Australian Raven, 2014, Chips Mackinolty

Australian Raven
Poem: The short curse of Raven in Galilee by Gerry Loose.
Music: Australian Raven by Mary Rapp on Cello.
Audio compiled and mixed by Boyd.

Bird Species: 9
Australian Raven
Artist:  Chips Mackinolty (Italy & N.T., Australia)
Writer: Gerry Loose (Scotland, UK)
Musician: Mary Rapp (Qld, Australia)

Poem:
The short curse of Raven in Galilee

there’s only one land & its new Prophet is Dollar

black throat & black neck
red chest & red wing
strawneck & redback
yellow bill
yellow arse
frogmouth & yellow throat
my curse for Dollar

golden plum & spangled plum
shining bronze
diamond bronze
rainbow gold & rainbow silver
nankeen plume & peaceful collar
white ear & grey crown
my curse for Dollar

white plume & blue wing
blue face & spiny cheek
whistling stone
hooded & crested
noisy & sacred
masked & laughing
my curse for Dollar

Gerry Loose ©

Australian Raven call description supplied to musician Mary Rapp:
High far-carrying, child-like wailing; a series of slow notes with strangled, drawn-out finnish. Quiet croaking. (Simpson and Day).

Chips Mackinolty, Artist Statement:
I first found about the Bimblebox in the unlikely setting of la Vucciria, an 1100 year old market district in Palermo, the capital of Sicily—a distant cry from the desert uplands of the south Galilee Basin.

Yet the idea entranced me, as where I was living there is not much in the way of birdlife other than street pigeons and seagulls. It reminded me intensely of birdlife in remote areas of the Northern Territory and Kimberley where I had worked for nearly 40 years—and how much I missed their constant presence.

The Bimblebox project gifted me the Australian Raven.

Being something of a C&W tragic, I was also reminded of the classic Hank Williams song of unrequited love, Cold, cold heart, and the way that rapacious industries such as coal threaten to alienate us all from the love of country, and all the creatures and plants that create real wealth. Thus the slogan on my image.

Artist Biography:
Chips Mackinolty is a Darwin-based (Australia) artist and writer who has worked for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal organisations over 40 years as an advocate, researcher, journalist, artist and graphic designer. He has been represented in 200 group and one person shows.

He has worked as a printmaker since 1969, and was a member of the Earthworks Poster Collective (1973-1980). Worked in Townsville as a community arts officer (1980-81), then in the Northern Territory as an Aboriginal Arts advisor in Katherine and Uluru (1981-85); Northern Land Council field officer, researcher, graphic artist and journalist (1985-1990); then as a journalist with Fairfax and others (1990-2001). A collectively-run graphic arts and research group, Green Ant RAP followed in the 1990s. In the 2000s he worked for the NT Government, and then for the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance NT as a policy, research and advocacy officer. Currently in Alice Springs working for Researcherenye Wappayalawangka, an Aboriginal-led health research partnership. Continues to exhibit; work held in private and public collections in Australia and overseas.

Writer Biography Gerry Loose:
Gerry Loose is a poet living in Scotland whose work, both permanent and ephemeral, is found in galleries, hospitals, schools, Botanic Gardens and wilder landscapes, as well as in his many books. His latest publications are An Oakwoods Almanac (Shearsman) and night exposures (Vagabond Voices). His preoccupations are with the natural world and the injustices of geopolitics.

His awards include a Creative Scotland Award, a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and a Kone Foundation Award.

He has held residencies in Scotland’s Botanic Gardens at Glasgow, RBGE Dawyck and at Montpellier, France’s oldest Botanic Garden.
More about Gerry Loose can be found here.

Musician Biography Mary Rapp:
A biography for Mary Rapp can be found here:  Living Room Theatre)