Jean Lane, miniature work on spinifex paper.
"Wirtapiwarra"





Saturday morning and I am listening to Andrew Ford on the music show, talking about Stockhausen. It is quite bizar, how far from this world of blackstone is Stockhausen!

The advertisements have gone into the paper for workers at Blackstone. Art Workers for the paper business and outreach program and a new manager.

I had begun to think that I was never going to get the projects I have started, off the ground, the new building would never be finnished. Well things are moving on and now fresh blood is needed to pick up the pace. I have loved this job but someone with new energy will need to take it on now.

There are always big challenges, which for me, is part of the attraction.

I have a friend from Ringer's Soak coming up to help out while the staffing situation is sorted. I am really looking forward to this. Jenny is leaving Perth today and driving up in her red troupie, the mob will go wild for buying that one, hard to explain to the mob that not everyone wants to sell their yultu. I have the same problem with my little red 4 door toyota ute. She has picked up some very good quality plywood. We are going to get the artists to design and work the Wati Kutjarra design with hot wire on the ply and then bolt it to the new art centre building. It was kantjupayi Benson who was so despertae to get that Wati Kutjarra story on the front of our art centre, well it has only taken five years but by god we are going to get it there.

Jodie will be back for a few weeks with the bookbinding workshop, something we have talked of and dreamed of for some time. I am so excited about this project. There is so much interest in our paper products and this will be a great adjunct to the range.

On Friday I started setting up the paper finnishing room, there is still a lot to do on every facet of the move and set up, but Joy Lyons has agreed to act s supervisor for the paper project and I have a wonderful young woman called Valencia working in the art centre who shows great skill in just about any task I give her, be it cleaning, packaging, paint mixing or simply design work on the paper. I want to have everything nice for them on Monday to start work in earnest in the new building.

Spoke to Alison Kelly Gallery on Friday also. We will be doing some work with her in late 2008 and through 2009. I spoke about the fine art work we are developing with the paper as well. Exciting times!

Well Science Show time now after which I need to do a subtantial clean up in the house so that jenny and her dog have somewhere to settle for their stay.

Photo taken by Peter Shepherd at our fist business training session in 2004.




Papulankutja Artists is a small community based, indigenous owned art centre. This is not an easy thing to be.

Our Business plan states that our objective are...

"To promote art and craft activities that provide opportunities for community members to develop their skills and to participate in fulfilling activities.

To promote cultural maintenance through art and craft activities and strengthen the cultural resources in the community.

To foster an environment which develops self esteem by acknowledging the economic and social value of Aboriginal art, language and culture.

To facilitate the development and sale of art works for the benefit of the community.

Through the sale of art works to provide sustainable and meaningful employment opportunities for community people of Blackstone.

To promote the inter generational transfer of skills and experience to strengthen culture in the region."

The art centre is owned by the artists who work in it. It is a profit share business, where the artists invest 35% of the income from painting to the art centre for its operation. The art centre provides the facility, the materials, business equipment, runs a vehicle, organizes sales, exhibitions and so on. The intent is to be self funding but we do get some help from the taxpayer for operational purposes each year and for special projects, like our lovely new building.

We are a small, very remote centre, we produce some very important and stunning work, we produce some consistently nice presentable work and we produce some pretty ho hum work. Our charter is to give opportunity to everyone one who wants it. My instruction from the artists is to assist all comers. I can not "cherry pick" participants.

Sometimes we do not have work that is worthy of being put forward for major prizes or shows, sometimes we do.

This year I had two works that I considered putting up for Telstra. I was only considering it as such good works are also easy to sell and because we are small and always in need of sales, the money imperative is strong. Over Christmas a number of significant artists from surrounding communities came over, hungry, alone and with no easy way of facilitating paintings or sales. These were artists that we at Papulankutja consider family and who have a history of occasionally working at this art centre. I was happy to be here for them and was able to arrange some work and sales for them. During this time it came to my attention that works from their community would be put up to telstra. It was the decision maker for me. I chose to consider my two good pieces for other places.

