My oldest friend Stewart Davies passed away peacefully at Wanarn and his funeral is being held here at Warburton Ranges tomorrow. Stewart and I first met in 1987 when I was working at Kalgoorlie College and had made a mid-winter trip to Warburton. We were instant friends and he and his brother Roger visited me in Kalgoorlie and stayed with me on several occasions. When I came back to Warburton for study research in 1989 we began a decade of work together, all sorts of things from heritage trips through country to rock art at his birthplace, the rock shelter Kalkakutjarra, to painting and art glass. During all of this time both he and his wife Tingapa were consistently committed to Ngaanyatjarra culture and art. Both brought wonderful paintings into the collection and both strongly believed in a cultural future for Ngaanyatjarra people and the need to sustain it. They were always friendly and positive, always worked hard, always ready to help or just relax and have a good time together. Stewart was a strong man in terms of tribal Law, a good kinsman and a great hunter. In the heat of summer 1992, driving back together from Kalkakutjarra, he made made me stop and wait in the car as he stalked off into the mid-afternoon bush to find the marlu he had seen on the way out in the morning. An hour later he was back, hot and tired having tracked it and shot it, with the kangaroo tied together in the traditional way in a bundle on his head. We made so many trips out together.
Some of the finest works in the painting collection came out of our work together. I owe my first real understanding of the Creation power of the Dreaming to Stewart. In 1991 he made a painting called Wanampi Talpu Talpu, listed in the collection as WAC 002(M). This told of the Two Mythic Water Serpents flying over country between Wiluna and Warburton, creating great storms and lakes of water below. But it was his emphasis on another part of the story, the way the creation power of the snakes actually caused rockholes themselves to form and then erupt with water that made the connection for me. As he explained it, I saw it; the awesome act of change over the landscape wrought by the snakes and their power to transmute and transform the world into the new. The sense of this has never left me.
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Stewart had many, many friends. All will remember him fondly, all will feel this loss greatly. Of such men are good communities and the best memories of life made. I would like to pass on the condolences of everyone who has worked in the arts project to the families and especially to Tingapa, his wife.
