What Do You Really Think About Australia?

I have recently purchased a new camera and madly started taking lots of photos.

It is a wonderful hobby and you never what opportunities will present themselves.

The camera I bought was a Canon PowerShot SX10IS with 20X optical zoom.

Thought I would share some of the photos I have taken with this amazing camera.

Hope you enjoy them, please let me know what you think.








All the best
Shellsey
Sydney Australia
Email:   heart2heartsydney@yahoo.com.au

The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (cover)

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - The Gumnut Babies
(cover detail)

They Found Mr Lizard at the Photographer's

At The Artist's Studio

Mrs Kookaburra's Dinner Party

Sea Dragons in Their Stable

Snugglepot Fights The Red Gumnut

Little Obelia (detail)

The Banksia Men Make a Wicked Plot

The Cabstand

The Cricket Match

The Gum Blossom Ballet

The Lecture

They Began the Homeward Journey

Little Obelia

May Gibbs (1877-1969) emigrated to Australia from England with her parents when she was four years old. Part of her childhood was spent at a farming homestead in Western Australia where Gibbs' love of the unique species in the Australian bush developed. The nuts, leaves and flowers she discovered as a child provided a lifetime of inspiration for her iconic and imaginative illustration work.

The daughter of talented artists, Gibbs was encouraged to draw and paint from a young age and she had her first illustration published in a Perth newspaper by the time she was twelve years old. After finishing school she returned to England for extended periods on several occasions to study art, but eventually settled in Neutral Bay in Sydney in 1913 when her Australian bush illustrations were rejected by publishers in London. In that year the first of her drawings of Gumnut babies (also known as bush babies or bush sprites, seen in many of the above illustrations) appeared as the cover art for another author.

There followed a series of Gumnut booklets which sold well and culminated in the release, during the 1918 armistice celebrations, of 'The Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie'. The gentle bush story about the adventures of our eponymous half-brother Gumnut heroes, and all the anthropomorphic characters they encountered, became an instant classic. The national success was due in no small part to Gibbs' creation of an entirely local mythology. The book employed a traditional narrative style, based on the fairytale stories from Europe, but Gibbs' myriad drawings and paintings, with their faithful portrayal of Australian fauna and flora, turned familiar bush scenes into a proud national identity for childhood imaginations. {the book has never been out of print}

"Since eucalypts and banksias, not to mention all of the bush creatures, are found right across Australia, Gibbs had created images that appealed to the entire nation. Seed pod hats, gum blossom skirts, gumleaf and sea shell houses, leaf boats and stick chairs, set imaginations running wild. Children everywhere couldn't help but wonder when they saw such things, whether Gumnut Babies really did live there, especially when they could actually see their scribbly writing on the trees. Gibbs took what every child could easily find and gave it a fantasy life of its own."

The Gumnut adventures were continued in successful sequels, 'Little Ragged Blossom', in 1920; and 'Little Obelia' in 1921. Gibbs published further books within a similar fantasy bush setting and syndicated newspaper columns and comic strips. One of these, 'Bib and Bub', was published for over sixty years.

• Northcott: Home of May Gibbs [biography].
• Like Father Like Daughter: May & Herbert Gibbs Collection (has horizontal scroll galleries of early painting work among other material)

Indigenous peoples demand more involvement in environment affairs

A United Nations conference on indigenous affairs wrapped up its two-week gathering making a host of recommendations, including the worldwide establishment of a mechanism requiring patent offices to publicize the origins of products derived from indigenous knowledge when exclusive rights to the design are requested.

The Eighth Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues also called on States and corporations to involve indigenous people in all negotiations relating to the entry of mining industries, infrastructure projects and other development schemes into their communities.

One of the texts approved by the Forum, a subsidiary of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), called on the international community to ensure the application of culturally relevant, gender-balanced and gender-based analysis and gender budgeting as critical elements of economic and social development, consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration, a landmark text adopted in 2007, outlines the rights of the world's estimated 370 million indigenous people and outlaws discrimination against them. It sets out rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues.

The 16-member Forum -- which drew around 2,000 indigenous representatives from all regions of the world, as well as representatives of Member States, civil society, academia, some 35UN entities and other intergovernmental organizations -- approved a provisional agenda for next year, including a half-day discussion on North America.

The Art of Place and Journey

Two paintings by Aboriginal artists, collected in Wally Caruana’s Aboriginal Art.

Paddy Jupurrurla Nelson, Paddy Japaljarri Sims, and Larry Jungarrayi Spencer, Yanjilypiri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming), 1985 (f109).

“The Australian deserts appears empty and inhospitable to those who do not know them, but to the Aboriginal groups who inhabit these areas, the lands created by their ancestors and infused with their powers are places rich in spiritual meaning and physical sustenance.

“Geographically, the desert includes mountain ranges and spectacular rock-formations, grassy plains, strands and eucalypt and mulga trees, lakes, salt pans, sandhills, and stretches of stony country occasionally broken by seasonal watercourses and rivers and punctuated by rare permanent rockholes, springs, waterholes and soakages… Across this landscape spreads a web of ancestral paths travelled by the supernatural beings on their epic journeys of creation in the Jukurrpa or Dreaming, linking the topography firmly to the social order of the people” (p97).

“The basic elements of the pictorial art are limited in number but broad in meaning… Characteristic of the range of conventional designs and icons are those denoting place or site, and those indicating paths or movement. Concentric circles may denote a site, a camp, a waterhole or a fire. In ceremony, the concentric circle provides the means for the ancestral power which lies within the earth to surface and go back into the ground. Meandering and straight lines may indicate lightening or water courses, or they may describe the paths of ancestors and supernatural beings. Tracks of animals and humans are also part of the lexicon of desert imagery. U-shapes usually represent settled people or breasts, while arcs may be boomerangs or wind-breaks, and short straight lines or bars are often spears and digging sticks. Fields of dots can indicate sparks, fire, burnt ground, smoke, clouds, rain, and other phenomena.

“The interpretations of these designs are multiple and simultaneous, and depend on the viewer’s ritual knowledge of a site and the associated Dreaming. The meanings are elaborated and enhanced by the various combinations or juxtapositions of designs in the paintings, and also by the social and cultural contexts within which they operate — whether for ceremony or public domain, for instance. The combinations of designs allow for endless depth of meaning, and artists in decribing their work distinguish between those meanings that are indented for public revelations and those which are not, and provide the appropriate level of interpretation” (p98-99).



Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Bandicoot Dreaming, 1991 (f98).

“It is by the acquisition of knowledge, not material possessions, that one attains status in Aboriginal culture. Art is an expression of knowledge, and hence a statement of authority. Through the use of ancestrally inherited designs, artists assert their identity, and their rights and responsibilities. They also define the relationships between individuals and groups, and affirm their connections to the land and the Dreaming” (p14-15).

“As a statement of authority, the aesthetic in art is often articulated in terms of ritual knowledge. Through art, individuals express their authority and knowledge of a subject, the land and the Dreaming, and artists will use their authority to introduce change and innovation” (p16).

“In ritual, paintings… are not intended to be static images requiring studied contemplation. Rather, since designs embody the power of supernatural beings, they are intended to be sensed more than viewed” (p59-60).