Anita Ratara is a senior artist at Hermannsburg Potters and is highly regarded for her confident and colourful painting of Country. Anita was ‘born bush’ in the alukura (women’s camp) near Hermannsburg in 1943. She is the mother of prominent potter Hayley Coulthard. Anita’s youngest daughter Alizha is an emerging artist also working with the Hermannsburg Potters. She attended the Hermannsburg Mission school, and later went on to work in the clinic, teaching the young mothers who had children. She also recalls making moccasins, or ‘fancy work’, for the missionaries. As a young woman, Anita showed natural ability in the arts and crafts, teaching herself to paint from an early age. She recalls being taught pottery by Naomi Sharp in the early 1990s, when the pottery program was located at the outstations. Now at eighty years of age, Anita continues to dedicate herself to art and comes to work at the Pottery every day, inspiring and teaching younger artists and family members. Anita mostly depicts Palm Valley in her work, of which she is a Traditional Owner. Palm Valley is Anita’s grandfather’s Country, and she continues to assert her links with her Country through her art and to share her invaluable stories.
