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Badger Bates
Badger Bates (William Brian Bates) was raised by his extended family and his grandmother Granny Moysey, with whom he travelled the country, learning about the language, history and culture of the Paakantji people of the Darling River, or Paaka.
When he was about 8 years old Granny Moysey started to teach him to carve emu eggs and make wooden artefacts in the traditional style, carving by ‘feeling through his fingers.’
Badger works in linoprint, wood, emu egg and stone carving, and metalwork, reflecting the motifs, landforms, animals, plants and stories of Paakantji land. His art is an extension of a living oral tradition, and in his work we find the wavy and geometric lines from the region’s wooden artefacts; places of ceremonial and mythological importance; depictions of traditional life such as hunting and gathering bush tucker; and stories about the ancestral spirits; as well as contemporary issues such as the degradation of his beloved Darling River.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Badger Bates', 2007
Courtesy of Badger Bates and Sophie Boord
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Badger Bates', 2007
- I was born in Wilcannia and lived all my young life in Wilcannia, just wandering up to Bourke across to Lake Yellico. I did well because I was a target to be a Stolen Generation, but my poor old grandmother, granny Moysey she outsmarted them by taking me away all the time. And then, also my young life, she learned me how to carve emu eggs and make artifacts. While I was being taken around, I was watching a lot of people carving stuff.
I got into national parks in 1980. And then, I had to move from Wilcannia because the National Parks office was here. Then I met some other artists here and they seen some of my work. So they encouraged me to do my artwork and stuff. When I turned 57, 58, I just had enough of a national parks and just walked away from everything, just to do my artwork.
- This print here, the sculpture of it is down in the city gallery with the plesiosaurus faced toward the White Cliffs. That'll represent White Cliffs. The Ngatyi will face towards the river. That represents when Wilcannia and so with this is the past. We believe the Ngatyi is still in the river. So the past, the future and the two heads together, that's reconciliation. That's how it should be.
- This one here we done a project and there was a woman we was with at Narran Lake. Chrissiejoy Marshall. I done this print and the next one to show that I listened to her story, I listened to her poem. Back in the dreaming was this, like a giant crocodile thing. Guruwa I think they called him. Come and swallowed two women, but it was told me that the Ngatyi swallowed the woman.
- This is the Narran River, flowing into Narran Lake. And Chrissiejoy talked about when she was young. There are lots of yabbies, fish, swarms, emus laying eggs. I done these because see was sick, and when I send her this, it'll cheer her up. And this is falcons on Narran Lake again. And she talked about the black swan, which we called Yunguli, and her eggs are here. And I saw the swans flying away. She talked about fish and others, like cranes and that in the lake.
- This one I call No More Catfish. But when I was small, the catfish would've been in the water. But now, with all the pollution in the Darling River and everything, I put the catfish out of the water. This is sort of little shells that we used to kick the catfish with. The catfish liked them because they was hard to get because they had to be on the underside of a log in the river. And it was hard for the catfish to get, but we broke the shell and put on a hook, and we caught the catfish.
- So today, you very seldom get a cat fish. Maybe this was a carp or pollution, I don't know. But then on the top of the print it's just all black.
- If we don't try and look after the environment a bit more, I'd say our futures is just black. We're going to have nothing. You know? So that's why I just do it in my artwork.
- I find sometimes to go and talk to politicians, it's just a waste of time. Getting up at a meeting and saying this is what you do, and this is what you're doing. Because when us black people do it, lots of times we just trouble making back people. So what I try and do is put my statement in my artwork.
- I like using timber what is already cut down, or dead timber. Because, I can work on it and it'll come at that red color. But then, if I left it in the sun, the sun will cook it. But it won't crack. Where I can't do that with green timber, so that's why I like working with the dry timber. It's harder, but it's better to work with. And sometimes you can see the shapes of the wood, how you want it. And you just go and bring it out.
- I remember the first day I went to school and I was five year old. And I was always fascinated about rubbish and mainly rusted things. And I used to look at TV when I was a kid, said to my poor old grandmother and mom and that this can be that and that can be this. And that's why I've learnt myself to weld and make stuff.
- My backyard it's just full of rusted bits of steel and that, but I got to have bits of rubbish and that to inspire me. And that's why all this stuff is laying around here to turn to artwork one day. Like when I'm welding steel, I just through everything down on the ground or in the pavings here. Just sit and stare at it for a while then I can get it together in my mind and just pick it all up and put together.
- So these old saw blades, right, now this is the saw blade they cut the wood with. They put them in mind of echidnas see. So what I do , I draw the echidna and then I cut it all out with a plasma cutter. It comes out like that.
- You know, in some of my artwork you'll see who dad was, who mom was. So if I do a fish, I'll do a fish of our dad seen fish on the outside. So that's for dad. And then on the inside of the fish, or an emu, or kangaroo, or goanna, I'll put the intestine and everything because that's from mom's side, us because us black people we do eat the intestines out of the fish and all that.
- You know, we just use it as medicine, on dad's mob they filet the fish and cut the bone and throw it away. And why I like working in black and white is because it puts me in mind of my mom and dad. But also, put me in mind of myself.
