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Dance Belt

Dance belts are an important cultural component of ceremony. This belt has been made from a mix of bush string, double twisted to form the belt component, along with cotton string for the dangling components. White cockatoo feathers are used at the end of the dangle.

Bush String is incredibly labour intensive to construct. Artists collect Anputput (Kurrajong, pronounced “but but”), and then steam the logs in a fire. Bark is peeled off and the outer darker skin discarded. The softer inner fibre is mashed and separated into usable strips which has a lace-like visual look. From here the strips are rolled – usually on a leg or thigh – and spun into the string form. This alone is very time consuming as the artist needs to create the material from which she weaves. For thicker ropes, this process is repeated so each strand is actually constructed from two pre-constructed strands (four or even more strands in total).

At this point, with a functional material to start with, the artist begins to construct the belt; wrapping, weaving and tying. Raw rope can be colour dyed, or painted using ochre or modern acrylic paint. White cockatoo feathers are often used, along with biddih, or sugar bag bee wax.

Categories: Djilpin Arts Aboriginal Corporation

Name: Sylvia Campion

Language: Kriol, Kune, Rembarrnga

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Sylvia is a talented artist who paints, carves and weaves using a mix of traditional techniques, materials and tools, along with their modern counterparts. Sylvia grew up surrounded by talented artefact makers and absorbed knowledge through a traditional style of apprenticeship. 

Helping her father she learned how to harvest and make a traditional grass reed brush called "munjyelk" or jarlk, and then mastered its use painting ochres and modern acrylics. Her father also taught her the art of wood carving.

Her mother and grandmother taught her the art of weaving and hand making bush string. This was also learned by helping and absorbing bush knowledge such as harvesting, stripping, dying, weaving and rolling. 

"At 20yrs old I started to paint, carve and weave on my own." Now, Sylvia combines all these techniques creating intricate woven sculptures with carved details finely finished using traditional painting techniques.

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