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Article Excerpt
The Aboriginal artists from Wilcannia and Broken Hill with whom I work consider their 'art style' and 'art designs' in localised (if not always clearly specified) ways and terms encapsulated by the phrase 'ours is lines'. It is to the localised assertions of the particularity and importance of art style and content as an explicit and spoken sign of a unique identity that my work attends--a particularity embraced by many who identify as Barkindji (1) and who either live and/or were born in Wilcannia. This paper is based on intensive work with five key artist informants and to a lesser extent with 30 other Barkindji artists from Wilcannia and nearby Broken Hill. Less intensive associations with the wider communities of Wilcannia and Broken Hill were part of daily life during the sixteen months I lived in Wilcannia during 2002--2004. In recognising the difficulty of extrapolating key informants' views as being representative of the entire Barkindji peoples I emphasise that my work demonstrates, I believe, the influence that particular individuals have in communicating and co-ordinating a local commonality of ideas (Schwartz 1978; Morphy 2008). I demonstrate how making and discussing art shapes ideas of what Barkindji culture is seen and thought to be and, importantly, what it is not for Barkindji people who are from, and remain, strongly connected to Wilcannia.
In the late 1980s some Aboriginal children from Wilcannia (2) in far western New South Wales were taken on a visit to the Australian Museum in Sydney. One of these children, Murray Butcher, a Barkindji Aboriginal man now in his early thirties recalls:
It was at that time when I seen them art works, there was a big movement for the Central Australian art, for the dot painting, an' we were all school age stuff an' I thought, 'what about our art?' Cos I knew dots wasn't ours, an' all that was written in books an' that was about Central Australia art or Top End art or stuff like that--nuthin' about the art around our region.
I am not suggesting that Murray's recall or perhaps re-visioning of this event spawned a Barkindji style. As Kleinert has shown Barkindji peoples have maintained something of a continuous production of, most notably, incised and decorated wooden weapons (1994).
However, Murray's memory is potent and suggests a level of cognisance of the inattention accorded Aboriginal people from the south east in more general terms. Moreover, it shows an appreciation that certain kinds of Aboriginality were being viewed and indeed promoted in some quarters (in particular art worlds and tourism) as a valuable form of difference. It bears mention that around this time Australia was making ready for its bi-centennial celebrations where the idea of 'traditional' Aboriginal art figured strongly. The regional art of which Murray speaks alludes, in part, to the representational systems which Morphy describes as indigenous to much of the south east of Australia (Morphy 2001:339). These include the figurative and graphic incised, stencilled and painted rock sites of the area. In these systems 'the geometric element is predominant, with diamond patterns and curvilinear forms interspersed with oblongs, squares and oval features ... [T]he art of the southeast shares in common with the art of the centre the repeated outlining of the form of the central features' (Morphy 2001:339). Kleinert also refers to the distinctive design elements of south east NSW which were initially a feature of the elaborately carved and incised weapons, displaying 'cross-hatching, herring-bone, chevrons, zigzags, diamonds, and rhomboids--used in conjunction with an equally rich array of figurative imagery' (2000:241) (See Image 1.).
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Cooper states that '[two] hundred years ago the Aborigines who inhabited the southeastern region of Australia channelled considerable creative force into the production of striking linear designs (1994:91). She cites evidence of these designs as being found primarily on 'nineteenth-century wooden weapons' which are now held in private and museum collections, mentioned in written accounts, and seen in photographs of 'ceremonial ground drawings, corroboree sculptures, and patterns of cicatrisation and body painting' (Cooper 1994:91). 'It is these designs which characterize and distinguish the traditional visual culture of the area' (Cooper 1994:91).
