skills development, community support and engagement and lots of positive energy and maybe a fair bit of fun.

Perhaps that is what so bothers the Hughes’ – the idea that a few kids might “lose” a day of school while they do the hard yards at Garma and have some fun while they are at it.

But in the apparently joyless world of the Hughes’ vision of remote education that would represent an abject failure by governments of their core responsibilities to school-children.

There is more – much more – that I could say about the Hughes’ opinion piece – including that their comments about the Central Desert Shire’s policy of only supporting cultural and sporting events held during school holidays was old news and the quotes attributed to the Shire CEO, Rowan Foley and the Shire President, Norbert Patrick, are cast in the present tense.

If the Hughes’ had done some basic research- like having a look at the Council Minutes for the Meeting of 30 September or reading this ABC News report – they would have found out that Foley was stood down as CEO at that meeting.

“Motion 3 was amended to the following: “Whereas the Central Desert Shire has recently suffered the resignation and loss of key personnel attributable to the management style of the CEO, and there have been various complaints lodged relating to the conduct of the CEO and Council management, the Council resolves to direct that the CEO step down on pay for the time being and that LGANT be approached for assistance in resolving the crisis that has developed”. Moved: Councillor Bruce Finter. Seconded: Councillor Ned Hargreaves.”

Sounds to me very much like a Council in crisis management mode.

Makes the Hughes’ call of “Three cheers for the Central Desert Shire!” sound just a bit hollow – particularly when you consider that one of the two organisations to be funded by the Commonwealth’s Community Festivals for Education Engagement 2009 – the Ti-Tree school, according to the information on the Commonwealth website, held it’s festival from Tuesday October 13 to Thursday October 15.

In term time.

And the local governing authority with responsibility for municipal services at Ti-Tree is…you guessed it, the Central Desert Shire.

All the Bush Tucker by Norman Cox

The Laarri Gallery is in the small community of Yiyili, an hour or so’s drive west of Fitzroy Crossing in, at this time of year anyway, the dry and hot heart of the Kimberley. A short drive down a rolling dirt road through rocky hills takes you to Yiyili and signs direct you to the gallery carpark near to the Yiyili School.

As you step out of the car a number of large murals in an open shed tell of the history of the town and region and the Gooniyandi people that live and work there.

Yiyili mural

Original Bough Shelter, by Joy Warring

The gallery is in a large and airy room next to the work room where there are usually a few artists working on paintings or artefacts, sitting in the cool with a cup of tea and a yarn, grinding up some local ochres for use in a painting or looking after the kids in the school tuckshop next door.

Inside the gallery there are a large number of paintings, wooden artefacts, painted Boab nuts and a selection of books and publications, including the captivating “Know your Granny” a history of the area in words and pictures that is dedicated to:

…our young people. Know your granny and be proud. In memory of Frank Cox – a respected elder who contributed much towards this book; to his family and his community.

The Foreword is written by the widely regarded artist and community elder Mervyn Street:

Since I was a little kid I’ve been told these stories by my granny and my mother; of how it was since the Kartiya (non-Aboriginal people) came to our country. We need to write it down, draw and paint pictures, while this old man (Frank Cox) and this old woman (Penny Mudeling) and all of us remember. Young people, like Big John, can write songs and music about our history. If we don’t tell it and write it down, no-one will know when we are gone.”

Inside the Laarri Gallery

The very useful and informative Australian Art Collector Magazine’s Aboriginal Art Centres Guide says that the Laarri Gallery is:

…a hidden gem in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, is situated in Yiyili Aboriginal Community between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, just 5 km off the Great Northern Highway. Laarri Gallery was established in a collaboration between Yiyili Community School and Yiyili Community Aboriginal Corporation in 1999. The goal of Laarri Gallery is to provide a place for local artists to work and a space to show. Like other art centres, the money raised from artwork sales goes directly back into the community, not only supporting the artists, but the community at large.

Local knowledge of bush tucker and bush medicine have also become integral themes of Yiyili and Laarri art. The community has produced two award winning artists to date and has fostered the telling of Gooniyandi stories and dreaming through art.

