Across the desert

Aboriginal Batik from Central Australia

Fregon

In the early 1970s the batik technique spread to an associated Pitjantjatjara community, Fregon (Kaltjiti community), established as an outstation of Ernabella in 1961. The women were inspired by the Ernabella example to invent their own forms of batik. In contrast to Ernabella, figurative depictions of flora and fauna are often blended with abstract curvilinear designs that evoke topographical features of the land. In further contrast, strong designs are conceptualised with the entire length of the batik in mind rather than the fine repeated symmetry of Ernabella lengths. When some of the Fregon artists went to Indonesia as part of a cultural exchange program in 1975, the Indonesian artists were surprised and impressed with the quality and integrity of the work without the use of stencils.

The catalyst for a quantum leap in batik quality occurred later in October 1975. The Fregon artists attended a batik workshop with Danish artist Vivianne Bertelson at Ernabella. She was skilled in the use of various wax recipes and napthol and permanent indigosol dyes. The artists were thrilled with the new bright strong colours and quickly learnt how to prepare the separate dye baths of napthol and diazo salt. The women created detailed colour charts to use as mixing guides. Vivianne’s wax recipes were quite complex so the women simplified them: pure beeswax was best for fine lines and colour blocks while pure paraffin created a wild crackle. The broad brush strokes for spiky spinifex bushes required a mixture of both waxes. Vivianne had insisted that the women draw the design out first on the white fabric with a pencil and then start the waxing/dyeing process. However, once back at Fregon the women reverted to spontaneously applying the wax to the blank space. This freed their intuitive sense of design and balance.