Four seasons in country
$4,250.00
This is four seasons in country.
1. Wumpia time (hot time), mpalha (hot weather). Going to Yupalpa (Glen Helen). Getting together with all the families and taking them for swimming. Everybody’s having fun. Enjoying themselves. Some of them are going to see the gorge and the kids are looking at the little fishes and the big people are watching the kids. Watching them not to go long way. And the other kids they putting line in for fishing and everybody’s doing fishing. Everybody’s catching fish, throwing it on the side. Kids are collecting fish, putting it on the string. And the ones that were swimming are standing next to the fire. They boys are playing football around the sand. And the families sitting round and talking story and waiting for the cuppa tea to be cooked then they’ll drink it. Marra (good).
2. Kwatja time (rainy season) kwatjala nhama (raining). This is my Mum’s Country Alkngarrinja looking out towards my Dad’s Country Mt Sonder, when it’s raining. It’s so beautiful when it’s raining. All the animals, they come out. Looking far theres some camels enjoying the rain. And in front is the horses enjoying running, standing, looking at the rain. Having good running for their energy. And then the little donkeys. They altogether three little donkeys, newborn ones, getting together with the older donkeys. They protecting the little ones from dingo, anything, even the horses too. They enjoying themselves. From the distance it’s raining nice, beautiful. The horses, donkeys, camels, they feel happy, good.
3. Arlpurlpa (springtime). This one is springtime. Standing on the sandhills looking towards Hermannsburg Mountain when the flowers blooming on the sandhills. They’re nice and bright. You see the view and you feel very good and nice when you smell the flowers around you. There’s such different different flowers. Ngkwaarla (honey grevillea), tjinta-tjinta (like yellow daisy, girl flower), and poached egg daisy (boy flower) and parakeelya, the little purple ones. And all the porcupine, the spinifex. And the little trees with the yellow flowers, senna trees.
4. Lhurrpa (winter) karnta time (cold time). This one is way back at homeland, going out bush. Putting big windbreak around to make kwintja (shelter, windbreak). Theres all the little tents and putting big fire. And we all in the tents sitting around inside but theres fire burning outside to keep us warm. Me and my little families there and my Mum. All of the families inside the kwintjia, some of them going to sleep outside in the swags. When its karnta time you go hunting. My husband and the other little families with the kids they went hunting for kangaroo or anything that they can see. Then they’ll hunt and bring some back for us.Then we can sit down have big feast sitting next to the fire. Altogether around the fire.
Beth Inkamala was born in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) and grew up in Ntaria (Hermannsburg), where she observed her aunties working with pottery in the 1990s. In 2014 Beth started working at the Ntaria School as an assistant teacher. In this role she has taken an active part in facilitating the ‘pots that tell stories’ program, supporting the senior artists to mentor the children of Ntaria School. In 2014 Beth started making her own work, developing a distinctive style. Beth is now one of the more ambitious potters of the group, using hand coil technique paired with a contemporary approach to painting. In 2017 Beth was a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards and in 2022 she was a finalist in the Indigenous Ceramic Award at Shepparton Art Museum.