The gallery is open during Western Australian school term dates (appointments are necessary during term one). The gallery offers a large number of paintings, as well as locally produced books and postcards. All paintings come with a story of the work, an artist profile and a certificate of authenticity. Laarri and Yiyili art is unique in the Indigenous art world, there is sure to be something to catch your eye!

Yiyili is a local service centre for the small homelands of Ganinya, Goolgaradah, Kurinyjarn, Moongardie, Pullout Springs and Rocky Springs. Yiyili is on an excision from the once very large Louisa Downs Station which is now owned and operated by locals.

Yiyili has a vibrant and active independent school where the language spoken by all the children and a large majority of the adults is Kriol. Gooniyandi is the traditional language, however, there are only a few fluent speakers in the community and they are elderly people.

Mural by the Yiyili schoolkids

The following comes from the website of the Western Australian Aboriginal Independent Schools:

Yiyili was established in 1981. People had left the station earlier when equal pay issues faced non-Aboriginal station owners and Aborigines were told to leave cattle stations. When people returned, they lived in shelters on the edge of the Margaret River. They also did mustering and fencing on Louisa Downs in return for a space on their traditional land. The school and the community were established simultaneously and a mobile Kindy teacher was employed to conduct classes in a bough shed. In 1986 Yiyili was granted an excision allowing permanent housing and a school building to be erected. A teacher house was built in 1986 and then another in 1988. During 1989 Louisa Downs Station was handed back to the Cox family. It was purchased by ATSIC and leased to the Community for 99 years. The Station employs people from Yiyili and they are mainly members of the Cox family. During 1990 a building that houses the Clinic and the Store was built. A Community Office building was erected in 1996. The Store is owned by the people of Yiyili. A Doctor visits the Community fortnightly and every other fortnight a Community Health Worker visits the Community.

Image from Getup

This a guest post from John Greatorex who worked as a teacher at Galiwin’ku on Elcho island off the coast of Arnhem Land for 27 years. He now is a part-time teacher of the Yolngu studies at a Darwin University.

He has now resigned from teaching to work with his Yolngu families on projects of importance to them – including the wonderful Arnhem Weavers group – you can find out more about the Arnhem Weavers and the food co-operative project they have recently started at their website.

Recently I was profoundly moved when I heard Richard Downs, an Alwayarra elder, seek refugee status for his people whose homelands are in the central east of the Northern Territory, Australia.

The Alyawarra were refusing to accept the impositions of the Federal Government through the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), and as part of their action they have requested the United Nations (UN) register their people under the international refugee convention as internally displaced persons.

The ABC reported (26 August 2009):

“Mr Downs says people of the Alyawarra Nation have been left with no choice because the federal intervention in the Northern Territory has taken away their rights.” “We’ve got no say at all,” he said. “We feel like an outcast in our community, refugees in our own country.”

This was followed the next by another report on the ABC where Richard Downs said:

“We no longer have any rights to exist as humans in our own country and are outcasts in our own community”

On the 3rd September Richard Downs wrote:

“Your government’s so-called measures under the intervention go far beyond this [protecting women] to take away our dignity, our self esteem, and land control, disempowerment, human and indigenous rights.“… Your system is about creating divisions, hate and racism and control over people who are already struggling under oppression.”

When I read these statements I thought: “These people are making a stand in a climate of constant and negative stereotyping by governments and media; a difficult step for anyone.”

The Alyawarra, by refusing to be redefined, are taking active steps to take control of their lives.

Don’t we all want to be in control of our lives?

I would like to tell two stories which I hope will provide insight into why homelands are of crucial and critical importance to their traditional custodians.

The following stories attempt to represent what I have heard and learnt from Aboriginal mentors in east Arnhemland over several decades.

Not only does it make common sense, but it has been clearly demonstrated that the happiest and healthiest people in any society are those who are able to control the most important aspects of their lives.

Control over our lives is proportional to how we feel about ourselves, how society sees us, and our status within society.

In the Northern Territory the people with the least control over their lives are the First Nations peoples.

