News — Utopia

The Northern wild orange is known as Akarley in the Alyawarre language. The small slender tree of this wild orange plant grows about 3½ m high with dark bark and weeping foliage. It produces fragrant, creamy white flowers during the flowering stage that open during the night and wither before the end of the next day. The fruit is green when unripe, turning yellow or with a red tint when ripens in February. The Akarley is eaten raw after pulling off the tough outer skin and has a sweet flavour. The Akarley is important to the Aboriginal people of Utopia...

Today, I'd like to introduce you to Eileen Bird Kngwarreye (pronounced Ung-wahr-ay). Eileen is an Eastern Arrernte woman, and her country is Arnumarra, near Gem Tree northeast of Alice Springs in Central Australia. Her family grew up at Harts Range where her brothers and sisters continue to live. Eileen grew up on her country at Harts Range but moved to southern Utopia to marry her husband, the late Paddy Bird. Together, they had eleven children (Maggie, Tanya and Alvira Bird among them). Paddy's mother was a renowned artist named Ada Bird Petyarre, sister to the famous Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre....

Gloria Petyarre was born near Atnangkere Soakage in 1945. She lived a very traditional lifestyle as a child, before moving to one of the established settlements in Utopia, NT. Gloria, her family members and her skin family, first became interested in art making by participating in the Utopia Women's Batik Group introduced in 1977 and initiated by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association. With up to 80 members at a time, the Batik and Tie-die project became the seeding inspiration for the artists, and its tremendous success both in Australia and overseas led to another successful project introduced in 1988,...