Conversations with Chris Byrne and artists John Patrick Kelantumama, Mark Virgil Puautjimi and Cyril James Kerinauia, with Sebastian Tipungwuti and Francis John Kerinauia in attendance.

Eddie and Bosco started the pottery in 1972 and after Cyclone Tracy they got a lot of the surviving equipment from Bagot pottery in Darwin and brought it over to the Tiwi Pottery. We used to make local clay by mixing turtiyangini (white clay) with Parrupawurli, a grey clay found behind a local swamp. Eddie and Bosco made all their pots using this clay. Eddie, Bosco and Jock used sgraffito decoration on their pots and we still use that on some of our sculptures today. We would put all the finished work into a two chambered wood kiln, stop up the brick door with clay and fire it to 1200°. We used to stay all night and day taking turns stoking the kiln fire and sitting around telling stories.

We started making sculptures in 1999 and enjoyed making new sorts of work. It is good to express ourselves, our stories, our tradition in a new style with clay. We did small sculptures but after a while we started making bigger work. When we made the smaller work it was ……not as strong, but bigger works like CJ's stretched limo' Hunting party, Marks big Japarra, and Yell's Turtle Boat , they are strong, they make you look at them.

We've got two new boys and we teach them first how to make smaller sculptures and when they're used to it we can show them how to make larger work. The boys have to learn their own style. They have to think about their work and make it different to ours, just like we have to do for a new style. It will be good that people can see our work and learn about what we are doing. They might come up to us and say "What's this?" We can tell them the story of say …. Hunting Party - people going out bush hunting in a car. Or they might ask about the Turtle Boat - teaching them kids how to hunt , that's our cultural way. We teach the young kids how to catch fish and later we teach them how to hunt turtle. Purrukuparli, Japarra, Jinani, Bima, that's our legend. Older generations teaching younger people. That's how we do it today. We tell them about Moon Man, Japarra, brother to Purrukuparli and his story. Like the old people told us a long time ago and we will tell our kids and when we get old and die they will tell their kids.

After a hard week's work in the pottery we may go to the local footy match on a Saturday and spend Sunday out hunting and fishing. We hunt for wallaby, pig, possum, and if we go to the other side (Melville Island), we shoot buffalo. In the sea we fish, catch crab, collect cockle and mangrove worm and hunt turtle and dugong around the islands. At the end of the day we bring it all back to the family for a good Sunday feed.

5th March 2002.
© Tiwi Design and the artists.