The mimpu or deep wooden water carrying bowl is a traditional woman’s vessel designed especially for transporting water. It usually carved from a knot or scar on the trunk of a Desert Bloodwood or a curved root section of the River Red Gum tree. Contemporary artists use walka, patterns burnt into the wood with wire heated on a wood fire. These relate Tjukurpa, stories about the Tjukuritja or Creation Ancestors and the activities which shaped the land, the people and their Law. Many of the details of Tjukurpa are restricted to senior custodians so it is not possible to describe the full story behind the walka.

The etching techniques, where walka is burnt into the wood with wire heated on a wood fire, or nowadays sometimes using a pyropen, have become Centralian traditions. Contemporary walka has evolved with the adaptation of traditional design for public display and as a depiction of Tjukurpa and landscape. Kapi tjukurla are the waterholes represented by circles. By their very nature waterholes also mark sites related to the Creation Ancestors’ journeys across the country; the ‘dreaming tracks’ followed by countless generations since.

“I learned burning by watching my mother and other family members. The designs of my family and watching nature helped me to develop my own designs. I enjoy the burning process and how my designs grow on the wood.

After the rain the water flows in the creeks and fills the waterholes. In the old days Yarnangu walked around from waterhole to waterhole to survive and by doing so followed the ancestral tracks. I like to represent and remember this on my sculptures. You can see the water drops splashing on the wood.

The sculpture represents the story of water. The sculpture represents the trees that lead us the way to find the water and the water is within them and around them, even if we can’t see it, their roots will still touch it. The sculpture is made from the tree that shows us the way to the water, they are one and the water flows around them and in them, just like the lines of my etching. And the circles represent the waterholes where we find the water.” Cynthia Burke