The area of south eastern Australia cited by Cooper is generally defined as taking in Victoria, most of New South Wales, south west Queensland and the south-east of South Australia (Cooper 1994; Peterson 1976). Whilst this broad brush geographic approach has its roots in identifying those parts of Australia where Aboriginal people first felt the impact of colonisation, it continues to be useful in facilitating comparison and generalisation about the art of the region and the implication of that process for its inhabitants. While the entire region of the south- east shows similarity 'among its religious, social and material cultures' (Cooper 1994:92, cf. Peterson 1976) and evidence 'points to a distinctive and unified art tradition overlying the existence of more localised styles', the importance of the local in matters of identity is shown to be salient giving different impetus to cultural life and codes (Beckett 2005; Goodall 1982; Kleinert 1994). Indeed, as Jones and Hill-Burnett argue much of the literature dealing with 'traditional and 'modern-day rural settlements...emphasizes the importance of local traditions' demonstrating that the local is more important than any group-wide loyalties (1982:218). In terms of an art tradition Aboriginal people in Wilcannia and more widely are faced with something of a quandary, it seems, as they attempt to manoeuvre between internal and external political, economic and cultural forces and considerations which variously require and/or promote the demonstration of more localised and continuous traditions versus those geared towards a more united and cohesive pan-Aboriginal identification (Jones and Hill-Burnett 1982). Before attending to the social effects and affective resonances of these forces and considerations I offer some historical background to Wilcannia arts production and practice.
SIGNS OF ART IN WILCANNIA FROM THE 1980S
From the mid-eighties there was '... growing recognition that in many parts of Australia, cultural production provides the only means to improve economic status' (Altman 1989:123). Art-making featured strongly here as a way of providing income and as a valued demonstration of Aboriginal culture writ large. The conflation of Aboriginal art and culture is one which has been increasingly articulated in the public sphere following the state sponsored linking of these categories in government funded initiatives (Altman 1989; Myers 2001, 2002). The Community Development Employment Programme (CDEP) (3) in Wilcannia provides an example of the bringing together of Aboriginal art, culture and work. Here, Aboriginal people, irrespective of what may be considered skill or talent in this field, can choose to 'work' at making art with the aim of creating sustainable employment. The very fact that art is offered as a standard work pathway points to the assumption that 'Aborigines make art'. It is important to realise that through policies such as those instituted by government in the late 1980s Aboriginal culture becomes something which can be specified and in many ways must be made more concretely identifiable in order for it to be taught, practised and sold. However, whilst 'art and culture' of the 'Western and Central Desert and the 'Top End' was a particular focus of government from the early 1970s, it was not until the late 1980s that Wilcannia came on to the government funding radar.
In 1987, an inaugural Aboriginal Arts and Craft Centre began operating out of what had until then been an amusements arcade (the 'old fun parlour') in Reid Street Wilcannia. This centre, funded by the Department of Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA), and managed by the Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC), was known locally as the 'Kaathiri' (boomerang) art centre. Kaathiri closed (according to the best estimates of people in town) around 1991. It is difficult to trace what caused this closure as all associated records were lost in a fire (or as one white local put it, 'they were torched'). There were about five Aboriginal people associated with the running of this centre. (4) One of these, Murray Butcher, recalled that the art work made at Kaathiri included carved shields, boomerangs, spears and coasters made out of mulga wood, bowls made of red gum, bark paintings made with river red gum with maybe a 'little blackfella' or 'welcome to Wilcannia' painted on them, didgeridoos made out of mallee wood and bundis (women's' digging sticks). Poker work was a popular design tool as it was in other locations where pastoral work was present ( Kleinert 1994:202). Painted quandong, kurrajongs and acacia seeds and 'porcupine' (5) quills were used to make necklaces, earrings and trinkets. Acrylic painting on canvas board and masonite also began to increase in use at this time.
Following Kaathiri the local CDEP known as Ngarpa (working together) opened the Parntu (cod) Art Centre. This centre, known colloquially as the 'the old Mobil', started around 1995 and was housed in an old petrol station located on the main drag through to Broken Hill. According to current CDEP administrators the old Mobil was funded by DEETYA under a 'Work Australia' job skills programme. Unlike Kaathiri, the old Mobil was not purely an art and craft centre. The centre employed a non-Aboriginal horticulturalist who encouraged the creation of a permaculture garden which included fruit trees, vegetables, ducks and geese. There is a sense that this centre was intended to be a more holistic cultural endeavour underwritten by notions of an Aboriginal 'gemeinschaft' of co-operation in line with the widely promulgated notion of a pan Aboriginal caring and sharing ethic. This centre closed around 1997 but, again, the exact dates are not clear as the records of this centre have also been lost. Reasons offered for the closure vary but of Aboriginal people I spoke with most suggest that the white manager who was a motivator and mentor left town and without this man's influence and enthusiasm people just lost interest. This was coupled with some town children breaking...
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