Dusty Roads

This painting should be viewed as looking from the sky into the earth, to the soul of our mother earth, seeing our god (rainbow serpent) “woggall” moving within her body. I can’t take recognition for this painting as my ancestors used my form to tell this story. When I started it, I believe it was me with the brush, but as always the spirits used my soul, my mind and my body to talk to you fellas, and they touched me deeply with a new understanding for all life. My people’s basic belief is that all creation came from the mouth of our god woggall and in time all things will return to him. I never felt the awesome truth of that belief until now. The painting is split into three pieces representing the destruction of our mother “Earth”, the bands of colours are the meanings of our destruction, the gold is the goodness of our mother, the red is her blood, and the grey is her sadness, but to you fellas it could be interpreted as monerals, oils and underground water – all the things that are the life blood of our mother. This new tribe, I call the clever tribe, have forgotten that our mother has a heart that beats hot lava, and by sucking all her goodness out of her such as water, oils and minerals, they have deprived her of her bodily functions and she is becoming fragile, her heart is breaking, her lava heart is coming to the surface because thereare no underground waters, oils or minerals to stop her heart from breaking. The anger of her heart is being felt in the forms of earthquakes and her salty tears come to us in the form of big waves that drown us with her sorrow. She is telling us she is hurting, the lines of white dots coming from woggall are all my ancestors from all the tribes that came before me. They can only watch woggall returning all that is his back to himself. The groups of golden dots amongst the red inside of woggall are all the tribes of Mother Earth returning to their creator one by one and I can only feel love for them and you for you do not know what is happening because your eyes are closed to the spirits and to your mother. You see the Earthyou are standing on is the ultimate mother, she feeds us, clothes us and provides all a child could want. In days gone past my people understood the connections between all things being as one thing, to respect mother Earthwas to show respect for all woggall’s creation. We borrow the land from our children and what we do will be their dreaming, their future, so please walk gently on your mother and give her the respect all mothers deserve, don’t break her heart. Written by artist – Dusty Roads – 31/1/05 in Risdon Prison, Hobart, Tasmania.