HEAT, FLIES AND BEAUTIFUL ART......

Heat, Flies and Beautiful Art, Meet our artists, Polly Ngale, Violet Payne and Selina Teece. 

Yesterday I did another trip to Utopia. I left about half past 7- 8 o’clock in the morning. It was a very hot day – about 40 degrees most of the day. I travelled out there, and I usually call in to Camel Camp and say hello to Motorbike Paddy and Elizabeth Mpetyane, and Elizabeth had a nice painting all finished. She wasn’t finished last time I was out a month ago. But it was an exceptional painting, I thought, and it’s 6 x 5 foot or 180 x 150cm.

And old Polly Ngale – she’s active and was in town the day before and came around with some paintings to the warehouse, and for an old lady she’s super active but she wasn’t at the camp at the time. Elizabeth said she’d headed off to the store, so I didn’t catch up with her during the day or her family. But well, for an old lady she’s always on the go!

Catching up with Violet Payne - A beautiful, new wild tobacco painting.

And on the side of the road… Violet Payne had rung up a couple of days before and she said she’d meet me under a tree out on the side of the road and sure enough she was there with some nice little paintings. She was with her husband and another older lady. We had a bit of a chat and then we moved on.

A magnificent landscape painting by Selina Teece.

I went out to Atnwengerrpe, that’s Barbara Weir’s outstation. Barbara was particularly keen for me to get out there and get those ladies painting and look, wow! I was busy! I picked up some lovely paintings. They’re really nice people, bush people… I got some paintings from Jessie Hunter, Selina Teece, Susan Hunter, Katie Morgan, Lizzie Morgan – sometimes they use the name ‘Moss’ – and old Geyla and Emily and old Molly. Some great paintings!

Molly Pwerle with a glorious ‘Bush Melon Dreaming’!

And Lily and Michelle Lion, they’re always consistent. They’ve painted with us for 30 years. They live there too. And little Kathy Price did some nice ones… Janie Morgan did some beauties. I was really happy. Annie had done a bunch of small ones, and Colleen Morton had a nice one larger one and so look, it kept me busy for about three hours and it was really hot! It was a hot day and very hot for them too. I think that I drank 3 bottles of water just while I was working with them….

I had a good chat with Susan Hunter, and I asked, “When do you do most of your paintings?” and she said, “During the morning or in the evening because it’s just too hot during the day”.

We all bore the heat! Geyla Pwerle’s bush melon painting is positively glowing!

We called in to Soapy Bore on the way home and saw Dorothy Jones. Now Dorothy’s painted some nice little consistent dot paintings, ‘Women’s Ceremony’ type style, for us for many years and she’s a quiet lady. From there we headed home, and I say ‘we’ because I took a friend out there – Mike Steller – and he gave me a hand. We were home by about a quarter to seven and now it’s just after 6 o’clock in the morning, and I’ve got to start cataloguing them all – and there’s lots more work to be done!

Dorothy Jones and a lovely Bush Orange (Akarley) painting

So, it was a good trip, a hot trip, a tough trip and tough for them out there as well. At least I had air-conditioning! Oh, and the flies were horrendous!!!