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Aboriginal Art Australian blog about Aboriginal art news, Australian gifts and souvenirs, the online gift and souvenir market and the little piece of the Land Down Under in an Aussie online shop - Australia Gift Shop.

Australian Aboriginal Art Takes Off on Timepiece

26 March 2007

Have you ever seen Aeroplane jelly fly? It has certainly been spread across our dining area like spaghetti across a broad Pro Hart canvas. It flew with flying colours on those occasions and its flying colours were second only to a trio of the most colourful aeroplane designs on earth.

These fantastic designs look as if they ventured to our world through a forbidden portal in the very fabric of time and space. Their shades, patterns and symbols evoke prehistoric, mythical and supernatural forces from the Dreamtime, the time when spirit ancestors created the Australian landscape.

The first of these Dreamtime designs was conceived in 1994 when Australia’s international airline, Qantas, commissioned Balarinji Designs in Adelaide, South Australia, to design a traditional Aboriginal artwork to cover a jumbo jet (Boeing 747-400). This livery (outside paintwork) was definitely not the first Aboriginal art to fly. Take the boomerang, for instance. Each of these throwing sticks is a uniquely themed work of art. The first design for Qantas was named “Wunala Dreaming”.

“Wunala” means kangaroo. However, in the myth known as “Wunala Dreaming”, the reference is not simply to kangaroos but to spirit ancestors in the guise of kangaroos. The story is about the Dreamtime journeys in which the ancestors led the people to the waterholes and to food, ensuring their survival, procreation and the perpetuation of the seasons.

To mark its 75th Anniversary in November 1995, Qantas unveiled the Boeing 747 – 300 passenger jet which was painted in the second Dreamtime design called “Nalanji Dreaming”. “Nalanji” means place, in the context of Australian Aboriginal spiritual beliefs. This ‘place’ refers to the sacred places and the tracks and paths between these places. Ceremonial venues, meeting places for corroborees, haunts of the spirit ancestors and sacred ground are all apt labels for the Aboriginal term “Nalanji”.

Our capital city is Canberra. The word “Canberra” (although from a different Aboriginal tribal language), also means “meeting place” and has similar connotations to the word “Nalanji”.

Much of the creative work for “Nalanji Dreaming” is attributable to an Aboriginal artist/designer by the name of Susan Betts. She also had a hand in the famous giant Coca-Cola^™bottle painted in an Aboriginal art design which was displayed in the Coca-Cola^™Museum in Atlanta.

This brilliant designer is now also responsible for the artwork on a new range of Australian watches and watchbands which will be available on the retail market for the first time this April, within the next few weeks. Presumably, if you wear one of these timepieces, you will never be late for a flight – or anything else. Part of this exciting new range will be available from Australia Gift Shop online at www.australiagift.net .

Watches , Timepieces from Australia Gift Shop www.australiagift.net featuring Aboriginal art designs by Susan Betts

A Qantas Boeing 737-800 aircraft for Australia’s domestic routes was painted with the third of the inspired trio of Dreamtime designs. “Yananyi Dreaming” depicts sacred pathways leading to and from Uluru. It includes desert oak trees and the tracks of wallabies and blue-tongued lizards around the famous red rock downunder. The Rock is painted in both literal physical form and in an abstract form using concentric circles in this epic Dreamtime saga which is a graphic retelling of the ‘dreaming’ or myth of “Yananyi”, meaning going or travelling. The Aboriginal artist from the Pitjantjatjara tribe is Rene Kulitja. In discussing her art, she said, “We go hunting in the desert for tjala (honey ant) and lungkata (Blue-tongued Lizard). I am a traditional owner at Uluru. My husband, my kids and I - we love this country”.

“Yananyi Dreaming” was painted on the Boeing 737 at Boeing’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington in the United States. This is a far cry from the desert of Central Australia, just as a watch factory in Japan is a far cry from Aboriginal communities in the border area between South Australia and Western Australia. Nonetheless, the strikingly-colourful and distinctive artistic skins of the jets and the watches are a product of the spirit, culture and imagination which have sprung from at least 40,000 years of traditional human activity in this Land Downunder.

The Koala is Not a Bear on a Sunday Drive

17 March 2007

There is a common misconception that the koala is a bear. However, it is not a bear. It is a marsupial.

Marsupials are mammals in which the female typically has a pouch (called the marsupium, from which the name 'Marsupial' derives) in which it rears its young through early infancy. [ Please feel free to skip the next paragraph if you're not into zoology. ]

The embryo is born at a very early stage of development (at about 4-5 weeks), upon which it crawls up its mother's belly and attaches itself to a nipple (which is located inside the pouch). It remains attached to the nipple for a number of weeks. The offspring later passes through a stage where it temporarily leaves the pouch, returning for warmth and nourishment.

We can't bear to be without our koalas. In fact, they're all over the shop. We love them so much that we would never sell them all. Koalas are in all sorts of unsuspected hidey holes throughout the office, in the storeroom and even in the corner behind the office sofa.

Just now I noticed one peeking out from behind the computer monitor, thinking she couldn't be seen because of the big gum leaf hanging out of her mouth. There's another one in the shadows in the storeroom, disguised as a swaggie waiting for the billy to boil. What he doesn't realise is that he'll be waiting a long time due to the somewhat comforting thought that he doesn't know how to start a fire. A mother koala with a baby on her back is skulking on the railing of the stairs above the storeroom.

When koalas eat their beloved eucalyptus gum leaves, do they get the same coolness we feel in the throat and nostrils when we suck on eucalyptus lollies aka sweets aka candy? Aussies call these sweets "gum drops".

Kids (and their parents) love to suck on gum drops during a Sunday drive together in the family car. Also, as common as the misconception that koalas drink water, is the misconception that they eat gum drops, unless of course, they're sitting with the kids in the back seat of the family car on a Sunday drive - stuffing themselves silly.

Australian Aboriginal Art Takes Off on Timepiece

The Koala is Not a Bear on a Sunday Drive

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