Partinturla (Magpie-lark)

$3,750.00

This is partinturla (magpie-lark). We see him everywhere, down the creek, in Alice Springs, Amoonguna, Ross River. He’s everywhere partinturla. Morning they talking and afternoon time, lunch time too. They here all the time, karnta-time (cold time) wumpia time (hot-time). We always see him. This partinturla is in the bush, there near urlpaiya (the creek), it’s at the Finke River where it goes through Redbank Gorge. All the family go camping there long time. And partinturla there making noise, talkin’.

Anita Ratara 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. Anita attended the Hermannsburg Mission school, and later went on to work in the clinic, teaching the young mothers. She also recalls making moccasins, or ‘fancy work’, for the missionaries. As a young woman, Anita taught herself to paint. 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.