Disturbingly, recent Australian and NT Government policies, including the NTER, have further stripped away at Aboriginal people’s rights to control their lives in the Northern Territory. Traditional (nation) estates on which ‘prescribed’ communities are located have been compulsorily acquired by governments without negotiation.

Every Black Territorian living on ‘Aboriginal’ land receiving Centrelink or other welfare payments is compulsorily ‘Income-Managed’ (including old-age pensioners).

Black Territorians are negatively stereotyped as child abusers and alcoholics, poor school attendees and perpetrators of domestic violence.

Recently-announced policies now envisage forcing families off their custodial estates (away from their homes) into ‘growth towns’ for the convenience of government bureaucracies.

Public statements that redefine all Black Territorians in a negative way can only have a negative and debilitating impact. While governments, supported by the media, continue to negatively stereotype all Black Territorians, the health and well-being of these peoples will continue to decline.

In east Arnhemland where the Yolngu peoples live, and where I have spent much of the past 30 years, I can say for a fact:

“…there are homelands where school attendance is higher than anywhere else in Australia; where children are safer than in white towns and centres and where substance abuse and youth suicide are non-existent.”

So what is it that is so important and special about homelands for their traditional custodians and that underpins such successful outcomes?

The following two stories may provide some insight into these questions.

Story One.

Recently the Yolngu Studies lecturer, Yingiya Guyula, delivered the last class for the semester. He spoke about the first contact between his families and White settlers.

He told how fear of Whiteman first entered the lives of his families after his grandfather was shot by cattlemen. Before this incident his families had heard reports from further south that White men were scalping Black men; just like his families were skinning crocodiles.

Now they had to be ever vigilant and wary. They could no longer live peacefully, safely travel and hunt on their custodial estates; lands they had inhabited since the beginning of time.

Towards the end of the class a student added to Yingiya’s story.

She explained that when the Elcho Island missionaries called the twenty or so Yolngu nations to ‘the Light’, they didn’t understand. These missionaries failed to recognise the existence of strong and complex governance structures, where nation boundaries, established alliances and political structures were understood and respected.

By calling these diverse peoples into the Elcho Island mission, and onto the land of one nation, the missionaries were disempowering all the non-landowners.

She explained it like this.

“We Yolngu people are connected to our ancestral estates like a tree is rooted deeply into the soil. When the roots of a tree and the soil recognise each other, the roots will grow ever deeper and stronger, and the tree grows strong and bears good fruit.”

“The missionaries pulled us up by the roots and placed us in the mission and onto soil that was foreign. Our roots could not grow into the mission soil, that soil does not recognise us, and our roots do not recognise that soil. Our roots would only stay in the surface soil. A tree may stay alive on unfamiliar and alien soil, but it will not find nourishment, it will be stunted and will not bear good fruit. We can be only strong and independent on our homelands; not in the mission; not in the “town”.

Story Two.

In 1984, with the best of intentions, the Northern Territory Government developed a constitution for the community council on Elcho Island. The new constitution made provision for members to represent the 20 or so nations who lived on the mission (in 2009 residents still use the term mission).

An old man and I were talking one day. He had been elected chairman of the council. He described how he felt in conflict, he did not feel comfortable talking about the land where the mission stood, it wasn’t his land. He understood why some council members didn’t attend council meetings. He explained that it was disrespectful for non-landowners to discuss the mission land. So how could the council work?

I could see what he was saying. I grew up on a family owned farm. We would have been very upset if the government had decided that our neighbours had the right to make decisions about our farm.

I noticed that although he attended council meetings, he didn’t make public council announcements, he always deferred to the land owners for such matters.

When a Yolngu man or woman speaks of the critical importance of land, I now know they are not talking about land in general. They are referring to their very own homeland.

If you are motivated to do so, please have a look at the online homelands petition, and consider supporting this cause.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/Homelands

John Greatorex

7th September 2009

Note: The quotes in these stories are used with permission.

Poster for the Ilgarijiri exhibition in Perth

Further to my previous post on Alma Nungarrayi Granite’s paintings from Warlukurlangu Artists at my home town of Yuendumu I found a fascinating set of links between Aboriginal art, the sky and the objects we find there and modern science.

