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Dreamings: Australian Aboriginal Art Q : W h e n is a dream not a dream? A: W h e n you're in the Australian Outback, experiencing Dreamtime: a time of creation... Aboriginal settlement 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs, in the N o r t h e r n Territory. Despite the passing of thousands of years, the Aboriginal are still Dreaming and performing ceremonial rituals in a spiritually pure form. Moved by the magic of their Dreamings, Bardon encouraged the tribe's youngsters to transfer the patterns from the sand onto paper. Soon, the tribal Elders joined in and completed the drawings. A n d within a few months, the settlement created over 650 murals of varying sizes and shapes. The success of Pupunya swept over Australia. A t last, the dispossessed were speaking eloquently in art of their own making. By painting their land, they were, in a sense, reappropriating the land they had been lost through 200 years of European invasion.The Papunya works are now considered priceless and are sought after worldwide. Unfortunately, it seems that "dreams" are at a premium wherever you go in this world. Nightmares l o o m . W h i t e acknowledges that visual arts by Ilona Beiks "contact with the commercial world and the allure of the white man's way of life poses a threat. A s the cultural beliefs of the Australian Aboriginal are gradually eroded, so too is the spiritual purity expressed in their art." She cautions buyers to be wary: "It is important to deal with a reputable agent when purchasing a canvas. There are many works out there that are of p o o r quality o r are forgeries." Does this negative aspect deter Merlyn White? To the contrary: it makes her all the more determined to present quality artwork by artists who, for the most part, cannot read o r write, nor have any formal training in painting, yet are inspired by Dreamtime. Dreamings: Australian Aboriginal A r t is on exhibit at First Street Gallery, 252 East 1st Street, North Vancouver. Merlyn White is at the gallery to talk about the artists and their works on Thursday evenings from 6 to 7 pm. For more information, call 986-2664. M eryln W h i t e has a dream. She's determined to make people more aware of the startling uniqueness and beauty of Australian beautiful Aboriginal art--hauntingly works that are the culmination of over 50,000 years of one of the most unique cultures on Earth. Passionate about the art form, W h i t e never tires of telling the stories behind the Aboriginal paintings, carvings, and artifacts that comprise the Dreamings exhibition at the First Street Gallery. In fact, she's launched a lecture series to educate the public and alert them to the dangers Aboriginal art is facing. W h i t e begins where it all begins: at Dreamtime, when ancestral beings emerged from the ground o r sky. They resembled plants, animals, or a combination of both, and could metamorphose into human form. Ultimately, they were the lawmakers. From them, the Aboriginals learned how to live together and were given sacred rituals--such as creating elaborate sand-and-body paintings using ochres, blood, feathers, twigs, and seeds--to perform during their ceremonies. W h e n the ancestral beings tired of the Earth, they returned to their respective places of origin--places that to this day hold great spiritual significance in Aboriginal culture. Contrary to popular Western belief, a "walk-a-bout" is not a bush tour led by Crocodile Dundee, but rather, a time-honoured journey an Aboriginal makes to one of the origin locations in the Outback to worship and expeMerlyn White surveys the latest works by an Australian Aboriginal artsit. rience their personal Dreaming or Dreamtime. Fast-forward to 1971, when an idealistic young art teacher named Jeoffry Bardon arrives in Papunya, an L i