This Place
The past leaves traces everywhere. Juanita McLauchlan is an artist from Gamilaraay Country living on Wiradjuri land. Both are huge tracts of what is now called New South Wales, and she is connected to both. This is a familiar Aboriginal Australian story. But whether resettlement on another’s Country resulted from early colonial conquests and settlements, was caused by various government interventions in the twentieth century, or derives from employmentdriven diasporas, the consequences are always emotionally complex. They run deep. Everything McLauchlan makes starts from this place, this understanding: that a person’s history, inheritances, loves, and relationships are shaped by the conjunction of Country and family circumstance.
An essential part of McLauchlan’s own life story, as part of an Aboriginal diaspora, is her ineradicable emotional bond with family members. Here, in in gii mara-bula/Heart Hand-also, the two come together most precisely in the marriage of introduced woollen blankets, a staple of Aboriginal families since European colonization, with plants that grow in this region today.
Having lived in Wagga Wagga for more than 20 years, McLauchlan knows this terrain; her eco-printed blankets, marked by direct contact with branches, bark and leaves from local trees and shrubs, mirror back the beauty of Wiradjuri Country. With this work she embraces the flora of this fertile beautiful region. Locals will recognise the foliage of endemic plants, including the lovely broad leaves of Red-box (Eucalyptus polyanthemos) and the casuarina’s spindly needles (Allocasuarina torulosa/Forest she-oak); ironically, the leaves that McLauchlan uses most come from the mighty Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus), the official floral emblem of the State where she spent a good part of her youth; there are Tasmanian Blue Gums near TAFE NSW Wagga Wagga, where she works, and along the railway line in Ashmont, just west of the city. Look at the exquisite yuruum bulaarr/Two paths (2022). In this pair of blankets McLauchlan works with printmaking’s capacity for duplication and duality: the golden colour of the homely blanket, over printed with black; then there are the doubled sprays of Tasmanian Blue Gum leaves along each blanket; finally, the sinuous central spine
brings the two together, forever linked but always separate.
Using foliage in eco-printing on fabric is a recent development from McLauchlan’s training in printmaking, and her exploration of the textures of Country over 15 years with techniques including woodcut, etching, screen-print, and collograph, all on paper. In the woodcut Permission (2020), for example, she followed lines in the plywood to reveal shivering patterns on delicate Japanese rice-paper that might evoke reflections in water, or perhaps tree bark; in early 2022, she made the ‘Light and Shadow’ series of collographs, suggesting the surfaces of rocks found on Country, textures the artist loves and reveres as fundamental to her respect for place.
Legacies remain from McLauchlan’s previous work, as her printmaker’s repertoire has expanded. Here the small, reiterated marks seen on fabric patches on Everywhen, for example, were seen in McLauchlan’s ‘Tea and Time’ print series, exhibited at The Curious Rabbit, Wagga Wagga, in May 2022; these refer to mattress ticking, and then, by analogy, to the ticking of a clock, and to the passing of time. In mirii/Stars (2023) the sparkling stitches sketching the stars are golden; they mark the time of the cosmos.
After a solid apprenticeship in printmaking, McLauchlan was ready to embrace a larger project. At the invitation of Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, and with its support, she embarked on a major body of work for this solo exhibition. The relatively recent technique of eco-printing offered McLauchlan a more direct and expansive way of exploring her fascination with Country. From the beginning of 2022, with the advice and guidance of Julie Montgarrett, the distinguished artist based in Wagga Wagga, she began to experiment with this Australian technique, pioneered by India Flint from South Australia.2 It is a mysterious business. Contact prints of all kinds— rubbings, monotypes, photograms, and eco-prints—do not disclose their images until the final moment. In this serendipitous process revelation is withheld until the dyeing is complete. Until then, what is happening inside the wrapped blankets, closely bound by string and sitting in a huge vessel of steaming water, is hidden from the artist; the embrace of the foliage, the imprint of the leaves, seeds
and wood, happens inside, unseen. The trade-off is the astonishing immediacy of the marks, vibrant clear traces left of what once was here, and is still here now: transformed into lasting insistence.
The largest work is an enormous gathering of many blankets, in many sizes. The ‘super-quilt’ mama-la-y-laya/Will always stick together (2023) suggests how family shares warmth, comfort, and security. Sourced from second-hand stores, these blankets had previous lives. Now they are stitched together in the city that named the ‘wagga’, an Australian bush quilt made from burlap sacks, and recycled clothes and blankets. Waggas were popular in rural Australia between the Depression of the 1890s through to the 1930s; they may have been named for Wagga Lily flour sacks, used by the Murrumbidgee Co-operative Flour Mill, so are sometimes called ‘Murrumbidgee blankets’.3
McLauchlan’s conjoined blankets belong here, in Wagga Wagga. In every sense. Country, woollen blankets, family: these hang together. The title mama-la-y-laya/Will always stick together states the artist’s thinking: she says Wagga Wagga supports and nurtures her family.4 This is an emblem of present-ness in place, for the future: we were here; we are still here; we will always be here.
