Swapmeet Find

Quite often on a Sunday morning, especially if it is a lovely day like today, we go to Swapmeet. These are known in other places as Boot Sales or Trash and Treasure and are usually held in the carpark of a shopping centre. There are two quite close to us, both run by the Rotary Club of Booragoon; one at Melville, the other at Kardinya.

We went to the Kardinya one today. Nothing of interest - even the books failed to engage my attention. Then I saw it - a piece of tapa about a metre long and 30 cm wide. When we lived at Popondetta in the Northern (now Oro) District of Papua in the early 70's I used to buy it from the women who made it for the girls at the Vocational Centre to make into bags and hats for sale to tourists. I still have quite a few pieces.


The seller said she thought it came from Fiji. No, said I, it's from Papua New Guinea. She did know that it was made from bark, but had not known the name tapa. It is a good piece; no holes in the cloth and well painted. I think it is more recent than the pieces I have, but it still used the traditional techniques.


The seller had been given it some years before and had intended to make it into a book cover. I am so glad that there are other people who don't convert their ideas into projects, and even more glad that some of them take their bits to Swapmeet.

A Winter's Day

Though we need rain, today's weather was fabulous. Clear blue skies and warm enough for a Tshirt if you were in the sun (and out of the wind). This shag was enjoying the sun along the Claisebrook inlet in East Perth, close to the gallery we visited today.

I dragged Kevin along to an exhibition at the Holmes a Court Gallery. The exhibition is of bark cloth (tapa) from Oro Province, the last area we lived in when we were in Papua New Guinea in the 70s. The area it came from was the mountains - specifically Mount Lamington which is a now dormant volcano about 20 miles from Popondetta.

While we were in Popondetta I used to buy tapa from women who made it, for the girls at the Vocational Centre to use in making items to sell to tourists. The tapa makers were from the Tufi area, which is on the coast, and I was not aware of any tapa being made locally. I would love to have seen some of this Omie tapa 30 years ago.

The pieces are quite beautiful, but I believe that though they may use some traditional motifs the makers have been greatly influenced by other traditions as well as commercial considerations. The catalogue tells of how the Omie (especially the young men) are becoming aware of the value of the art produced by the older women. I suspect that the Omie have been exposed to visitations from Business Development groups. This is NOT a BAD THING, and I hope the Omie reap the benefit (look at the prices asked!).

However I am concerned that the major beneficiaries will be the galleries, as has happened with Australian indigenous painters, and that the buyers are not fully aware that these pieces are not traditional tapa, but contemporary bark paintings.

Museum visit - some fibre seen

We went out to Welshpool today to the warehouse where the major portion of the Western Australian Museum's various collections is stored. The reason for our visit was to see a Papuan dance mask that Kevin donated to the museum in 1962. It has been in storage almost all the time since.

While there we were shown a number of different PNG artifacts including some tapa from Oro Province. When we were living in Popondetta in the 70's I used to buy tapa from the women who made it. I did this on behalf of the Vocational Centre where I taught. The centre ran a small business and tapa was made into hats and bags or sold by the piece to tourists. The photo is of a piece of tapa that I bought for myself at that time.


Tapa is made from the bark of a species of mulberry. The pieces of stripped bark are beaten out over a log until they are flexible. Some pieces of tapa are huge, this one is quite small - about a metre by 60 cm. The very best tapa is as flexible as cloth with almost no holes. Thicker tapa with no holes is generally not as highly regarded as thinner tapa with holes, but even the best quality tapa must be decorated well to be valuable. Traditionally, the red in the designs is made from hibiscus gum, the black from charcoal. In the 70's these were painted on with brushes made from chewed twigs. Designs are usually based on natural objects - fish, lizards, palm fronds, but may also be purely geometric.

Tapa from some of the Pacific islands is varnished but PNG tapa is soft. It was used for all the things cloth is - wrappings for gifts, food and as shrouds, clothing, curtains, table and bed covers. I believe tapa is still being made but woven cloth has replaced it for everyday use.

The tapa I saw at the Museum was not the best quality and the painting was very poorly done. The line surrounding the red motifs was very definite, unlike the the soft lines and dots of the tapa I am accustomed to. It looked to be the work of a beginner or someone unaware of the traditional styles. The pic below shows the design outlines of a traditional piece very clearly.



PS: I walked 11023 steps yesterday. I have 9433 on the pedometer at the moment and I still have to prepare dinner.