- I always say that I got two cultures. I got a black culture, I got a white culture because of mom and dad. I've got two gods. Because we got, Guluwa, our dreaming, the we got Jesus Christ because I want to Catholics school. And then I got two laws, I got the black people's law and I got the white fellows law, you know. And I respect them both.
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Badger Bates discusses his art, his creative process and his concerns: primarily the degradation of the Darling River and the billabongs once full of fish that are now too polluted or have dried up completely.
Badger (William Brian) Bates is a Paakatji man, born in Wilcannia, New South Wales. He is best known for his linoprints, but also works in wood, emu egg and stone carving, and metalwork.
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Badger Bates talks about Country', 2007
Courtesy of Badger Bates and Sophie Boord
Film - Sophie Boord, 'Badger Bates talks about Country', 2007
BADGER BATES: Around Wilcannia and us Barkindji people, we are Barker indji. This means we're the Darling river black people, right? And then from that is Bilura (?), that's the wedge-tailed eagle. That's who I am. White people say that's our totem and that, but we call it-- that's are our ---, that's our me. That's who I am. But my brother and sisters are dingo and a bandicoot. So why they do this then is to say, I'm an eagle. So I can't kill the wedge-tailed eagle.
But when they give me the dingo and the bandicoot as brother and sister, I protect them. So I can't eat those two animals. But I'll eat a lot of other stuff. There's goannas and-- so you protect these three, because you don't go and eat your family. But you've got all this other stuff to eat. And it does make sense, too, because you look after something. So on the river, we've got special places where we can go and swim and make a lot of noise.
But there's places where the old people say where Ngatyi lives, the rainbow serpent. We call him Ngatyi. So old people say "Ngatyi yapara." This mean this is the rainbow serpent's house. Here you don't swim. You don't make a lot of noise. And we sit down and we throw some stones in the water, and we sit there quiet. Ngatyi, to us Barkindji people, is one of the creators. And when they created the landscape, they left us a lot of things-- porcupine, emu, kangaroo, and fish in the river they made. So we've got to give them something back and we've got to respect where they live.
To grow cotton, say, up around Bourke, and ----? that's bad. What they put on us and on you fellas, there's certain times you can go and catch a fish, the cod when they're spawning. But yet the fish might be spawning, fair enough. We look after it. But they don't put the conditions on the people that's pumping the water out. The fish are breeding. Don't pump the water out. They just let them do because they've got this license. But then on the people, whether you're black or white, they'll put conditions on you.
We've got to follow those conditions. But the big developers, they don't have to, because they've got the money and they've got the government behind them. I think it was about three weeks ago, these fellas-- the guy out with the fisheries get the fish from one big water hole, put them in a boat, and take them to another one to try and save them. This is what's going on. But over here when you talk to the politicians, they don't care.
And they get up and they say, our kids, our future. Well they're killing the river, and that's the future value of Broken Hill. It's stupid.
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"In this linoprint the plesiosaur is the past, and the Ngatyi is the future. The Ngatyi went through the area and laid around at White Cliffs where they found a plesiosaur made out of opal.
To us Paakantyi people the Plesiosaur is the same as the Ngatyi, you should leave it alone. We were told that opal was left by the Ngatyi and that it is sacred. I know today that opal is valuable, but if us Paakantyi people went to Scotland and seen the Loch Ness monster we’d say it is a Ngatyi and we would respect it and leave it alone.
There must have been a lot of weed and lot of food when the plesiosaur was swimming around, but if you look up the top where the Ngatyi swims with the flow of the water, that’s today. But the water is disappearing and the Ngatyi and the Paakantyi people are very broken hearted. Ngatyi blew the rainbow over the top of the sun.
When the two heads come together in the print, that stands for reconciliation, as the past and the present and the future all come together."
Linoprint
25 x 37cm
Print - Badger Bates, 'Nhatji Yarilana', 1997
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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Badger Bates (William Brian Bates) was brought up by his extended family and his grandmother Granny Moysey, who spoke several languages and knew many songs and stories. With his grandmother he travelled the country learning about the language, history and culture of the Paakantji people of the Darling River, or Paaka.
Badger works in linoprint, wood, emu egg and stone carving and metalwork. His art reflects the motifs, landform, animals and plants and stories of Paakantji land which includes Mutawintji and the Darling River. When he was about eight years old his grandmother started to teach him to carve emu eggs and make wooden artefacts in the traditional Paakantji style. From her he learnt to carve by ‘feeling through his fingers.’
Badger is best known for his linoprints. This is a medium he adopted when he began to carve lino with the designs he had been carving on emu eggs since he was a child. The new medium enabled him to expand the scope of the designs and present more complicated compositions. The motifs and designs used by Badger are based on the region’s rock engravings, painted and stencilled pigment art and the wavy and geometric designs carved into wooden artefacts.
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"Granny used to catch cod at the Iron Pole one mile out of Wilcannia on the eastern side of the river. We used to go and fish there, at the big bend in the river and that’s where Granny’s fishing spot was.
