where they like to work. Can you maybe sit next to Nga Ma over there? Whoa! Well, it's very early there for you, huh? So right now, I don't know what...
I don't know what you can see on your screen, but right now there should be 50 students all watching here in Virginia. Can you see them all? Yes, we can see them all.
All right, everyone say hello. Wave. Good morning. So you guys are up there on that top corner? Yep.
There's Henry. And there's all the students. Okay, Henry. So what I might do is I'm going to get everyone to turn their videos off because that way it will run a bit clearer for you, I think.
And the first thing I'll ask is can you tell us who you are? My name, Lucy Wanapuimo, but others, her name, Armstrong, easier to call her, Armstrong, Lucy Armstrong. I'm one of the famous artists.
Absolutely. And can you tell us what clan you come from? What's your paparazzi? Yo, paparazzi.
Anyway, my family tribe is Wagalack. Wagalack? Wagalack. Come on, open my mind.
What's happening? Yo. Yo, paparazzi.
Wagalack. and i'm talking like my dad yeah and what is it and my mother my mother and my father What the thing there? Wagala.
Wagala. From which country? From Milipici. Milipici, which is famous because that's in lots of paintings, that place.
Yeah, number one. Milipici, Parma, coming up this way. We moved from Milipici because it's a sacred area. and too dangerous. All the headstones here where they passion the rock.
Yeah the stones. And so can you tell us where you're coming to, where you are now, where are you living now? I'm staying in Kapuja. in an open area so I can go walking, practicing pendants, digging, dyeing. And so why, yeah, so can you tell us about, tell us why Gapawiyak is called Gapawiyak?
I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I don't know what you are talking about.
I don't know what you are talking about. I don't know what you are talking about. Yes, Kapriya and another Yakko, a million years.
A million years? Yes, a million years. He is talking about that light.
So it's by the lake. And how long have you lived at Gapawiyak? Gapawiyak, yeah, because my brother, mother country, they all met, Roy, Wimumbi, you're my brother.
Mother country, this land here. Right. And we love this country. When we walk to the shop, walking across the road, we see the big legs. Yeah.
And so you're in the Arts Centre now, but... You haven't always had an art centre at Gapawiyak, have you? And you are one of the founders of the art centre, right? Yo. So why did you want to open the art centre?
Na koninja o art centre, Gapawiyak. Na koninja o art centre, ya. Wapepe.
Because my idea for the future for the young people, your future. Future. And I saw all the plants growing up. Oh, it's a wonderful pandemic here.
I have to do my idea now because long time the people never made any landowner. They never made the pen in it. In Kapuya.
But me, I was thinking about, I love this country, my brotherland. I have to make something special here. For the future, it doesn't matter on disability already. I'm born like this. See my hand?
I always use right hand. I make mat, basket, dilly bag, fruit basket, earring. necklace and a pendant cut string. I've got one here.
Okay. Oh, that you made. You won. Eat it.
And I dyed this one all night green. See this one? Yeah. That's green. We collect the pendants and start bleeding, and we put it in the pot, in the hot water, and put the ashes to make green.
Yeah, wow. And what other colours have you got there? Oh, God.
This one here, yellow dye. yellow dye and my pipi i want to show you something this is the plant yellow oh right what's what's the name of that plant what's its yaku yaku jundun jundun jundum jundum Yo, yellow dye. yeah yeah and so you you chop that up with yo we boil in the big pot and put green tenderness then we boil it and you go like this yeah wow yo god yeah another one i want to show you brown They look like purple. Brown. How many I made last night?
One, two, three, four, five. Brown. This is brown and this is plant, the weeds.
Yeah, right. Yeah. So you boil up those weeds.
huh yo and we dig and that's the one that's the one that's the one that's the one that's the one basic, basic. Onpelli. Onpelli. You know Onpelli?
Yeah, we know that. Yeah, this one here. Yeah, and it's growing, I like to plant this one.
See the color? Yeah. Yeah, well, brown dye.
So that's come all the way from Goomba Lanya, from Western. It's a colour now. It's a colour. See the leaf?
Fantastic. And this is the big one. Yeah, we've got a small one.
