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Ive been back to Broken hill recently for Rick Ball’s new exhibition at the regional gallery in Argent St. I’m a big fan of Rick’s work – he’s an artist’s artist in many ways but also an educator & animated storyteller. Rick catches the basic components & colour of the desert while creating the illusion […]
Its been a while since I wrote about the CMTs here but Ive been learning about their cultural significance from those who know best. My friend Priscilla Reid-Loynes, Gomilaroi/ Yuwaalaraay women, education consultant and cultural creative, has been back in Walgett for a couple of weeks. We’ve been hanging out with the trees, sharing […]
Ive been in email conversation with a lady from Cohuna – North Victoria – who has sent me some photos of wonderful scarred trees from a creek near the Kow Swamp (one of the largest aboriginal burial grounds in the southern hemisphere). The black box CMTs were killed by flood irrigation & rising […]
Those of you have been reading these blogs for a long time will remember my “Ringtree” phase before I became TinT obsessed. Ive found ringtrees fashioned out of coolabah, blackbox, bimblebox, whitewood, rosewood, wild orange (bumble) leopardwood & belah. All of the cultural rings here west of Walgett are related to water – good water […]
(From Death of a river guide – Richard Flanagan 1995) I was down in Sydney last week & got out to the Royal Botanical Gardens & Centennial Park. There were plenty of colourful & ethereal epiphytes on trees & palms at the RBG but most of them were tied in position. You can see below […]
There is a scrub tree here that grows on the floodplains known as Mirrii or leafless cherry/ ballart. Its scientific name is Exocarpus aphyllus and it’s a root parasite on the coolabah mainly, but other eucalypts as well. The Mirrii is used to “make a decoction to treat sores & colds. This plant was also […]
“Sometimes the things we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be discovered” } Cloud Cuckoo land by Anthony Doerr. I use this quote after seeing the photos below in my ABC newsfeed. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-11/mystery-community-of-aboriginal-and-indonesian-families/101901188?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web. The photos found in an Italian library show a group of Yolngu people living in Makassar Indonesia in the 1870s. […]
Im sure Im not the only one that’s well & truly over the annual Australia day/ change the date debate. Why not just make it the last Friday in January so the date changes every year? That way everyone can have a long holiday weekend & nobody gets offended. Easter moves around & God doesnt […]
Christmas is coming & we are trying to finish harvesting chickpeas and drenching sheep. The cool wet spring has pushed harvest back 6 weeks & extended the sheep worm epidemic. But, regardless of how busy I am I will always make time for the CMTs & the descendants of those who created them. A group […]
Mombarai was the Gomeroi word used for the cicatrix/ cultural scars displayed on the upper body. It’s thought the clan’s mark or “drawing’ was also inscribed on a tree where an important person was buried. . In some cases a piece of bark was removed from a tree south […]