Tjanpi basket, Angaliya Mitchell, Papulankutja (34x26cm)

• Artist - Angaliya Mitchell
• Community - Papulankutja (Blackstone)
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Tjanpi Desert Weavers
• Catalogue number - 2284/15
• Materials - Woven Basket
• Size(cm) - Width26cm Length 34cm Height 7-8cm

Tjanpi (meaning ‘dry grass’) evolved from a series of basket weaving workshops held on remote communities in the Western Desert by the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunyjatjara Womens’ Council in 1995. Building on traditons of using fibre for medicinal, ceremonial and daily purposes, women took easily to making coiled baskets. These new-found skills were shared with relations on neighboring communities and weaving quickly spread. Today there are over 400 women across 28 communities making baskets and sculptures out of grass and working with fibre in this way is firmly embedded in Western and Central Desert culture. While out collectng desert grasses for their fibre art women visit sacred sites and traditional homelands, hunt and gather food for their families and teach their children about country. Tjanpi Desert Weavers is Aboriginal owned and is directed by an Aboriginal executive. It is an arts business but also a social enterprise that provides numerous social and cultural benefits and services to weavers and their families. Tjanpi’s philosophy is to keep culture strong, maintain links with country and provide meaningful employment to the keepers and teachers of the desert weaving business.

Angaliya was born in the late 1950s in the bush at Tjurntu, a Honey Ant Dreaming site near Mantamaru (Jameson). She spent her childhood living nomadically with her parents, travelling the land on foot in the region around the present day communies of Pipalyatjara, Irryuntju and Papulankutja. She had no official schooling but learnt all the laws of the bush. Her mother and grandmother were very senior law women and handed many ceremonial responsibilies to Angaliya including shared custodianship of the Seven Sisters site at Kuruyala. As a young woman Angaliya worked for a while making meals for old people at Amata, where she met and married Mr Mitchell. They have four children, Sophie, Rex, James and Prudence, and form a very strong family unit. They live today at Papulankutja (Blackstone) community in remote WA. Angaliya is a proper bush woman and her quiet reserve and intense focus are the hallmarks of everything she does. She is an accomplished weaver, painter and wood carver and also enjoys to make bush medicines and bush ashes. Angaliya is a well known and successful weaver and has been weaving since the inial bush workshop held near Blackstone in 1995. She was taught by Kanytjupayi Benson helped her with some of her sculptures over the years. Angaliya was central to the core group of weavers from Blackstone who made the Big Basket in 2000 and later the Telstra Award winning Tjanpi Toyota in 2005. She has travelled and taught weaving all over the country and is well known for her carefully craed baskets and quirky small scale animals and figures.

Made from a combination of native desert grasses, seeds and feathers, commercially bought raffia (sometimes dyed with native plants), string and wool, Tjanpi artworks are unique, innovative and constantly evolving. Some baskets and sculptures contain raffia which is purchased in Australia, imported from Madagascar. Natural hanks of raffia can sometimes be dyed with commercial dyes and less often with natural dyes. Most popular grass used in artworks is Minarri (greybeard grass, Amphipogon caricirus)

We realise that it's not always easy buying artworks sight unseen but we are so confident that you're going to absolutely love them when they turn up that if for any reason you change your mind or you're not feeling the feng shui you can return them within 14 days for a full refund.

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