Bush Babies

“When I started doing research about my background and my family, I was forty and I started finding out who I was and where I came from, who were my people. My artwork is all representing children, children that were taken away. So that’s how I tell my story, I tell all my stories in my artwork.”

“These dolls represent my grandchildren and their connection to country. I did the dolls attached to the placenta because my daughter and I buried the placentas of my two grandchildren under a tree at the Old Cottages site at New Norcia. The reason we did that is because we know from the stories we’ve been told, like my mother and her children when they were born, the placentas were buried in the gardens around the cottages. The butterfly represents new life. During the burial ceremony, we had a beautiful butterfly with us.”