Juanita McLauchlan
mirii/Stars (detail) 2023
Woollen blanket, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, polyester thread, 204 x 107cm.
Those families
McLachlan’s printed blankets offer enfolding warmth, comfort, safety and security. From working with printed blankets, McLauchlan came to the thought of ‘being wrapped’ in possum-fur blankets and capes. It is a way of speaking to her Aboriginal heritage, a way to explore family relationships. Soft sumptuous wearable possumfur, with its waterproof skin, is one of the great portable glories of Aboriginal Australian cultures; in pre-colonial times, possum-fur capes, cloaks and blankets were used over much of the continent, from childhood until death: the baby’s blanket gradually became the adult’s cloak, essential for survival in harsher climates.5 Today possums are protected in Australia, so the brushtail possum skins, tails and fur used in McLauchlan’s work were ethically sourced from Aotearoa New Zealand, where introduced Australian possums are an environmental problem.6
Possum-fur is beautiful stuff: warm, dense, in many deep tones of grey, brown, russet, black, even ginger. The sensual effect of the enormous woollen and possum-fur blankets is extraordinary: every surface is soft, light-absorbing. The entire space is sensual, alive. This sense of gentle smoothness, of reassurance, is what a blanket always promises, from childhood to old age. This is a calm haven, a place of affection and reassurance. Of love.
And this labour was born of love. Over the last year, McLauchlan has learned to stitch possum furs together with the flat stitch she has observed on historical cloaks, such as those held in the Melbourne Museum, and indeed on the many wonderful contemporary cloaks being made in the recent revival of making possum-fur capes by Aboriginal artists and communities. With McLauchlan’s double-sided cloak/blankets, we see distinct innovation. Long separated physically from her grandmother’s Gamilaraay Country, near Kootingal close to modern-day Tamworth, and culturally distant from aspects of her heritage through time and family circumstances, McLauchlan does
not aspire to making possum-fur cloaks from within community customary practices. She is an artist, drawing on multiple heritages, which also include materials and tools brought to this continent by the colonisers. And these can be turned to good account. Like wool, cotton thread is an introduced European material; for the artist, the red thread she uses symbolises unbroken ties of blood through the generations. For McLauchlan celebrates inheritances from sides of her family, and of herself, both Aboriginal and English.
The dual sources of these legacies are most directly, even trenchantly, embodied in giirr ngiyani gulagamalaylaya/We will always hold each other (2022), where possum-fur and woollen blanket are joined back-to-back: here the woollen wagga is married with a possum-fur cape, and the family’s histories are sewn together, with both Aboriginal and European stitches that were used historically. Each inheritance is valuable, each is a source of warmth and protection, a token of love and care. The woollen side is stitched with cotton thread, the stitch revealing the hand of the maker and, in a wider sense, marking the passing of time. (Look for the Australian copper coins sewn into the piece.)
guuymaylaya/Gathering (2023) is, in another way, a genealogical chart of extended family. The linked forms are metaphors of association between family and community members, across generations. Despite the injustices and hardships imposed on Aboriginal families and communities since the arrival of Europeans on this continent, this gathering of possum-fur circles suggests that unbroken feelings of connection remain and will stay strong into the future. McLauchlan says of this exhibition, ‘…gii mara bula/Heart Hand-also expresses my understanding as an Aboriginal person of continuities over time, that I share time with both ancestors and descendants.’
Juanita McLauchlan
gulagamaldaya/Hold (detail) 2023
Woollen blankets, undyed and contact printed with she-oak needles; 12 brushtail possum tails and fur.
Juanita McLauchlan
from Standing at the heart of seven generations II (detail) 2023
15 necklaces, woollen blankets contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, undyed and screenprinted; possum fur, cotton thread.
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Juanita McLauchlan
from Standing at the heart of seven generations II (detail) 2023
15 necklaces, woollen blankets contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, undyed and screenprinted; possum fur, cotton thread.
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Those languages
If guuymaylaya/Gathering (2023) is a genealogy expressed in possum-fur, Standing at the heart of seven generations II (2023) is a way of charting family through time. This suite of 15 wearable possum-fur necklaces points to McLauchlan’s sense of being located at the juncture of seven generations from the past, with seven more to come, a way of marking time often mentioned in Native American genealogies that appeals to McLauchlan’s own sense of familial continuity. In early 2022, a grant from Regional Futures allowed her to purchase her first possum furs and work up this idea, first expressed in the set of possum-fur necklaces entitled Standing at the heart of seven generations I (2022). It’s fitting that this sense of family connection is embodied in necklaces, intimate pieces of body adornment so often gifted between the generations and prized for their associations with loved family members.