She used to sit on a bare patch there, we call it a stony bank. It’s like limestone sort of stuff and it’s a good place to fish and then also across the river that’s where she seen the Water Dog. She used to go to this spot because we lived not far away and Granny used to fish there all the time."
Linoprint
79 x 37cm
Print - Badger Bates, 'No More Catfish', 2004
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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"When I was small we used to catch a lot of catfish, and all little shells was inside the catfish. Very seldom you get ‘em now cause, I don’t know the river must be polluted.
We used to smash those little shells, and use em for bait. Granny’d tell us to lift a log up cause they used to stick on the logs, and we got em and put em on the fishhook, shell and all. The catfish loved to eat em. When we put the log back we weren’t allowed to push the log, it’d break the shell, we just had to do it steady, we had to keep up the bait supply. You see in this lino print some river mussels and some yabbies and some weed. That weed is different to the other weed with the flower on it. We used to catch fish on that weed. On one part of the river you’d go and there was a lot of weed growing, so we’d get it and put it in the billy can and take it to the other bend in the river and we’d catch a lot of black bream.
The catfish is out of the water in this print because today we can’t get catfish, very seldom do you get a catfish. Well you get none really, and I called it ‘no more catfish’, and that’s why it’s out of the water. If you look at the bottom of this print that’s how the river used to be when I was a kid. I moved the catfish out because you can’t catch it now so it’s out of the water and then the black at the top, represents the end. It’s the end if we don’t look after everything. Yeah, it’s the end of the ecosystem."
Linoprint
75 x 37cm
Print - Badger Bates, 'Wimpatja Paakana Nhaartalana (Me fishing on the Darling River), 2004
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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"Wimpatja Paakana Nhaartalana is me fishing on the Darling River and what I tried to do in this print was to go back to the time before when we had a fishing spear, like the old people used to do it.
When I was a kid we sued to make spears out of wire, bull wire, and go and spear fish because the water was real clean and it’s not any more. We used to dive for fish and you could see ‘em really plain and you could see em even 8 or 10 feet away from you sometimes, 8 feet easy."
Linoprint
61 x 39cm
Print - Badger Bates, 'One Mile Billabong', 2005
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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"This is a turtle and inside the stomach is some weed. Down the bottom you see some mussels and weed that the turtle has eaten. As you walk along, if you scare something and on a sunny day it will swim away from you and you can see light underneath it and that’s why that light was there.
So this lino print means that the turtle was out on the edge of the water, out on the edge eating the weeds and someone come along and they frightened it and it swims away and that’s why I just got the wavy lines moving away and the funny ripples.
The billabong was important to get yabbies and shrimps, and a good place to get mussels. We was allowed to go there when we was kids because it was safe to have a swim, but we was never allowed to swim in the river on our own.
We never had yabby nets, but sometimes we’d make shrimp cans which we put bait into to catch shrimps and yabbies. A shrimp can is a large tin can with lots of holes punched in it, and rope or wire tied to it to pull it out of the water with. At times we’d go up onto the red sand hill near the One Mile Billabong, and get a lot of roly poly grubs to eat, and then we’d get the roly poly bush and put it in the billabong and it acts like a yabby net.
Its best to carry the bushes along on a stick because it’s got burrs on it. Sometimes the wind would blow some bushes in and then if we wanted yabbies all these roly polys were already set, and the yabbies would get in em. we’d throw the bushes out and that’s how we caught our yabbie."
Linoprint
43 x 73 cm
Print - Badger Bates, 'Echidna Feeding after Rain', 2004
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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This lino print relates back near One Mile Billabong, there’s a red sandhill and we got a lot of porcupine from there, echidnas. I put the little ants in because porcupine eats ants and sometimes I put something in the stomach in my linos.
We eat a lot of echidna, best time to go and get them is after rain cause they’re easy to track. If you try and track em in sandy country and you don’t know about echidnas, you track em backwards because the back foot is back to front. But in the rainy time you see the three big toes they stick in the ground and you can track em easily.
Linoprint
70 x 37 cm
Sculpture - Badger Bates, 'Echidna', 2004
Courtesy of Badger Bates
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The steel sculpture uses a circular saw blade with a reinforced steel push bike chain, and motor bike chain. I like finding materials that are funny shapes and I sit down and make things out of it.
I always say someone else’s rubbish is another person’s treasure. I could see that the saw blade looked like a porcupine, so I just wanted to muck around with it. I learnt myself to weld and I just wanted to see what I could do with it. When I was a kid, we had an old tin hut and we used to have to get our building material and stuff to make our own toys from the rubbish tip.
We lived on the eastern side of the river and the rubbish tip was on the south western side and we were ashamed to come across the bridge in the day, or we’d wait until one or two o’clock in the morning, and then we’d come across the bridge in the dark.
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The pelican is always at the Iron Pole, even now, right in the bend. You’ll see this reddish looking weed but it’s got a yella flower, we weren’t allowed to swim in that area because the weed is like a vine and Granny used to tell us we could get downed if we got caught up in it.
Even when I was a kid, pelicans used to hang around there all the time and even now, well you see the pelicans. A lot of young fish live in that weed and the Iron Pole is one of the few places where the weed grows.
