Frankie – Papulankutja – Women’s Body Painting (printed in Oz)

Fabric: Cotton canvas feature fabric.

• H: 27 cm (10.5 inches)
• W: 33 (13 inches)
• D: 10 cm (gusset)  (4 inches)

Features:

• Handy pockets under flap in feature fabric including with velcro fastening
• Zip closure
• Fully lined
• Adjustable strap
• Can hold a 11 inch laptop
• Internal zip pocket
• Discreet external zip pocket on rear
• Limited edition (only 4 were made from this fabric)
• Design story supplied with every purchase (see photo)
• Fabric printed in Australia by Next State
• Can be gently hand washed

Title: Women’s Body Painting

Women’s ceremonial business is expressed through song, dance and mark making. This is how it has always been done, this is how the ancestors taught us. This painting depicts the body painting designs applied to women’s breasts and limbs prior to ceremonies. The linear patterns follow the curve lines of the women’s the breasts. The many lines represent the movement of the women as they dance during ceremony. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, they trace these designs onto their breasts, arms and thighs with ochres and charcoal singing as each woman takes turns to be ‘painted up’. The ceremonial songs relate to Tjukurpa and stories of ancestral travel, plants, animals, landscape and the forces of nature.

About the artist: Anawari Inpiti Mitchell

Anawari grew up at the Warburton Mission in the Western Australian desert. She was manager of the Blackstone Women’s Centre where they made e-dyed t-shirts, batik, lino and silk-screen prints, spinifex paper and jewellery.

Anawari participated in the first tjanpi (grass) weaving workshop at Papulankutja (Blackstone) in 1995. She currently works for Ngaanyatjarra Land and Culture at Papulankutja. Her grandmother’s country is Kuru Ala, a very important site for the Seven Sisters story which she paints. She paints stories of when the sisters travelled and camped at Kulyuru east of Blackstone and Kuru Ala which is a sacred women’s’ ceremonial site where teenage girls are taught to become young women.

Anawari’s family, the women of the family, have custodianship over some very special dreaming places.
Papulankutja Artists is a community-based, not-for-profit Aboriginal Corporation governed by a committee of elected members.

It evolved out of the Women’s Centre where painting had been encouraged as an activity for both men and women since the mid 1980s. With the Aboriginal art market taking off it became necessary to establish a legal framework to protect the artists and their entitlements. Papulankutja Artists was born in 2003 and a year later registered as an Aboriginal Corporation with the members governing the art centre. After five year struggling to find a home Papulankutja Artists moved into a purpose built art centre in 2009. The art centre also works with artists in Mantamaru (Jameson), a community 75kms to the west.

The fabric was printed in Australia then beautifully crafted by our fair trade partners in Cambodia.

Fair Trade: #whomadeyourbag – Mr Run Cheak and his wife make the small and large messenger bags. They have been working for social enterprise Kravan House for more than 15 years. Mr Run Cheak was a farmer who stepped on a landmine in 1993. At Kravan House he retrained as an artisan which has given him good steady income and he has become a master craftsman.

Please note that each bag is unique and the placement of the fabric design is different and wonderful on each item.