Now, McLauchlan is a collector of stones and beads; she has made jewellery for herself, friends, and family members for about 25 years. She greatly values the diminutive necklaces of the Standing at the heart of seven generations project, believing these can have as much impact on their wearers, and carry many of the same connotations, as possum-fur capes and wraps: the artist thinks having the possum ‘curled up around oneself’ is an exciting prospect. Each necklace is quite distinct, and is embellished with fine details; however, all feature McLauchlan’s signature red thread, and all coil around a substructure of woollen blanket strips. Eventually, working with these wearable pieces led to her decision to make possum-fur blankets, and then to the making of the remarkable group of five over-size hanging sculptural forms, based on the wearable necklaces.
Titled in Gamilarray as well as in English, these enormous necklaces from 2022-23 allude to the disruptions and traumas of the past, in words from the language that McLauchlan’s forebears once spoke, as well as the colonisers’ English. Look at guma-nhu/Broken, or yuluurrin-may-bidi/Big loss: the discontinuous forms allude to dislocation, as well as to continuity. More pungently, there is banggabaa wagirrma-y/White washed. Importantly, the necklaces also look to the future: one is titled yuraldaya/Growing. With their looping forms, McLauchlan sees these necklaces expressing
generations of Aboriginal memory, gathered from those behind her, and signalling to those still to come. Here size does matter— these grand necklaces, on a monumental public scale, honour the continuities through millennia of Aboriginal making and symbolic systems.
Importantly, the large possum-fur ‘necklaces’ are transliterations; McLauchlan borrows the language of jewellery-making in stone and shell to make sculptures. By mobilising an existing language of making to create works of such scale, McLauchlan signals that she is moving between two worlds, and two ways of making and being. That she is, in a sense, moving with and between two languages, as her titles imply, and is accepting of both.
The large hanging necklaces are, in the end, only the most spectacular instance of how Juanita McLauchlan holds onto Country, and her dual family inheritances, and the ways this artist embraces the challenges of being a woman of two cultures, two Countrys. For this commitment to affection and respect—for inheritance, family and Country—runs through the entire body of her work. And this is offered to us here, in our encounter with it. As McLauchlan’s great soft eucalypt-scented blankets settle around our shoulders, even if only in our imagining, Country embraces us with the warmth of its blessing. Wrapped in Country, in family stories, and in memory, we are all stronger.
Julie Ewington May, 2023
Juanita McLauchlan from Standing at the heart of seven generations II (detail) 2023 15 necklaces, woollen blankets contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, undyed and screenprinted; possum fur, cotton thread.
Notes
1. The term ‘everywhen’, now used to suggest Aboriginal concepts of continuous time, was first introduced by the Australian anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner in his 1953 essay ‘The Dreaming’. About Aboriginal concepts of spiritual authority and law, Stanner wrote:’ One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen.’. See (edited Robert Manne) The Dreaming & Other Essays, Melbourne: Black Inc. Agenda, 2011, Kindle edition, loc. 953. See also every when: Australia and the language of deep history, (edited Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker and Jakelin Troy), Sydney: UNSW Press, 2023, for contemporary considerations of Aboriginal notions of time and history, and (edited Stephen Gilchrist), Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Art Museums, 2016, for an excellent account of relationships between historical and contemporary Indigenous artists.
2. The advice of Dr. Julie Montgarrett and the resources of the TAFE NSW Wagga Wagga were essential to McLauchlan’s development of eco-printed works. India Flint’s pioneering Eco Colour: Botanical dyes for beautiful textiles (first published 2008) is a key reference for the technique, although McLauchlan and Montgarrett have developed their own particular dye formulas. See also Local Colour: Experiments in nature, curated by Liz Williamson for UNSW Galleries, Sydney, 2018, for an excellent account of contemporary eco-printing including work by Australian, Indian, North American, and European makers. See https:// artdesign.unsw.edu.au/unsw-galleries/local-colour. At the same time, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s commitment to regional artists and their development brought artist Helen Grace and myself to the Gallery for three residencies between May and October 2022, with a large part of that project devoted to professional development opportunities for the region’s artists. Juanita McLauchlan’s work was selected for this solo exhibition in mid-2022, with me as curator. The artist was supported to make this work by the 2022 Windmill Trust Scholarship for regional NSW artists, awarded by the Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).
3. For an excellent introduction to waggas, see https://www.geelongaustralia.com.au/nwm/collection/waggaproject/ documents/item/, accessed 30 April 2023.
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4. All comments by the artist are from interviews and emails with the author between May 2022 and May 2023.