In many ways these links are very similar to the kind of connections that I find in the work that I’m doing on the connections between Aboriginal knowledge and birds – but in the case of Aboriginal astronomical knowledge there seems to be a far more active interest and real curiosity on the part of some astronomers in the Aboriginal equivalent to their work than there is with their counterparts in the the mainstream ornithological scientific community.

And I didn’t know it before I had a close look at this exhibition but 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.

I can’t quite recall how I came across the link to what looks like a an absolute cracker of an exhibition of Aboriginal art from the Geraldton region of Western Australia but I ended up at this blog site for the “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky” exhibition that fired up in April 2009 and has quickly seen an exhibition up and running.

Right now if you are in Perth you can see the show at the exhibition space at the Curtin University.

The Wajarri Yamatji people of the Murchison region of Western Australia are the Native Title claimants over the region including the Murchison Radioastronomy Observatory (MRO), a site being developed as the potential location for the next generation of large radio telescope – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), as well as SKA precursor telescopes such as the CSIRO Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA).

The focus of “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky” is a collaborative project between artists associated with the Wajarri Yamatji region, via the Y-ART cooperative in Geraldton, and radio astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), based in Perth, Western Australia.

The project brings together Aboriginal artists and scientists to exchange an celebrate different perspectives about the night sky and to explore those perspectives in art.

Here are a few of the images from the exhibition:

Emu Egg time, by Sonya Edney

I’m curious as to whether the reference to “Emu Egg time” in this painting by Sonya Edney is a reference to the changing positions of certain star clusters or constellations over time and if they may serve as an indicator of the right time to harvest Emu eggs in the artist’s homelands.

Quite a few Aboriginal people have told me about their knowledge of certain elements – whether it be the position of objects in the night sky, the flowering of certain plants or the movements of birds and animals in or out of their areas – and that these observations are intertwined with their knowledge and exploitation of the plant and animal worlds around them.

And the following images show, to some degree at least, the pan-continental nature of Aboriginal knowledge and beliefs about prominent constellations and star clusters.

These paintings of the Seven Sisters (also known as Pleiades) are the same subject as discussed in my previous post of Nungarrayi’s vision of the Seven Sisters from here in the Tanami Desert – thousands of kilometres to the east of the Murchison  region.

Seven Sisters, by Gemma Merritt

Seven Sisters by Margaret Danishewsky

Unlike Nungarrayi’s painting I don’t have any of the stories for these images and I’d love to hear more about the content and the artists connections to the land and the sky as they put it down on canvas.

I’ll look out for this exhibition and some further information about the project over the next couple of weeks as I move down the west Australian coast – and if you’ve seen the exhibition I’d love your comments about the art, the artists and the project as a whole.

Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa, Alma Nungarrayi Granites

This small image gives but a very limited impression of the power and majesty of the original of Alma Nungarrayi Granites’ painting of her Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters dreaming).

It is one of a series of large paintings by the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites, who paints for Warlukurlangu Artists, the locally-owned and operated arts centre here at Yuendumu 300 kilometres or so north-west of Alice Springs in Warlpiri/Anmatyerre country on the southern fringes of the magnificent Tanami Desert.

Nungarrayi comes from a long and proud tradition of Warlpiri artists.

Her father and mother, Paddy Japaljarri Sims and Bessie Nakamarra Sims, are two of the artists that founded Warlukurlangu in the mid-eighties. Artistic talent in the Sims family runs deep and spans the generations – Nungarrayi’s parents Japaljarri and Nakamarra, as well as Nungarrayi and her brothers and sisters all paint with and sell through Warlukurlangu.

Earlier this year Nungarrayi and her daughter Sabrina joined her mother and grandmother in a unique show, entitled “Mother, daughter, granddaughter; Three generations of Yuendumu artists” at Perth’s Kingfisher Gallery . Brother Otto Sims is the chairman of Warlukurlangu.

