Ink and washing

My first approach to being in Kununurra was to immerse myself in the environment. Despite the extreme heat here in February I went walking in Mirima National Park to do sketches and get an understanding of the ground, the plants and animals and history of the land.  I can laugh now but my first forays were filled with trepidation.  The environment was so extreme, I packed carefully with water, phone, protective clothing and sketchbook.  Every sound seemed so new and unusual, there was a constant scampering in the bush and undergrowth that sounded like a large animal tracking me.  I have since found out that it is the small lizards and birds that make all the noise as they scamper out of my way.  There is an amazing bird, a type of pheasant that tumbles, crashing through the undergrowth, barking like a small dog.  Apparently it was mating season, but the recklessness and noise of the bird was startling during my walks until I realised it had nothing to do with my presence.

From these walks and sketches I found I was constantly drawn to the shadows caused by the fissures in the rocks.  The instability and vertigo I feel in this land seem to be mirrored in the collapsing rock formations, or perhaps caused by it?  I realise the lines and shadows come from the same pool or language about the land as the tree shadows and rhizomes of Gundaroo Common where I have been working for 8 years.  They reveal the lay of the land, the fissures, dips and gaps that may be treacherous underfoot.  They reveal the pathways of water that finds the quickest route down hill, carving away the softer layers and creating the significant land formations of the area.

 Rocks and shadows, Kununurra

However, once I started my test pieces I was drawn back to Kelly Knob.  There was something unnerving about standing on that lookout on slabs of rocks that appear to be shifting and moving beneath my feet.  I wanted to explore the vertigo that I felt in this place.  My position as a settler in a place that was of significance to the local Mirriwoong people and also to the many other language groups that visited Kununurra or worked at the base of the hill at Waringarri Art Centre.  How do I pay respect to a place so active in the original owners culture?  In Gundaroo I could rub back the land until I worked through the 2 cm of accumulated soil settled in the 200 years since occupation.  But if I rub back here I rub into country, into another culture and their laws.  This is the balancing act I wish to explore, how to have difference occupy the same space, whilst respecting Indigenous cultural privacy and deep knowledge of the country?  As settlers in this land, we need to learn how to care for it sensitively, acknowledging Indigenous precedence but also our own history, as hard as that may be to face.  It is the only way forward that I can think of, so I am using my culture and traditions to learn about the land and how I might share in its care and encourage others to acknowledge our responsibilities in this land.

Ink sketches on Kelly Knob, Kununurra, WA

I dipped my paper in a local billabong and took them up to the lookout on Kelly Knob.  I placed the paper in nooks and cranny's and in the shadows of  overhanging rocks and applied Sumi ink with a brush to follow in the crevices to reveal the fissures and forms of the rocks.  I also tried to rub the beautiful ochre colours into the paper like I had done in Gundaroo but soon found that the ochre was made of sandstone and cut and abraded my fingers and the paper.  I realised I needed water to do any rubbings on the work.

The Process

1. I drew with brush and ink on the horizontal ground, allowing chance to puddle the ink in the crevices of the rocks.  However, when placed on the vertical wall, the work was too much like a traditional figure on ground landscape rendition.  I wanted the marks to be more like a schism or a cut through the ground rather than suggesting any form.

2.  I took the drawings back out into the country and worked with the mud from a drying waterhole.  I wiped the paper with the mud a bit like applying ink to an etching plate.

3.  I wiped back the mud with my hands to reveal the surface of the rock beneath.  The sandy consistency rubbed my hands raw.  A friend once said a drawing project needs to be so intense that your hands bleed!  I'm certainly getting there.  I was also getting several layers of ground.  The ground of the rock, the paper as ground, the ground of the sumi ink and the ground of the mud.  These are layers that add to the meaning of the work.

4.  What do you do when you get back from a camping trip?  I always do the laundry washing.  It is a job I enjoy, cleaning the linen and clothes, drying, ironing and folding.  It is part of caring for my family and I love the smells and processes of cleaning and mending.  I tried to rub back the dirt surface with a rubber but suffered terribly from grit in my eyes and hayfever so I decided to try washing the excess off.  As I did this I made the link between caring for my family and caring for the land.  It is my traditional way of caring and seems appropriate.

5.  I hung the drawings out to dry and to get that lovely smell of sunlight on laundry.

6.  I perused the stains and the remains of the drawings on the paper.  I was pleased that the forms suggested in the initial drawings were now dissolving and becoming formless or oscillating between form and formlessness.  The works were becoming active and showing me a process that would be appropriate for the land here.  I was gaining knowledge of the country and my process was starting to echo the forming of the landmarks in the area.  In Mirima National Park there is a sign from the Mirriwoong language group explaining the country: "About 360 million years ago in the Devonian period, wind and water eroded highlands in the vicinity of present day Lake Argyle.  Sand was blown here forming dunes up to 30 metres high.  Deposits accumulated to a thickness of several hundred metres.  Today this sand makes up the layered sandstone rocks around you."  My drawing, washing, redrawing and washing, is surprisingly similar to the land's creation.

7. To complete the works I ironed and erased edges to make the work continue to dissolve and reform.  The harsh lines are the cuts and divisions made by settlers that have little respect for existing natural  or cultural boundaries.  As I stumble my way around this country I know that I will inadvertently make transgressions as I know little of the traditions of this country.  I ask advice and tread carefully.