My concern is one of transparency in business and a question of conflict of interest when a Gallery owner moves into "takes over" a community and then "cherry picks" the artists who will bring in the money. This disadvantages the community concerned and in particular the many who are disenfranchised from any capacity for meaningful employmet and social activity.

Artists are free to do as they please. This art centre seeks to educate its members in "whitefella" business, hopefully giving them the tools they need to make the best decision for their own development and for their families. When an artists moves, for what ever reason, to another community, the community art centres work together and assist each other as well as the artist concerned. We are not in competition with each other, we are here to assist the artists in the community. This may not always be convenient but it is the way it is. If an artists is ill and needs to be in a major township for long or short term, then the art centres seeks to make suitable arrangements with an art centre in town that can help both the artist and the community art centre.

The best income for the artists of the community and for the art centre comes from the known or money artists. 35% of $5000.00 for one sale is a hell of a lot better, economically, that 35% of multitudes of $200.00 sales. This is in money terms only, for the artist the sense of achievement and selfesteem from the sale and appreciation of your work can not be measured in dollar terms alone.

The art centre manager needs to think in dollar terms however, because the art centre manager needs to make ends meet.

Having one's artists raided and cherry picked, having their monetary value inflated by strange whitefella trading practices puts an unfair strain on the community art centre that has built the artists reputation and put the time and energy into their development, funded by the artists of the community who have invested 35% of their sales in their art centre.

It is difficult, due to the lack of transparency by the art traders concerned to know if the artists involved are in fact getting a fair deal, maybe they are. What value a Toyota or ten, who knows?!

One Foot in front of the other.

The last months have been very difficult, I have been hit by a rather nasty bug, a difficult one to shake off and the culmination of a year working in conditions that I would not ask my pet pig to work in has worn me down. The artists have been pretty sick of it and while summer was dreadfull, the thermometer reaching 56 degrees C in our workspace on more than a hand full of occasions, the cold mornings that come with winter have made it increasingly difficult to face going into the little dark cage that we have laughily called the office.

Well, over the last couple of weeks I have been steadily moving the art centre into the new building which is (at last) finnished. There are jobs like clearling a bit of rubble, making the atco donga, now the Men's painting room, friendly and inviting, but over all, it is lovely. Slowly the artists are making their way to the new art centre door, cheered by the clean and warm environment. I have a couple of new community workers and all in all my dark mood is lifting.

Our fist NACIS funding payment from the commonwealth government has come through and this week I recieved notification of approval for the artists outreach program we have been struggling to get up and running for Jameson and Wingellina. I am thrilled beyond speach.

My friend Jennifer from Ringer Soak is coming up for a month to help me get a few things sorted and started and Jodi will be back in a couple of weeks to work with Biblio Folio on the spinifex paper specialist book binding project, Indigenous Volunteers are coming to our aid again and helping this project come to fruition.

The year is chocker with activity and things are looking good.

A Bit blurry and the light was fading, this is a new dance, the tjanpi dance in recognigiton of the importance of weaving as a cottage industry for the ladies.


A Huge couple of weeks.
I am sorry I have not had time to get back on the activites of the Festival Week.

It was a great success and enormous fun from the opening night BBQ and welcoming Seven sisters dance, to the closing dance night. I have a few pictures here from the Festival and will put them in but the Walk started on Monday and is the current focus of the community.



Gerry and Tarn from the Melting Pot in Margaret River WA, get stuck into the ever popular glass jewellery making. We have a wonderful collection of glass beads to add to our spinifex beads, painted gum nut necklaces and earings. Everyone loves this activity, young and old, we all like to make something special for ourselves.



The ladies of the beauty salon ended up with some pretty spectacular hair colorings. The team worked tirelessly for days and the Blackstone ladies were thrilled with the end results.




Our volunteer men from the Landcruiser club got a good start on the verandar for the Tjilpi painting room.


Our Thursday Art Market was the best festival market we have had thus far and here you can see the Warakurna mob busy at work.






Our trusty weavers, always on the job and now weaving wildly in country as they break for lunch or at night to camp during "The Walk".









There are no words to tell of the joy and excitement over the Dance Event, kids, oldies, black and white, everyone joined in with gusto.



