Jennifer Mitchell

Title of painting: Minyma Kutjara

Jennifer was born in 1955 and is one of Blackstone's artistic Gems. Jennifer has been painting since 2008 and is a natural colourist and has a delicate touch with her unique dotting style. Over the course of the last five months I have witnessed Jennifer develop as a painter from strength to strength incorporating what works well in a work and finding new ways to strengthen what works. With this process of development Jennifer has created a unique style of painted dabbles with a brush which are overlaid with a delicate dotting from the sharp end of a stick. She paints the country, looking down from the sky, imagining the delicate dappling of the spinifex and grass overlaying the hardness of the rock surfaces beneath. You really do get a sense of flying over the country, looking down at the painting while standing above it, and you get the sense of wanting to 'jump in' to the country. Jennifer knows this country well, the clay pans, the hills, the dry creek beds and soaks and the sand dunes and with this knowledge she is transported back to country as she paints it from above. Painting is a way of life for Jennifer and day by day she crosses lines between painting country and visiting country and the two become one with the power of country being felt within the delicate dotting of her work.

AUSTRADE VISITORS

A hive of activity

The Blackstone Festival Begins!

The festivities have been wonderful. We have had many visitors and volunteers arrive. There has been a cloths stall and Beauty salon run by the ladies from Wiluna Community. They have also provided their amazing large geen 4WD Bus for the dancing activities lead by Jodie Lane from Margaret river. We had many smiling faces crammed into the bus as they disappeared for well over 4 hrs of dancing and 'painting up'.

The glass blowers have been the usual hit with the kids lining up for a go. Our performance Artists of the 'Melting pot Crew' have also been busy entertaining establishing group participation with the school performance program.

Today will be a big day with the arrival of the DESART MOB from Alice Springs as well as visiting art centres for Art centre talks and discussion, also Desart will be hosting the wednesday night Community BBQ!!!

Another highlight today will be the anticipated visit from the 'Clown Doctor' (rumour has it that we was trained by Patch Adams himself).

The energy levels of the community have been well on the 'up' and we hope to continue the happiness levels of our community well into the next week with many more festivities to go - with a Movie night, Disco Night and sports events on the weekend will finish off the event.

Many Happy Blackstone Festival Returns to ALL!

Glass Art - Festival Time 2009

Hello everybody. It has been a wonderful week here at Blackstone with the start of our annual Blackstone Festival. The images depicted here are close ups of our glass work activities. Our friends from Margaret river come out every year for the festival to teach kids and adults alike the wonderful craft of Glass Blowing. The colours are magical and the process is mesmerizing.