OZtralia.tv Blog

A Look At Life In Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

The two artists-in-residence at the Mulgara Gallery near Uluru in Central Australia continue to talk about their passion for Australian desert art.

Liz and Helga have made extended forays into the desert, leaving the comforts of the resort behind. “We learn about bush tucker and use the coloured ochre for painting. Some places we are not allowed to sketch or take photos, other times we are sketching in 41 Celsius degree heat - only mad dogs and Englishwomen,” laughs Liz.

Liz is no stranger to extreme environments. She accompanied a 1993 Oxford Mabeta-Moliwe expedition to Cameroon in central Africa, where she spent most of the time in the rainforest. “Travelling to the third wettest country in the world - in the wet season - was a muddy and difficult challenge. I camped in the rainforest with five Oxford university students who collected the plants, which I then painted. This expedition finally ensured that this unique area became a reserve and ended the planting of rubber and cocoa plantations. From this I held a solo exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society in London.”

It was not her first expedition. Two years earlier Liz had travelled through Guyana in South America, painting the forests and winning a medal at the Royal Horticultural Society in London.

Helga’s strong bold colours emerged early in her career through contact with modern European art. Influenced by archaeology and prehistory, she incorporates the use of decoration from many different cultures. She also still uses traditional Batik techniques occasionally and sometimes switches mediums to cotton or linen.

In 1987, Helga spent a life-changing three months with Aboriginal women in Utopia near Alice Springs sharing her batik knowledge under the shade of Mulga bush or by open fires in the desert sands. “I feel I learned more than I taught.  I didn’t have to teach the women anything, they are so talented, so I really just taught them techniques.”

“Their whole outlook on life taught me that nothing, not even time, matters very much, only the rhythm of nature. The desert is so visually beautiful that at times I would sit for hours by a fire and feel like a tiny pin in the universe.”

These two not-so-tiny pins in the universe of art are bringing the brilliant warm colours and unique animals and plants of our central desert onto canvas and cloth.

Returning From The Australian Outback

By: Phoenix Arrien

I am back in Alice and checking out other attractions including the Alice Springs Desert Park for close-ups with ghost bats, ostriches and big-eared bilbies; the spectacular cracks, holes, cliffs and desert plants of Kings Canyon, Stanley Chasm and Finke Gorge National Park.

Alice is not without its festivals. If you are here in June, don a beanie for the ‘Beanie Festival’ celebrating everything for the head that is woollen and beyond. Get into some high octane, low brain, insane on the desert plain (also in June) for the Tattersall’s Finke Desert Race where bikes, cars and buggies hurtle from the town of Finke to Alice. Then there is the Alice Springs Show in July or cheer Miss Camel on her Cup during the Voyages Lions Camel Cup also in July.

On normal days though, at the end of each fun-filled, sun-baked, dust-ridden attendance at attractions, I seem to end up, like everyone else, at Todd Mall located in the centre of town. It is a place to browse for goodies like books and camping equipment while being stalked by mangy camp dogs. Yup ya gotta be an animal lover out here.

Visit the Red Centre and get a new appreciation of a unique part of Australia.

The Australian Outback’s Crown Jewel

By: Phoenix Arrien

A four hour bus trip takes me from Alice Springs to the largest stone monolith on earth. Riding high on anticipation I keep my eyes on the horizon as the bus trundles on, kicking up red dust.

Then out of the flat plains rise a shadow - there it is!

Oh.

It is just a large rock.

I feel disappointed…it just doesn’t…well…impress.

Then the driver informs us it is actually ‘some hill or other’. The entire bus contingent chuckles self-consciously as if to pretend that we all knew that all along, of course.

Uluru was named ‘Ayres Rock’ by explorer William Grosse in 1875. It is an important place for Aboriginal peoples of the Central Desert, contains many sacred sites and doubles as a well-known Australian tourist symbol. When in 1985 Uluru was returned to Indigenous owners, it became an important symbol in the often turbulent relations between governments and Aboriginal people.

Then I see it and what a strange and incredible sight it is. A great squat monolith rises from the desert like a gigantic red cocoon or a very still creature from a Dreamtime creation story. Looking like the top is going to crack open and a fantastical butterfly from some Dreamtime legend is going to heave out and shadow the entire desert with its wings, the experience of  being at the Rock is disconcerting and entirely mesmerising.

It is a hauntingly beautiful red iceberg in a hot sea of sand and scrub and it plays with my imagination and senses. The rock is smooth, except for strange dark abrasions and holes. Ledges and caves pock the surface. People are crawling up the side of the Rock to test their body’s heart attack capacity, however this is discouraged by the indigenous owners who feel responsible for them.

I am spending the night here to watch the sunset and sunrise colour the rock brilliant reds and blues. It changes colour and the enormous dome of sky changes behind it. This is awesome.

The Australian Outback’s Alice Springs

By: Phonix Arrien

So anyway, having survived crocodiles in the north of Australia, then watched the Logies on TV in a pub in a tiny speck of a town called Humpty Doo (seriously), I turned south towards the centre of this vast continent.

There is a town sitting in the very centre of Australia and to visit is to appreciate the resilience and ability of people, animals and plants to adapt to harsh, desert conditions. This town is called Alice Springs - even though the woman it was named after never visited the place and there is no springs anywhere nearby.

You can get to Alice by coach - takes a long time from anywhere; travel on the train, a great trip on the Ghan, named after the Afghans who supplied the great stations with supplies before the railway was built; or you can fly. Or of course you can drive.

Once there the best ways to see the sights is on a ‘get-on-get-off’ bus and my first stop is theTelegraph Station, built in 1872 as a relay for the single telegraph wire that crossed the continent from Adelaide to Darwin. The restored building contains rustic gizmos and gadgets: the ancestors of wireless internet, blackberries and strawberry coloured mobiles.

The town is actually three kilometres south of the Telegraph Station which is next to a waterhole (though hardly a ‘spring’). Alice used to be called Stuart but in 1933 was officially named the more popular title everyone had been calling it anyway: Alice Springs.

Time to tuck into a motel for the night, yawn. More tomorrow.