Nifty Australian Aboriginal pottery creations

Our last post was about Native American pottery and Native American jewelry.

Tonight, we announce that we have added several pieces of Australian Aboriginal pottery to our site at http://www.tribalworks.com . If you use this link, navigate to the Australian Room and then click the button for "pottery".

Australian Aboriginal pottery? How can that be? They have been essentially nomadic in the desert, limiting their interest in anything more difficult to carry than baskets and wood implements, and without a potting tradition in north, except for some Tiwi work.

This story is about a company in Alice Springs called Walkabout. It was formed by a European woman who acquired clays, slurried them and poured them into molds to be fired as pieces of pottery.

After firing they were painted by local Aboriginal women using traiditonal dot techniques and traditional iconography. We understand that the painters were on their own for the patterns and subjects they added to the pottery.

When we first met Simone in Alice, we were struck by the charm of these pieces, which are molded as boxes and creatures - koalas, kangaroos, wombats, birds and frilly lizards. On later trips, we made a point to find her and pick up additional pieces. Our last trip to Alice, Simone was making sounds of selling out. So we bought a ton of pieces. They are now almost all gone. We found the latest items to be posted in box that we put away and forgot.

These pieces are an extraordinarily inexpensive way to get a bit of Aboriginal Australiana. To go directly to the page click this link.

We think you will find them fun to look at.