The rights to paint and the knowledge linked to the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa story have been handed down to Nungarrayi from her father, the last Japaljarri who knows all of the songs and ceremony for the Yiwarra – Milky Way Dreaming.

Nungarrayi’s paintings are powerful multi-level images that draw you in and each raise a hundred or more questions – many of which, for various reasons, will remain unanswered.

I want to take one of Nungarrayi’s Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa – or her other Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa (Star dreaming) paintings out bush on one of those clear starlight-bright nights that we are so often blessed with out here and lay on my back with the painting at arms length above me and read the painting and the skies beyond together.

And Nungarrayi’s story for this particular painting – well, maybe just one of the many stories embedded in them – is that:

The Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven sisters Dreaming) depicts the story of the seven ancestral Napaljarri
sisters who are found in the night sky today in the cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, more
commonly known as the Pleiades.

The Pleiades are seven women of the Napaljarri skin group and are often depicted in paintings of this Jukurrpa carrying the Jampijinpa man ‘Wardilyka‘ (the Bustard [Ardeotis australis]) who is in love with the Napaljarri-warnu and who represents the Orion’s Belt cluster of stars.

Jukurra- jukurra, the morning star, is a Jakamarra man who is also in love with the seven Napaljarri sisters and is often shown chasing them across the night sky. In a final attempt to escape from the Jakamarra the
Napaljarri-warnu turned themselves into fire and ascended to the heavens to become stars.

The custodians of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men and Napaljarri/Nungarrayi
women. Some parts of the Napaljarri-warnu Jukurrpa are closely associated with men’s sacred ceremonies.

I’m not quite sure if Nungarrayi will be holding any further solo exhibitions in Australia this year but her work is well represented in any number of galleries in Australia and internationally that specialise in quality Aboriginal art.

If you are in Alice Springs this weekend you can do a lot worse than go along to the Aralauen Arts Centre and catch the Desert Mob show that will be opening there Sunday.

My old mate Paul Kelly will be playing a sold-out show in the Araluen Theatre on Saturday night and on Saturday afternoon many of the locally-owned arts centres scattered throughout central Australia will be selling their wares at the Desert Mob marketplace.

This market is a great way to get hold of a range of modestly-priced works of a great variety from some of the 43 art centres that make up DesArt. I don’t know if you’ll be able to pick up any of Nungarrayi’s painting at the Warlukurlangu booth but you could certainly find out more from the Warlukurlangu staff.

The exhibition is described on the Desart website as a:

…showcase[s of] the latest works from each of the participating Art Centres and includes paintings by some of the leading artists in Australia, together with traditional artefacts, weavings, ceramics and other crafts. Each Art Centre exhibits works by some of its senior artists, together with works by emerging younger artists.

And the the marketplace is:

… a large indoor/outdoor market with stalls selling small and low-priced Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the market offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

Me, I’ll be at home watching the football and looking after the dogs while my partner, who works at Warlukurlangu, will working hard in Alice Springs.

Then on Sunday I’m off through the Tanami Track up to the east and west Kimberleys and then on to the Pilbara to talk to people about birds.

It is really tough out here sometimes…

I came across this very happy looking Pelican (Pelecanus cinspicillatus) while I was having lunch along the shore at Merimbula on the NSW far south coast a few weeks ago.

I was passing through the area as part of one of my several long trips around the country to talk to Aboriginal people and groups about what they know about birds, culture and people – for a book to be published by CSIRO Publishing in 2010.

This bird is one of a number of similar sculptures dotted every few hundred metres along the shore of a park that winds along the shores of Merimbula Lake around which the town is built.

These Pelicans are just about the best bird sculptures I have seen. Made out of the scattered bits of metal that we discard in tips, along the road or just leave to rust where they die, they become a whole lot more than the sum of their parts.

In this Pelican I can recognise a couple of car drive shafts, a shovel flange, assorted exhaust pipes and parts, concrete-reinforcing bar and at least one – or a part of – shovel blade.

And here more of the same – mower blades, a toothed gear and parts thereof, car suspension springs…the list goes on.

