Goodbye Coolum Beach - Alice is waiting
We closed down our Coolum Beach Gallery and travelled over 5 days to our home in Alice Springs. All paintings and all our belongings are in shipping containers and are expected to arrive in Alice on 8 September. That is when we will commence to organize a new place which we will take over on 7 September having sold our properties in Coolum Beach. We found that commuting between Coolum Beach and Alice Springs is too demanding and also very expensive and decided to sell all in Coolum Beach and make beautiful Alice our only base by buying a larger property there which we will establish over the coming year.
Our trip was quite exciting and we used the journey to visit some unique places on our way. Some highlights
Trip to Utopia - Home of our Artists
Only some impression from our trip. Most of the images of our meetings with artists at their place of residence I cannot show since I have not asked for permission to publish them. The landscape and area is about 250 kms north/east of Alice Springs and it is the home of some of Australia's most significant Aboriginal artists. Whilst many live temporarily in Alice Springs, almost all of them spend on and off time at home in their country.
I have made this trip many times, the first time in 1996. Nothing much has changed since. Images speak for themselves.
This is the country the most beautiful Aboriginal art is coming from. If you are a Collector of Aboriginal Art you will have heard of Emily Kame, Gloria Petyarre, Ada Bird, Kathleen Petyarre, Lindsay Bird, Kudditji, Barbara Weir, Emily Pwerle, Galya Pwerle, Molly Pwerle, and numerous others
250 km's drive with not much change
Elena and I share driving
No problems when the car brakes down. There is always a chance to get home by bus ???
or to look for some accommodation
and if you are lucky you can buy a sandwich in the only local store. This time I had no luck but I could get enough petrol to drive another 200 km's further east on the Sandover Highway and to get back to Alice.
Crossing the river bed we are lucky to have a decent 4-wheel drive. There are no plans yet to build a bridge that would be useful during a rainy season.
Having a chat with Teresa the granddaughter of Minnie Pwerle at her home. We are friends since the late 1990's. She is a great artist having learned from her mother the late Barbara Weir. I gave her paint and some 90 x 90 cm linen and on my next trip I will pick up the completed artworks.
And this is for our website. Meeting some of our artists a couple of days later in Alice Springs.
Elena with Janet Golder, daughter of famous late Polly Ngale. Paints Bush Leave and a variety of other dreamings, including in the style of her mother.
Werner with Colleen Wallace. Paints Dreamtime Sisters. A very popular Dreaming from Santa Teresa. She married one of Lindsay Bird's son and apart from painting she is teaching in Mulga Bore in Utopia.
Werner with Charmaine. Daughter of Barbara Weir and granddaughter of Minnie Pwerle. A very popular artist with her paintings in demand in Australia and overseas.
Establishing a Base in Alice Springs
In 2022 I prepared to close down our Boomerang Art business but after a heart valve replacement and a double bypass late in 2022 and a follow up assessment by my Cardiologist in February 2023 that my heart works again as it should I decided to start again. With 80 I am too young to retire and at times I have difficulties to tell frequently calling artists not to come.
And what the brilliant staff at Prince Charles Hospital could not do, my wife and business partner Elena is doing. To keep me under control - diet, exercise, lots of green staff, no German sausages and water instead of Cognac - What a life
Today I can say mission accomplished. We again have a house in Alice Springs with space for artists to paint, a 4 wheel drive stationed there for bush trips and a plan to spend half of our time in this place and the rest of our time in Coolum Beach on the Sunshine Coast where we continue to live and operate a small gallery and a warehouse/exhibition space.
We are a husband/wife business without staff and open up our places by prior appointment when in Coolum Beach with about two warehouse exhibitions a year in Quanda Road.
Visiting Barbara Weir's grave
.Barbara Weir had a worldwide reputation as a fine Indigenous Artist who not only represented her and her family's art but Aboriginal Culture in general.
