The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 48 No 3 November 2009

Nyukana Baker working at the pottery studio at Central Crafts Alice Springs, 2008; photo: courtesy Peter Eve, Monsoon Design
Outside of Orthodoxy
Stephen Bowers reports on walka pioneer. Nyukana Baker
Arguably one of the first Indigenous women to
spend her working life making a living as a professional
artist, Nyukana Baker is a remarkable role model within
the dynamic process by which Aboriginal artists come
to terms with contemporary techniques and invent new
forms of artistic expression.
Born in November 1943 to Pitjantjatjara parents
who came in from the west to the newly established
Ernabella Mission in far northern South Australia,
Nyukana was among the first generation of children
who grew up at the mission founded by the
Presbyterian Church in 1937.
From drawing and painting at school, she gravitated
to the craft room, making floor rugs and learning to
Walka , c.1964, water-based paint on card, h.5cm, weave, all the time showing a fascination for learning a
w.5cm; photo: courtesy Ara Irititja Archival Project;
craft as a means to an end, applying it in her own way,
collection of Ernabella Arts Inc, Ara Irititja Archive. This
early example shows the kind of pattern-making with and adapting materials to her ideas.
lobed or foliate forms upon which the evolution of From coloured crayons, pastels and paintings she
Nyukana's walka was consistently based. Reciprocal
increasingly created figured patterns and designs that
echoes and the building up of concentric layers can be
clearly seen in the tracery of her line work.
evolved to become part of the apparently spontaneous
shapes and interlocking patterns now known as
Ernabella walka* and, as can be seen from her recent ceramics, it is drawing and painting with walka
that still underpins so much of her work.
74 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS NOVEMBER 2009