Tjanpi basket, Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Warakurna (30-31cm)

• Artist - Eunice Yunurupa Porter
• Community - Warakurna
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Tjanpi Desert Weavers
• Catalogue number - 2628/14
• Materials - Woven Basket, Grass and raffia
• Size(cm) - Diameter 30-31cm, 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.

Eunice was born in 1948 at Wirrkural near Lulpu on the Jameson road out of the Warburton Ranges. As a young girl she spent me in the Warburton mission. Eunice later moved to Warakurna when she married the senior custodian of Warakurna country. She worked as a healthworker at the Docker River clinic and also as a cook in the community dining room. Eunice is diversely talented arst and an accomplished painter and dancer. In 2000 she danced as part of the NPY presentaon at the Olympic Games Ceremony in Sydney and was one of the principal dancers for the Ngaanyatjarra Tjurlku at the Perth Internaonal Arts Fesval. Eunice is a proficient weaver making both baskets and fibre sculptures from desert grasses, such as minarri, growing close to her home at Warakurna. She has been making baskets since the inial workshops were facilitated by NPY Womens' Council in 1995 and has passed weaving skills on to many women in her region. Eunice has recently begun to make sculptural work drawing on animals prevalent in Ngaanyatjarra Lands as inspiraon, whether they be ‘camp dogs’ on the community or goannas, porcupines, or rabbits hunted out bush. These scultptural works are just as oen inspired by ancestral figures from the tjukurrpa. Eunice is an extremely acve member of her community. She has been an execuve member for NPY Women's Council a number of mes and is now an advocacy worker for the NPY aged care project as well as chair of Warakurna Arsts. As well as making baskets and fibre sculptures and paining she likes to find plant materials for bush dyes and to make the bush medicine, irramangka irramangka which is extremely popular. Tjanpi (meaning ‘dry grass’) evolved from a series of basket weaving workshops held on remote communies in the Western Desert by the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunyjatjara Womens’ Council in 1995. Building on tradions of using fibre for medicinal, ceremonial and daily purposes, women took easily to making coiled baskets. These newfound skills were shared with relaons on neighbouring communies and weaving quickly spread. Today there are over 400 women across 28 communies 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 collecng desert grasses for their fibre art women visit sacred sites and tradional 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 execuve. 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

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)

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