And this pair is my favourite of the group. Here – for me at least – the sculptor has captured the essential Pelican – the interaction between a pair or the group, the shapes they make, there is a lyrical quality that only comes from long and close observation of these birds in the wild and an almost jealous appreciation of their beauty that presents the challenge to transform that beauty into something beyond a Pelican.

And that is one of the great things about this set of birds on heavy poles driven into the sand and water along the park edge – you can admire the shapes and forms of the birds on their poles – static but at once mobile – and then turn and see the living birds right next to them – flying in like a squadron of heavy seaplanes, skidding to a stop and immediately ploughing the water for food with their massive bills.

A great conjunction of art and nature.

And this White-bellied Sea eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) and fish keep vigilant watch over Merimbula Beach a bit further along the coast.

I couldn’t find anything along the shoreline or elsewhere that told me anything about who made the birds or who commissioned them. A few days later I was in the Purple Possum cafe (best coffee on the coast, great views, a good gallery, bookshop etc) a few kilometres up the coast at Narooma and saw a smaller version of these scupltures in the window.

I asked Karsten John, the proprietor of the Purple Possum about the sculpture and who made it. He told me that the birds were the work of Richard Moffat, a sculptor based at the small town of Cobargo, 40 kilometres or so south back down the Princes Highway towards Bega. I had to head back down that way to catch up with some people at Bega that I’d missed a couple of days earlier so I called into Cobargo on thw way through. Richard Moffat’s shop was shut when I went through Cobargo later that day – as it was when I passed through again a few days later.

Anyway, now I’m back home at Yuendumu and came across these shots in my camera so I thought I’d try to track down a little more about Richard Moffat and his works. It was more than a pleasant surprise to see that Moffat has a long history as a practitioner and has made some fantastic work over the years.

A you can see from the variety and scale of Richard’s work at his website here, not all of his work is bird-related or on the relatively modest scale of his Pelicans and eagles – but this work ‘Nest‘, installed on Dairy Farmers Hill at the Canberra International Arboretum looks like a wonderful arrangement of work, space and location.

Maybe next time Richard can do an installation 6 metres up in a dead tree? – and have it taken over by real birds.

"Nest" - photo from Richard Moffat

Got any comments about Richard’s work elsewhere – or the sculptures here? Register and leave a comment!

Anyway, en-route to where I am right now – in a motel on the Princes Highway at Sandown in the Melbourne suburbs – I’ve crossed the vast back country of South Australia and western Victoria and later today will head out to Gippsland and eastern Victoria…no – reprise that – it is now a week or so later and I’m on the south coast of NSW in my old stomping grounds of the Shoalhaven…

Formation flying, Alberrie Creek style!

The north of South Australia has a lot of some things – rocks, sand, caravans etc – and a distinct lack of other things – people, good coffee, humour…a lot of people spend a lot of time getting from somewhere with not much to somewhere else with less.

But I did find one little nugget of fun in the south Australian desert – the Mutonia Sculpture Park about 30km west of Maree in the state’s far north. Mutonia is at Alberrie Creek station a few kilometres from Maree and a fair ways down the road from William Creek.

The first sign you get of something unusual is this – what looks like a big square dog rising from the plains.

The dog that sat on the water tank...

I first saw Mutonia when I passed through this way in May this year but failed to appreciate its unique nature then – this time I thought I’d spend a bit more time wandering around.

Mutonia is the brainchild of Robin Cooke. As Esther Lindstrom reported for the South Australian version of the ABC’s Stateline program in 2004:

ROBIN COOKE, SCULPTOR: People’s reaction when they come past here is a mixture of amazement and amusement, fascination, as there are plenty of questions floating around in their heads, I think, as to why and what all this is about. But, basically, it’s all positive — they love it, they jump out of their cars and run around, and they bang on the xylophone and have a look at various pieces from various different angles, and it’s very, very popular. It’s a positive reaction, yes, it’s great.

…

Well, let’s just say that once there is no more waste, I’ll be out of a job. We enjoy utilising waste materials — old aeroplanes, old cars, washing machines, motorbikes, whatever it may be, and juxtaposing these pieces onto each other, as I say, to create a new form.