5. For fine introductions to the history of possum skin cloaks and their contemporary revival, see https://australian.museum/learn/firstnations/possum-skin-cloaks-then-and-now/, and https://aiatsis.gov. au/explore/possum-skin-cloak, both accessed 30 April 2023. See also Vicki Louise Couzens, Possum Skin Cloak Story: Reconnecting Communities and Culture: Telling the Story of Possum Skin Cloaks Kooramookyan-an Yakeeneeyt-an Kooweekoowee-yan, Melbourne: RMIT University, 2011.
6. The common brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, was first introduced to New Zealand from Australia in 1837 to establish a fur trade. They are now widespread across most of New Zealand and have been involved in the extinction of numerous indigenous animal species. The New Zealand Government’s Predator Free 2050 program is working towards ‘an Aotearoa where our native species are safe from extinction and thrive alongside us…’
Reference: https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animalpests/possums
7. Dr. Christopher Orchard has assisted the artist through his research into Gamilarray language. Based in Wagga Wagga, Dr. Orchard is a member of Charles Sturt University’s Critical Transdisciplinary Indigenous Studies Research Group, and is Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s 2023 Environmental Thinker in Residence.
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Photo: Jack of Hearts Photography
With thanks
gii mara-bula / Heart Hand-also is curated by Julie Ewington. The artist thanks Julie for her continued guidance and curatorial support during the development of this project.
The artist thanks Dr. Lee-Anne Hall, Director of Wagga Wagga Art Gallery for her firm and unwavering support.
The artist thanks Dr. Julie Montgarett, friend, colleague and mentor, for her generous assistance with the development of this work, and Dr. Christopher Orchard, of Charles Sturt University’s Critical Transdisciplinary Indigenous Studies Research Group, for invaluable assistance with Gamilaraay language terms.
The artist thanks Tafe NSW Wagga Wagga Campus and Wagga Wagga Art Gallery for their support.
To make this work, Juanita McLauchlan received the generous assistance of the 2022 Windmill Trust Scholarship.
Photography: James T Farley
Design: Tayla Martin
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Works in exhibition
Everywhen 2023
Woollen blanket, brushtail possum fur, woollen and cotton threads, woodcut on linen, gold leaf; contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant.
197 x 154cm
yuruum bulaarr/Two paths 2022
Woollen blanket, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants.
A: 257 x 75cm; 257 x 82cm
gaa-gi/Will wear 2023
Woollen blanket, 18 brushtail possum tails, 36 Australian copper coins, cotton thread.
166 x 116cm
mama-la-y-laya/Will always stick together 2023
Woollen blankets, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, cotton and woollen thread.
2.8 x 3.5m (dimensions variable)
mirii/Stars 2022
Woollen blanket, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, polyester thread.
204 x 107cm
ngamilma-li/ Watcher 2022
Woollen blanket, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, Screen printed woollen fabric, cotton thread.
157 x 120cm
guuymaylaya/Gathering 2023
Woollen blankets, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, brushtail possum fur, cotton thread; 28 circular forms.
Largest: diameter 43 x 8cm high; smallest: diameter 12 x 2.5 cm high. Overall dimensions variable.
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birralii ngay/My children 2022
Woollen blanket, electric wiring, cotton bias binding, brushtail possum fur and five brushtail possum tails, cotton thread, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant.
113 x 174 x 7cm (dimensions variable)
giirr ngiyani gulagamalaylaya/We will always hold each other 2022
Woollen blanket contacted printed with Australian indigenous plants and using iron mordant, brushtail possum fur, seven Australian copper coins. 119 x 159 x 8cm (dimensions variable)
Standing at the heart of seven generations II 2023
15 necklaces: woollen blankets, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, undyed and screen printed; brushtail possum fur, cotton thread.
Largest: 67 x 34 x 12 cm (dimensions variable)
Smallest: 26 x 21 x 5cm (dimensions variable)
gulagamaldaya/Hold 2023
Woollen blankets, undyed and contact printed with she-oak needles; 12 brushtail possum tails and fur.
Overall diameter: 95cm (variable); largest: 9cm diameter x 3cm wide; smallest: 5 cm diameter x 1.5cm wide
guma-nhu/Broken
yuluurrin-may-bidi/Big loss
banggabaa wagirrma-y/White washed
gayarragi-laya/Finding
yuraldaya/Growing
All 2022-23
Five large necklaces: woollen blankets, contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, and screen-printed with acrylic; brushtail possum fur, cotton thread.
Largest: length 1030 x 3.5cm (dimensions variable); installed length
300cm
Smallest: length 80 x 2.5cm (dimensions variable); installed length:196cm
Please touch me: Object to be handled 2023
Woollen blanket, brushtail possum fur
Dimensions variable
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Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
Juanita McLauchlan
Juanita McLauchlan
from Standing at the heart of seven generations II (detail) 2023
15 necklaces, woollen blankets contact printed with Australian indigenous plants, undyed and screenprinted; possum fur, cotton thread.
Juanita McLauchlan
