Page 108 of The Pearl Sister
‘You said yesterday that you were surprised that he painted landscapes, ’cos most Aboriginal artists paint using symbols to depict Dreamtime stories.’
‘Yeah, I was,’ I said.
‘Well, look closer, because Namatjira does the same, just in a different form. I need ta show you what I mean exactly, but when you look at the ghost gums he paints, they’re never just a tree. There’s all kinds of symbolism painted into them. He tells the Dreamtime stories in his landscapes. Understand?’
‘I think so.’
‘He drew the human form into nature – so if you look closely, the knots in a mulga tree are eyes, and there’s one of his paintings where the composition of the landscape – the sky, the hills and trees – all shift and morph, so you’re suddenly looking at the figure of a woman lying on the earth.’
‘Wow!’ I tried to picture this. ‘Ever thought of doing something with your art knowledge, Chrissie?’
‘Like, on a quiz show with “Australian artists of the twentieth century” as my pet subject?’ she chuckled.
‘No, I mean, professionally.’
‘Are you kidding me? The guys that run the art world have studied for years to be curators or agents. Who’d want me?’
‘I would,’ I said. ‘You did a great selling job today. Besides, that woman in the gallery didn’t look as if she had a million degrees in art, yet she was running the joint.’
‘True enough. Right, we’re here. Where d’you want to set up?’
Chrissie helped me spread out the blanket and cushions we’d sneaked out of the hotel room. We sat down in the shade of a ghost gum and drank some water.
‘I’ll take a wander for a while, shall I? Leave you be?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Unlike the artists in that gallery, I wasn’t anywhere near the stage of being able to paint while someone else watched. I sat cross-legged, with the sheet of paper taped onto the wooden-backed canvas. Panic clutched at me, just as it had every time I’d tried to pick up a paintbrush in the past few months.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the hot air, vaguely scented by a minty, almost medicinal, smell that was coming from the gum tree I was leaning against. I thought of who I was – Pa Salt’s daughter, one of the Seven Sisters themselves – and imagined that I had flown down to earth from the heavens and stepped out of the cave into this magnificent, sunlit landscape . . .
I opened my eyes, dipped my brush into the water bottle, mixed it with some colour and began to paint.
* * *
‘How ya doing?’
I jumped, nearly spilling the sludge-coloured water in the bottle all over the painting.
‘Sorry, Cee. You were lost in your own little world, weren’t ya?’ Chrissie apologised as she bent to stand the water bottle back upright. ‘You hungry yet? You’ve been painting for a good coupla hours.’
‘Have I?’ I felt drowsy, as though I’d just woken up from a deep sleep.
‘Yeah. I’ve been sitting in the car with the air con on full blast for the past forty minutes. Strewth, it’s hot out here. I brought ya a bottle of cold water from the car.’ Chrissie handed it to me, and I gulped back the liquid, feeling disorientated. ‘Well?’ Chrissie regarded me quizzically.
‘Well what?’
‘How’d it go?’
‘Er . . .’
I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t know. I looked down at the paper resting on my knees and was amazed to see that what looked like a fully formed painting had somehow arrived onto it.
‘Wow, Cee . . .’ Chrissie peered over my shoulder before I had time to stop her. ‘Just . . . wow! Oh my God!’ She clasped her hands together in delight. ‘I knew it! That’s bloody amazing! Especially considering you’ve only got that crappy little tin of watercolours to work with.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said as I studied the picture. ‘I haven’t got the perspective of the MacDonnell Ranges quite right, and the sky is a bit of a muddy blue because I must have run out of clean water at some point.’
But even as I looked at it, I knew that it was far and away the best watercolour I’d ever painted.
‘Is that a cave?’ Chrissie had crouched down next to me. ‘It looks like there’s a shadowy figure standing in the entrance.’