ESTHER LINDSTROM: The main work dominating Mutonia is a dingo — the locals have dubbed the ‘big dog’.

ROBIN COOKE: The original concept was ‘Dotty the Dingo’, but it’s since become known as the ‘big dog’.

ESTHER LINDSTROM: The dog’s body’s an old water tank from the days of the steam trains and its head’s a classic Chrysler.

ROBIN COOKE: I think the toughest part of the construction was actually positioning the neck beam which is very long — it’s all one piece — and it had to come from the ground up through quite a small hole in the bottom of the tank and around into position, where it was actually front heavy — that thing could have lifted up and taken my head off at any point.

Rrrright now you can get a rabble of the master’s songs starting with “R” if you go to Paul’s homeage and follow the links to A to Z.

Over the last few years, Paul Kelly has performed a series of unique shows under the banner ‘A to Z’, whereby he sings 100 songs from his catalogue in alphabetical order over 4 nights. He is mainly alone on stage, joined occasionally by guests. These shows have sold out consistently in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Adelaide.

Every month, for FREE download one letter’s worth of songs will be available here at his website.

At the end of two years, over 100 songs will have been available for free downloads.

Some months will be fat, others skinny but rest assured, throughout, you will hear Paul Kelly’s characters portrayed in his lyrics as they love, marry, give birth, die, and speak.

And soon there will be, as Paul so succinctly says, A to Z – “S”

A shitload, a swarm, a sibilance, a storm, a (t)sunami of “S”s for all you sweethearts this month. Dan Kelly helps me out on a few, Sian Prior plays clarinet on Summer Rain and Trev Warner from Adelaide plays mandolin on Stumbling Block.

Surely God Was A Lover is based on a poem by John Shaw Neilson written around a hundred years ago. Sydney From A 747 dips the hat to the elusive Texan band The Flatlanders, and their song Dallas From A DC9.

Suck ‘em and see. Shake the sauce bottle and all that. There’s a ton of Ts coming so make some room on those hard drives.

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING
SMOKE UNDER THE BRIDGE
SOMEWHERE IN THE CITY
SONGS OF THE OLD RAKE
SOUTH OF GERMANY
STANDING ON THE STREET OF EARLY SORROWS
STORIES OF ME
STUMBLING BLOCK
SUMMER RAIN
SURELY GOD WAS A LOVER
SWEET GUY
SYDNEY FROM A 747

Also on the website are some loving tributes to Maurice Frawley, with whom I spent some time working while he was in various versions of Paul’s bands in the early eighties – and of course the music scene in Melbourne was so tight (in more than the cohesive sense!) that you couldn’t avoid such a lovely guy as Maurice.

My pick of the tributes is this from Bill Miller, ex (I think) of the short-lived Melbourne pop group The Ferrets.

In the Australian rock music scene, there aren’t many fully fledged, over 50, gypsy musicians, who live for their music, and live hard, yet are loved by all they meet. Maurice was one. Yarn with him, and the topic would very quickly be ‘music’, and his face would light up with the sheer joy of being a part of that world. He genuinely encouraged every muso he came in contact with. Young or old. A circle was completed last year when Maurice taught guitar at Rochester High School.
He was one of the old style Aussie rockers who loved nothing more than jamming with his many mates. This habit of jamming, which was like eating or breathing to Maurice and his ilk, has all but died out in today’s music world of samples, computers and keyboards.
I ran into him at the end of one of his country tours, and asked him how he was going. His black jeans had obviously been on him for a few weeks (par for the course for gypsy musicians), and he looked a little dishevelled, but that glint was in his eye as he smiled: “I’m good, I’ve just got a little bit of Tourbum.” Like nearly every line he came out with, that line sounded like the opening to yet another Frawley gem of a song.

