Cockatoos and spider, 28 April 2020

The image arrives in the fluidity of watercolour, swimming into focus. A vista, as is traditional in the longstanding British tradition that really invented watercolour, looks outward to the view. It seems as if the painter may be in control, as if it might be really possible to frame what is all around. But hardwon insights from being with other kinds of artists indicate that in fact the country is looking back at the observer. Those cockatoos and the spider are observing me and taking note, and know precisely what my movements might be through the day. The shapes of the country are inside as well as outside, there is a reciprocity. 

In the story Arachne the weaver from Lydia challenges the high goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Athena weaves the Council of the Gods, but Arachne weaves the gods' transgressions, with the Rape of Europa. Out raged by Arachne's impudence and talent, Athena changes her into a spider. The spider still hides herself and keeps weaving despite her low status. Baraka was the spider woman who made the first funeral baskets in the first funeral ceremony in the Tiwi Islands. Unlike Arachne, her status as a creation ancestor, embedded in country, has never been disputed. 

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Cockatoos and spider' watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 28 April, 2020.