July 13th.
Rain had fallen all night however after ringing Police we decided to enter the area. July 13th was the only day we had an entry permit for. The roads were soft and difficult to drive on. There were no views of the country because the cloud was so low.
The first Art Centre we called on was Fregon where Beverley Peacock welcomed us.Beverley has been living and working at Fregon for 20 years. Paintings were on display around the gallery. Some were spectacular. I could see that they would easily fit into the Ian Potter Gallery. Beverley showed us quite a large number of Batik scarves. These were quite detailed in design. Artists mostly paint intuitively so designs and colours were rather irregular which added to the appeal of them. There were embroidered cushions which had been stitched in Katmandu and designed at Fregon Art Centre. There were also quite a variety of cards printed from artist's paintings.
Plans were in place to take many paintings to Darwin to take part in a market there next weekend. Many of the paintings are done in the 'dot' technique but there are other ideas being introduced. The varied use of colour is amazing.
Late in the day we visited Ernabella where the welcome was not so readily offered. However we were able to watch 6 or 8 artists working and chatted to several of them. One chap told us his favourite colour was yellow. It was amazing how he used dots in 4 shades of yellow to tell the story of his father's home country. He had been painting for only 2 years and prior to this he had been a policeman at Ernabella. He is the chairperson of the Artists' Incorporation. Many works were obviously about the nearby Musgrave Ranges.
The rain continued most of the day causing the roads to be treachorous. Luckily both John & Geoff are skilled drivers. We actually come acroos a guy who had completely turned his truck onto the roof. Luckily he was unhurt.
We continued on until we were out of Aboriginal country ro spend another very wet evening camping..we slept for 10 hours warm and dry.
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