After his stint in ‘The Japanese Comix’ (1979-80), he co-wrote classic pop songs, including “Look So Fine, Feel So Low,” during his time as a guitarist with Paul Kelly and the Dots (1980-84). ‘The Olympic Sideburns’ (1983-86), producing an EP for ‘The Romeos’ (1989) and ‘Maurice Frawley’s Big City Burnout’ (1990) followed, before Maurice penned a string of top shelf cds which he performed with his band “The Working Class Ringos” (1993-2006). From 2006 he wrote, recorded and performed with ‘Maurice Frawley and The Yard Hands’.

Through town, aross the creek, and follow the signs past the old car and the Boab tree to...

I was in Katherine earlier last week with a few days to spare – I thought about going out south-west of Katherine to Yarralin and some other small towns in the Victoria River district to catch up with some old people to talk about birds but decided to head further west and pushed on to Kununurra and points south-west…

Kununurra holds little interest for me – it is all a bit too new and expensive. There is a nice man-made lake near the town and it attracts hordes of the increasing numbers of grey nomads that spend their winter months in the north dragging around enormous caravans behind near-new four wheel drives at a constant speed of about 80 km/h.

They clog up the roads, caravan parks and roadside stops where they spend their time talking to other grey nomads talking about the high price of fuel, the many and various techniques for fettling a caravan and the many variations on bumper stickers that trumpet “Don’t tell the kids, Mum and Pop on the run with their inheritance” and similar.

Enough of them.

Anyway, I camped outside of Kununurra near to one of the afore-mentioned roadside stops where that other scourge of the dry-season roads of the north – the backpackers cruising around in “Wicked” campervans – did their best to have a rave party a hundred metres or so away from my camp while the moon rose through the trees and the cattle road trains thundered westwards in search of a load.

The next day and a couple of hundred of kilometres later I found myself in Warmun – previously known as Turkey Creek – which flows through the town.

Warmun is a on small excision (as we would know it in the NT) cut out from the surrounding cattle station.

Most people in the community are from the Gija language group that owns (at Aboriginal law at least) a large area surrounding the township.

With a fluctuating population of about 500 in Warmun and another few hundred people living at homeland communities serviced by the town, is one of the largest Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

Gija people appear to have taken a refreshingly strategic approach to economic development in their region .

Driving the 200-plus kilomreres down from Kununurra the only services along the route is the Aboriginal-owned Doon Doon Roadhouse and the local caravan park and roadhouse in Warmun – only place to stay in town – is also owned and operated by Gija people.

Both are dry – so if you want a drink you have a long way to north to Kununurra or south to Halls Creek to quench a thirst.

Warmun Art centre gallery

And the Warmun Arts Centre is also locally owned, operated and easy to find – drive through town, across Turkey Creek and past the old rusty car and the ancient Boab tree, follow the signs and there you are at a new(-ish), large and light-filled gallery of local art.

I’ve not had a lot to do with art from the east Kimberley and was unaware that most (all but the prints) of the material produced at Warmun is based on locally-sourced and coursely-ground ochres.

This gives a wonderful rough texture to each of the paintings and some beautiful tones – particularly the variations from the red and yellow ochres of the area, which provide a wide range of colours – from soft pastel washes to a wide range of hard browns and reds that are particularly effective on the landscape paintings.

Warmun has been running as an Art Centre since 1998 but local people have been painting publicly since the late nineteen seventies and the walls of the public buildings, particularly the local school, are covered in a wide and vibrant range of images.

Apparently a lot of this earlier work has been collected for a local museum with support from the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. I’ll try to catch up with that collection when I pass through Warmun again later in the year.

The main reason for my travel to Warmun was to get a better look at the work of, and make contact with several of the local artists who paint bird stories grounded in the local landscape and culture.

Thanks to the staff at the Arts Centre I was able to get a better idea of who paints bird stories at Warmun and a better idea of the number of species that locals paint the stories of. I’ll be in touch with the artists through the local Council and the Arts Centre to arrange my next trip.

And if you want to find out more about the extraordinary artists – both past and present – and their art go to the Warmun Arts Centre site here – and if you contact the Arts Centre they’ll tell you where the several exhibitions planned for later this year.

You need a permit to enter the Warmun community living area and the Arts Centre – but if you call (08) 9168 7496 it is easy enough to arrange over the phone.