About the Artist My first experience with artmaking occurred in Walgett, New South Wales, where my grandmother used to teach me how to weave when I was around ten or eleven, back in the early ’70s. My grandmother at this stage was living in Coonamble and she used to go back and forth from Coonamble to Walgett to visit and just to take me to the river where the grasses grew. And she taught me the right grasses to pick and how to dry them out and weave them – she was a very good inspiration and influence on me at that stage. When I’m weaving it sort of transcends me back to a simpler time and lifespan where I could just sit down by a river and weave and learn different things. Today everything is rushed. It’s hard to describe, but I like to put my whole spirit and soul into what I’m doing, to create my work. It’s hard to explain how I want people to look at my baskets. I want people to enjoy them and to get a sense of what this Country is and what the culture is really about. And I’ve taught quite a lot of young Indigenous girls – actually in prison – to weave. About the Artwork My Grandmother used to make bags like this years ago, for the women when they were out gathering bush fruits and they would use them to carry their goods home.