Yeah, small leaf. For Kapunya in East Anna, we've got small earring on him. Earring on him. Yeah.
So how do you... I'll show you something. This is the root. Yeah. This is the leaf.
See? And this is the seed. Seed.
Ah, wow. We make purple. Purple from the seed. White seed. Yeah.
White seed. Root and the leaf. Yeah.
When the plant grow and all the seed, they grow in two. We collect all the seed. My sister sent this one. Yeah, wow.
That's a long way away. Oh, this seed. And my sister collected some seed and the plant, and she sent it over for me. Wow.
Yeah. So. Can you tell us about some of the different types of Bhatti that you make? Yeah.
I made this one. Wow. Fantastic. And that one is a, that's a coiled one, right?
And I made this one for little kids. My idea. Who made this one?
It's got... I'm running out of material, then I made a small one for the little kids. That one's got string. And I made this one for the future. I make with a lid.
Yeah, an idea for me, for all ladies. Fantastic. So let's just go, we'll take back and we'll say, so first you've got to harvest all your pandanus, yeah? First you collect all the pandanus.
He wants to take the gamaru. One, mutikab. First, first, first, they are trying to take the ladies for the pandemic after spring and we pull all the pandemics. You're pulling a big pile in the back. and put in the car.
And then we split. We take all the prickles out. You should bring the pendant.
Your pendant. We take the prickles out. And we pull the middle part. And the sharp part we put in the garbage bag. And then we split with the thumb.
We go like this and go. Every two, every two each from one pendant. Every two each.
When we split the pendant. When we take the two on the side and the two part in the middle and we put together and we split. and we keep moving.
And then and when do you do that? What season can you harvest the pandanus? All year round. What about your... Wet season or dry season?
Every day. Dry season, wet season. Is the pandanus different in the wet season and dry season? No, different or the same. Same.
Same. Same. And what about your dyes? We put.
Can you get jundum all year or just sometimes? All year. All year? Yeah. We saw the pandanus when we dye the color and we put in the clothesline.
Yellow. Oh, ladies. Fly, lady.
Brown. There's Anna going through the pandanus, sorting it out, stripping off the thorns. Then she ends up with bunches like this, which then go into a pot. Like this? Yeah.
And then she has her secret recipes of if it's a rusty tin, you get a different colour. If it's a stainless steel tin, you get different colours. And mordants, which are a way of fixing dye, also give different colours.
Yeah. Wow. Spring bake, spring bake, yeah. So you're quite famous for your colour.
Yeah. So you're always thinking about different colours? Yeah. So what are some of the more unusual colours that you sometimes use?
Like that purple is an interesting colour. You know, the purple here. Yeah. What about green?
You've had pretty bright greens as well. Yeah. Green color.
We've got purple color. And who taught you about the colours? Where did you learn about about dyeing the pandanus?
My mother was a teacher. My mother... Rosie, Mum Linda and Grandmother, the famous artist.
You know the lady? Yeah. And so how did you learn?
How did you learn? How did you learn? How did she teach you?
How did she teach you? I was looking at them. My family used to do with a hand way big. A plain one.
Not with a needle. But I was thinking about, all right, I want to do something special. I used to do the string on my knee like this type here, but basket jack, I was learning.
My idea, I was thinking about the other stuff where the white people used to make. And so you're learning from your... mother and grandmother and they're doing twining right and then you're doing um twining and coiling and you're doing mats and baskets uh and you would have you taught your daughter so Anna can you Anna what was it like how did you learn to to to to make baskets and to I learned in alcohol Because my grandmother Nancy Gujula, I used to finish and walk and sit and watch his hand, how he was making his hand weaving. And I was looking at her and you know what? Maracha, he called me Maracha, granddaughter.
You have to think about your mind because I'll be gone one day. that already said to me and you will do it anything with your right hand not with the left hand i want to do with the right hand keep working my hand yeah doesn't matter people white people take me picture because i love my hand to do something special it's amazing And so then from that, then you taught your daughter to do these skills as well? Well, I did. Yeah, and after that, I was so, because I got one daughter. This lady here.