Many made camp as the night fell, the fires burned gaily and the dancers danced late into the night.

I will go out on Friday to join the mob on the walk, they have been fired up and are moving at a great rate of knots to their destination.

The Thisbe Artback caravan is gaining
momentum.

The growing number of vehicles head today from Warakurna to Blackstone, then on to Wingellina for the final leg, before circling the wagons for the Papulankutja Happy Festival।

Celebration dancers at the end of the Walu Walk in 2006.
The children were learning from senior Ngaanyatjarra Lands women.

I have been back from the Melbourne trip a busy few days. We had the opening of the Dickerson Exhibition, I had Freda Lane and Angilyiya Mitchell with me. I think it went well, we certainly had some lovely work there.

I was able to take the beautiful spinifex miniatures in to Chapman and Bailey for mounting, ready for the Melbourne Art Market as well as a good collection of smaller artworks for stretching.

It is always a bit testing travelling with artists, they find the environment strange and frightening, the main desire for the women is to go shopping and eat. We stayed at a lovely little apartment, close to many facilities and I was able to supply both the shopping expedition and plenty of tucka.

I took the women to the Aquarium, angilyiya in particular was stunned by the big sharks swimming above her head .... it was a joy to participate in this expidition.

The ladies back on the plane to Ayers Rock, I headed to Adelaide. I had the weekend in relative leisure with my daughter and grandson, then a frantic two days getting things ready for the Melbourne Art Market. I had arranged for paintings to be sent to my house in Adelaide so I could sort them and get the paperwork ready for the Melbourne market.

Back to Melbourne and in to meet Mike Stitfold from Kayili for our stall set up. A bigger job than either Mike or I expected but satisfying. I had gambled on presenting the miniature paper works in a more expensive setting, putting some of the name artists tiny works up against the major canvas artists. I really wanted to see how they would compete. I have to say in that market they competed very well indeed. I was thrilled to see the little Angilyiya Mitchell and Jean Lane works go to good homes. It was also fun at the market to meet with people who were loving the Blackstone work, buying from galleries and who I had never met.

After packing up I headed back to the rock on Tuesday, a big drive back to Blackstone on Wednesday and exhausted I was back in my ATCO donga at Blackstone.

Now it is on to the Blackstone Festival, a big party really, followed by the Blackstone Walk ....!!!!

A pretty happening place this Blackstone.

Pukurlpa-la Lurrtjurriwa Papulankutjala

Come and join in all the fun at Blackstone.

Tuesday 6th May to Saturdayth May 2008

This year dance will be the focus of the festival, funded by ARTBACK NT in collaboration with Ngaanyatjarra Council, Desart and Papulankutja Artists. Thisbe Purich is coordinating the event and calling all dancers from surrounding communities to come to Blackstone.

Artists come, bring your swag and spend a few days with us at Blackstone।

• On Tuesday we will open the evening with a community BBQ followed by an after dinner film night held with assistance from the Blackstone Youth worker।
• There will be the usual fun with art and craft, Glass jewellery making with Gerry and Tarn from Margaret River complementing the spinifex fibre jewellery making with the paper worker team। T-Shirt printing fun with Jodie. Tjanpi Jo will workshop with spinifex atists and buy finished work. Jo is also bringing renowned fibre artists Maria Fernanda Cardoso who is seeking inspiration and creating work for a major fibre installation.
• Encore appearance of the very popular beauty salon, this year run by Liz Bredemeyer and her team of Land Rover Club members।
• Art centre business with Desart on Thursday 8th May।
• Fantastic dance concert on Thursday which will be a culmination of dance workshops held in Blackstone and surrounding communities over a period of 4 weeks।
• Friday night special Festival Bumper Disco।
• Continuing over the weekend with intercommunity youth sports activities coordinated by Brett of the Ngaanyatjarraku Shire youth team।
• By special request, Thisbe will once again host the famous or infamous Bingo Night …. Woohoo!!!!
  
  Further information and bookings for workshops from Dianna at the Art Centre.
  Phone: 08 8956 7586 or email artists.papulankutja@bigpond.com