2 - 8 Tasman Sea, 3rd day at sea, Art, Aboriginal Dreamers

 It is now our third day at sea in a row.  The scenery  hasn't changed much.  Wide open seas everywhere you look.  The last land we saw was two days ago when we passed Tasmania.  I haven't seen another ship on the seas either.  Its either peaceful, or lonely.  You pick.  I met a fellow passenger a few days ago who was talking about being 'confined' for so long.  Fortunately we are enjoying the journey.  But we don't know what time it is (2 one hour time changes in the last two days), nor do we know what day it is!

   Today we are traveling 17 knots, winds are 30 mph, water spray is keeping outside areas wet and salty. We step out onto our balcony to check temps:  high of 61 lows of 55.  It's too wet to spend any time out there.

I've enjoyed learning about the Aboriginals and the success story coming from their art work. More on that in just a minute.  Here is a teaser photo.

Here is our balcony, wet for the last three days due to sea spray.  It hasn't rained, it's just salty spray from the seas.

Our handrail with salt crystals.

We walked on the 8th deck again today for about 40 minutes.  Stats are below.  The # of flights of stairs climbed is even more impressive than the distance, and totally wrong!  Truthfully in a day we average 15 - 20 flights of stairs.  

                                                        Tasman Sea for miles and miles.

As we say in the world of (quality) auditing, here is the objective evidence documenting today's walk. I do hope you are either smiling or shaking your head!

Back to the Aboriginal story (in Australia)...much like the US, native people were forced off their long time homelands and sent to arid areas where others would never choose to live.  They had no rights and benefits.  Fortunately about fifty years ago the citizens recognized the cruel conditions and treatment suffered by the natives.  They were given the right to vote in 1962.  In the 1990's a missionary was sent to the Papunya indigenous group.  He was a new teacher and brought with him art supplies: paper and acrylic paints.  Historically the Aboriginal people used their art to document their beliefs, life lessons, life struggles, maps.  Their arts are their "Dreamings". Essentially they documented their lives through the art.  Originally they painted their skin or the ground.  When the young teacher brought paper and paint, their artwork was documented in a way that could be shared, it gained fame. Later canvas was supplied.

The left shows a dot painting of where the painter and family lived.  The right shows a current day map representation of the same site.

Papunya elders were brought to the city for a week to paint and pass along their knowledge.  They didn't speak English so communication was challenging. The elders brought their family, they have strong ties and stick together.  Their paintings were often very large, the size of a full wall.  They sat on the floor to paint them.  Art historians, tried to capture the meaning of each painting. 

The artists used nature/country in their paintings. They believed that the land claims you, you don't claim the land.  They used dots and lines in the paintings.  They thought the dots brought s shimmery effect.  In the early 2000's a lawsuit gave Aboriginals the rights to use their original artwork to prove land rights.

The lecturer was Dr. Robyn Ferrell.  She published a book, Sacred Exchanges.  Its more of a text book than a book for the general enthusiast, but I love the artwork on the book's cover.

Through sales of the artwork, many natives are making a very good living.  They are less reliant on welfare, their standard of living is increasing.  Australians are honoring their natives (not just through artwork) and it seems doing a much better job than Americans.

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Whoopie pies were featured for dessert at lunch today.  They were about the size (diameter) of an oreo cookie, but much better.

I passed an important milestone in my knitting project.  For the past 5 weeks I've been knittiing the body of the sweater.  I picked this project for the trip: same stitches for a long time (6 row repeats, 18 sets, knitting in the round), easy to pick up and knit, easy to pause.  I often took this to the lectures.  Anyway today I transitioned, underarm divide and started the front yoke (flat knitting) in a reverse color pattern with green becoming the dominant color). I think the whole thing is about 65% complete.  The note card is how I kept up with row count (6 x 18).

It's a pattern from Elizabeth Smith.  Her instructions are thorough, good for beginners.  Here is Elizabeth in the finished design.

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Rest of the day.... yoga, another lecture, maybe watch The 70's Show.    We saw it a few weeks ago, it'll be the same. Phil did laundry yesterday, while I blogged, so thankfully that's  done. Tomorrow we land in Port Chalmers (Dunedin) New Zealand.  Our excursion is: Penguin Beach at Nature's Wonders" on Otago Peninsula.  It involves a ride on an 8 wheel drive Argo. Could be a wild ride!