I got one daughter and my... Johnny is the artist, painter, games, and my number three son is already gone, Kevin. And number four, my daughter. Number five, Ronson.
I've got three boys and one daughter. But this lady here, she said to me, Mama, I like to learn how to weave. I can do raffia, carpet, and then this. And so... Today, when you start a bhatti or you start making a mat, What is the first thing that you have to do to get started on a piece?
What's your first, how do you start? Yeah. Yeah. Wow.
And where do you start? See this part here? Yeah. Henry, Anna and Lucy told me about this being the belly button.
That's how you want to refer to this central knot. But Anna can talk more about that. Can you come right over here, please? That can't be done with that.
Yeah, but can you show how you put this? Yeah, I might have done. Yeah, I might need to. You start at the belly button.
Yeah. Yeah, I found that in. And it's going to do a little demonstration. Is the camera on the right angle?
A little bit high. There we go. Oh, yeah.
Oh. I think the cameraman's been drinking. I need some practice. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
No, you're great. Here we go. It's great.
There we go. Here we go. How do we make what we see bigger? I've got all the little squares of all the students. You just go to more.
and spotlight or you can go up to view and just go or is that something you control uh no i don't control it you've got it it's um because we've got you big on okay all right how does that look to you remove spotlight Thanks. Okay. Oh, no. Anna, you've torn ahead of us.
So tell us what you're doing. You're mute now, Trevor. There we go. That's better. Yeah, this is how I start to make the mat or dilly bake, hand weaving.
Wow. Any color you can use, plain, white or brown, yellow to start or red. Yeah. Trevor, can you move the camera down a tiny touch? There we go.
Down this way? Yep. Oh.
Back, back. Back. Back.
Back. It's just that we've got, we're just a bit high for the hands, for Anna's hands. More like that.
Other way. Other way. That way. That way.
Perfect. Now we've got it. Now we're seeing. Yeah. So if you think of a bicycle, you know how a bicycle has spokes on it?
So Anna's creating a central little knot there with these spokes of like a bicycle wheel. And then she has other bits so that. the spokes are kind of inactive and then she puts these active pieces that she weaves back and forward between the spokes to get the uh twining weave in a minute i'll go and grab one of anna's um little hand woven as they call it um dilly bags so you can see how she how they finish up and what i what i'd like to do now um as well is get everyone to put their videos back on.
Right? And see, would you mind if we just threw to some questions? No, no.
Trevor, you might need to repeat the questions. Sure. I'll try and... get the camera back here so we can see Anna and Lucy.
Okay so who wants to jump in with a question? The students here they might ask a question. I have a question about the like um so do you guys do like seasonal fiber arts like maybe in the dry season you make a particular um type of fiber art and in the wet season you make a different type of fiber art I know that the pandanus and the dyes um they typically stay the same throughout these seasons but do you guys still do like a different type of like basket or mat for the seasons? Good question. Trevor, do you want to interpret that one?
If it's Rarindar or Kondmul, do you make a different bhatti? Yeah. Or is it just any time you make anything, whatever you like? Any time.
Any time. Yeah. So I don't think the season affects really what people make. It does affect the ability to go out on country if it's the wet season because some places are inaccessible. So Lucy's demonstrating there how the dilly bag used to be worn.
So this is one of Anna's. belly button she was starting. That's it there.
And then that goes up and then into one of these baskets, which is probably the most, sorry. Sorry, you go, you say, probably the most. This is probably one of the most traditional forms.
And like Lucy was wearing it before on her head. Can you just do that again, Lucy? Let's go hunting.
Let's go hunting. So your hands are free. Your hands are free and you can pick up things and put them in your basket. And a lot of the creator ancestors, when the world was made and creator ancestors were travelling across the country, their stories have them carrying these baskets.
And inside those baskets was the stuff of life, the law, people, animals. And so the baskets are... are a real kind of central theme to the creation of the world.
They used to make this type of people there. And these also get turned into sacred dilly bags that men use in ceremonies. Sorry back to the questions. Anyone who wants to jump in with a question?
