I know that the paintings that are being done by aboriginal people today are being done largely for the tourist market, and that traditionally they were drawings in the dirt, or on rock walls. I ran into a seller at the Santa Fe International Folk Market from Alice Springs who was very dismissive of work done in Uluru as being more touristy, and truthfully, the things he had looked very similar to what we saw in Uluru, but the prices were a bit more reasonable, so he may have had somewhat of a point (although he was not a "the customer is always right" kind of guy). None the less, I found the whole dot painting process to be very cool and I took a class with an instructor and a translator while I was there last summer.
So here it is, my attempt at either translating my thoughts into a prescribed frame work or cultural appropriation, which ever side of the issue you lean towards.
I found the history of Australians treatment of Aboriginal people to be as reprehensible as our treatment of our native population. There is so much about the skills that ancient cultures needed and had for survival in all sorts of extreme environments that are not well appreciated or understood, and somehow, for me, understanding a bit more about the art is deeply satisfying.
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