Wait, I think Abdul asked what plant is used for the purple colour? What's the yaku of the purple colour plant? This one? This one, this one on the deliver.
What's that one called? This one. Brown dye.
Getting in it. You're eating another seed. So it's the seeds of the...
Which plant is that? Whoa and that's that's for but that's the one that's from um Western Ireland yeah what's that yeah that's a seed this is this is uh yearning which is like a which is like a bulb uh that's from around here and the other one the little seeds purple seeds that's from West Arnhem a white paper well i i just showed you this but it just shows it just shows like you're bringing them that lucy and anna are bringing dyes from you know all sorts of places as well as um they've got local diets in their own places very very um inventive uses of different materials when we boil this See it here it got like this color here. We boil. Pepper seed and the other one. Wasted money.
Oh yeah, beautiful. Yeah. Okay, who wants to jump in with a question? Another one, yeah. How much items did they make in, let's say, like a month worth of time?
Another one, yeah. Another one, yeah. Lucy wants to show the yellow yellow see this beautiful that's the bark of a root yeah yeah nice I think I can give you some hints towards that quantitative question um in the in in the west we're pretty obsessed with numbers and how long and those sorts of questions and i've found that um you're more you're more really struggle with those answering those quantitative questions because they're they're they quantify by you know where's the sun at and um you know what's happening on on the ground what's happening in the environment so to say a basket like this somebody might say oh that took me three months to make and you look at them and you go what how can that be and then somebody else might say oh that only took me three days so you know people uh there's this language barrier and cultural barrier that we try and make sense across but if somebody you know, had all the materials and they sat down with no interruptions from kids or dogs or having to go and get food or whatever.
It might take them, you know, 12 hours or eight hours or six hours, you know, even then it's a, it's for you all, it's a strange question to ask because the world just isn't ordered like that for them. Whereas When we're little kids, we get bounced on our parents' knees and they go, oh, look, you've got five fingers. One, two, three, four, five. So the first thing that happens to us as kids is numbers. Whereas for you, the first thing that happens is who are you related to?
There's your uncle, there's your auntie. That's your land over there. It's more about relationships and connections across landscape rather than... abstract numbers how's that it's it's ab it's abstract kinship right it's good to is everything right rather than yeah the numbers yeah that's a really good way yeah that's a really good way of putting it but i've got a i've got a like kind of a difficult question to to ask um which was the first question that i was sort of getting at which is is sort of why was it important to have and Arts Centre at Gapowiak. Because it was a big effort to get the art centre.
And Lucy's been an important driver of the art centre for a long time. So why is it important that there's an art centre at Gapowiak? Why is it important that there's an art centre? Why do you want an art centre? Why don't you just get a, why don't you just have something else like a mine or a...
What do you want to accent that? Try to name my kids young. You don't want them to grow up being like a... but can't they just be act like a balanda when they grow up sorry i'm being yeah so um to paraphrase anna Anna and Lucy are saying that it's important for kids. I don't know if I can do it.
I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it.
I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it.
I don't know if I can do it. So there's a combination of creating opportunities for their new generations to partake in the great. capitalist experiment of being a useful, productive person and make their own money. I'm hoping to get a new art centre.
I'm thinking if my mum will go on, I'll be going home soon. One of them is selling and they want to make something. So what will happen if there is no art centre and people are making stuff? The only opportunity they have which is what Lucy used to do, was when government people came to town, she would bring her baskets and mats and spread them out on the lawn outside the council. And maybe sometimes a teacher would come past her place and buy some.
But now with a whole art centre and some staff, we take, you know, we take their work. around Australia and overseas, and we sell it through our website and basically create more economic opportunities. But more important than that, obviously, mothers want their kids to grow up holding their culture and their gurutu strong.
So it's a combination of keeping culture strong and partaking in the modern world of which... they're being increasingly forced to comply to. Yeah, that's an amazing answer.
And then, so there's things there. So you've got your economic reasons, you've got your cultural reasons. Gurutu, we should sort of explain.
Gurutu is... Kinship, but it's kinship with everything, not just kinship to people. Okay, I think that was a great answer. Questions?
Come on, we've got about, oh, probably about two minutes to ask questions from two of Australia's leading fibre artists who've even had works on post stamps, postage stamps. Adding on to the balance of economic reasons and cultural reasons of fiber arts, would you say there's a particular fiber art form that is most popular in the market? And does that differ from the fiber form you most enjoy making?
So that's two good questions. What's your favorite thing to make? But what's the favorite thing for the Ballander people to buy? So maybe that's a question for Trevor. What do people like to buy?
But a question for you, Anna and Lucy, what do you... like to make most? Let me just grab that mat, that top one. So Gapaway is pretty famous for its mats, or they're not really mats because they end up hanging on walls. Beautiful circles of colour with, you know, intricate patterns.
And we've got two huge stacks of them, which... we hope will gradually dwindle as the season becomes drier and more people come to visit and we travel to more places to sell things. What do you like making the most? I don't know.
Both. Both Anna and Lucy are very creative and they respond to, say this is an example of a small basket that Anna recently designed, which we haven't seen before here. You can take that away now.
What about Anna? And the other one had a... So, yeah.
Sorry, yep. Just describe those for us. What are we looking at?
They're sort of flat bags. Yeah, this is sort of like a mobile phone bag, this one. Ah, perfect. So Anna and Lucy are famous in the community because they're always experimenting and trying new things. They are.
Whereas... other artists base their work more on a traditional form. Anna and Lucy will try something because they're very creative and they've had maybe some more exposure to working with other people. Yeah, we've recently completed a collaboration with a high-end fashion brand, Helen Kaminsky. That's K-A-M.
I-N-S-K-I, if you want to look it up. There's a whole webpage about our collaboration where Yungle artists have worked with their designers and produced a whole range of hats. So, yeah, that's what the Art Centre is about, trying to...
I don't know, trying to put a zip. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. We had a go at putting a zip in.
Super. Mix pandanus and raffia. That's pink raffia, huh?
Yeah, pink. Yeah, one of the green. No, this one is all plain pandanus.
That's all pandanus. Yeah. This three. And you're always mixing things up. That's what's so amazing.
There's no, you know, one of the things that I love that one of, Lucy, one of your innovations was making the conical baskets out of, what do you call it? Making coiled conical baskets. Like, so dilly bags, but dilly bags that are coiled rather than twined.
With a needle. Needle poi. Yeah.
All right, we've got time for one last question. So who wants to wrap things up for us and give us the one closing question? It's your last chance. I bet they're all thinking that.
Actually, do you know who's on here somewhere? Is your friend Barry-Anne. Where's Barry-Anne? Or maybe she's not here.
Oh there she is, Barry-Ann, you should say hello. Hi, it's been a long time since I've seen you guys. Barry-Ann, you saw her in Charlottesville. We're trying to find where you are talking, so many little heads there.
Oh I can't see. well that might be a nice place to end it though you can um Do you remember coming to teach? You came and taught me in America.
Which lady? This lady, Barryann. Do you remember?
Put your hand up. Oh, I don't know how to raise. Oh, here it is.
Raise hand. There it is. Yeah, that's her there.
Yeah, yeah. You're too old. You're too old. um very end very end yeah i got picture yeah we got pictures on the computer Students, my love, when I was in Virginia, when I was in America, we were working together. I got all the photos.
Yeah, it was amazing. It was so generous of you to come to America and teach. And I remember just thinking how lucky we were to have you here teaching.
You are. Yeah, you are. You are.
When are you coming back to Utah? Oh, I might come back soon. I'm going to come back this summer. Anyway, I think everyone should turn their microphones on and give a big round of applause to Lucy and Anna and thank them for getting up early and coming to speak to us.
Thank you. And on Wednesday, everyone, this week, this week, the students, during their discussion, you'll all go and see some works from Gapowiak with Barry-Anne. And on Wednesday, she's going to talk to us a little bit about working with Lucy and Anna in, back in, gosh, 2019, was it?
Well, that's a long time ago. All right. um but i'll let all the students go and um and you can all enjoy the rest of your evening thank you thank you thank you yeah thank you bye trevor do you want to stay on the line and um for a tip just sure Ma!