This dispatch is from 12 July 2015
Καλημέρα φίλοι μου,
When, in the early 1970’s, I was first asked to manage the locally owned Yuendumu Mining Company (YMC), I “inherited” the ‘Flatstone Quarry’.
A few kilometres south of Yuendumu there is a ridge that consists of thinly bedded (“flaggy”) sandstone and siltstone. The rocks belong to the Cambrian Yuendumu Sandstone Formation (half a billion years old).
The stone has its origins in a shallow lacustrine environment i.e. a shallow slowly sinking lake bed to which thin layers of sediment were added. Occasional fossil worm tracks and tubes and other features attest to this origin. Mica contained in the sediment washed into the lake and settled as flat lying flakes; because of this the rock easily splits into thin slabs resulting in beautiful paving stones. YMC used air powered rock-drills and dynamite to mine the flatstone. Dynamite sometimes is referred to as “fracture”. Back then Wikipedia didn’t exist otherwise the following might have been found:
“Higher velocity explosives are used for relatively hard rock in order to shatter and break the rock, while low velocity explosives are used in soft rocks to generate more gas pressure and a greater heaving effect. For instance, an early 20th-century blasting manual compared the effects of black powder to that of a wedge, and dynamite to that of a hammer.”
I didn’t need the internet to work out what had happened. Often I’d mentioned that “if only they’d used gunpowder”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajoI8X8Ys94
Back then charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter (potassium nitrate) would have been readily available; these days subsequent to the various politically motivated fear campaigns, a visit from those police disguised as Ninjas is a likely consequence of harbouring supplies of the three ingredients.
At the quarry, slabs of sandstone had been recovered from huge piles of debris. The deposit had been ruined and not much useable material remained. I later found out that a gaggle or murder (here I’m only guessing at what the collective noun for public servants might be) of public servants had served themselves (as servants are wont to) to almost all of the production. Delving into the previous half a decade of administrative data, I could not find a single dollar of flatstone revenue.
YMC proceeded to salvage what flatstone we could. Not long before, the Papunya Tula Art Movement had begun, and the “bush telegraph” had done its job. A Warlpiri man did a “dot painting” on one of the flatstone slabs, and quick as a flash around two dozen or so flatstone paintings had been produced by a group of men.
This we perceived as a wonderful opportunity to vertically integrate our quarry. To add value.
I duly filled a suitcase with paintings and like a vacuum cleaner salesman dragged the heavy suitcase around Sydney and Melbourne to various galleries.
The consensus from the commercial art world was that the paintings were very beautiful but that overseas tourists couldn’t take the paintings back in their handbags, blah, blah….
No one pulled out their cheque book. In desperation I’d leave a painted rock at each gallery visited- “sell it for whatever price you can get, take off what you consider a fair commission, send us a cheque in the mail and let us know how many more you think you could sell” (some younger readers may have difficulty conceiving of a time when we had no telephones nor electronic bank transfers). Not a single response.
Years later Warlukurlangu Artists (WA) received a phone call from someone in Darwin. They’d found a painted rock in a shed. Did WA know anything about it, and was it valuable?
When Cecilia rang me to ask did I know anything about this, I told her the story of the heavy suitcase. As for the value, I told her that stolen goods had no value.
Subsequently one of the painted slabs turned up on eBay. I was glad to find out that the South Australian Museum acquired it (at the bargain price of $600).
Recently a friend found another of the long lost paintings stored at the National Museum in Canberra. It was labelled “Aboriginal Ceremonial Object”. I guess my lugging of the heavy suitcase could be regarded as a ceremony of sorts.
Since those heady optimistic days we’ve had a sorry history of disempowerment and marginalization of Aboriginal owned enterprises. The “Closing the Gap” ideologues have been of no practical assistance whatsoever. The boom in Aboriginal Art is a notable exception to this sorry state of affairs.
All the same, that is no excuse for some serious financial mistakes I have made, which my geological training did not prevent me from making. YMC is only marginally surviving.
But there is hope! Somewhere out there, there are people in possession of valuable beautiful dot paintings on slabs of sandstone that they will at any moment decide to pay for.
(Bank details provided on request- Nigerians excepted)
As for the Greek economic crisis? Payment for the Elgin Marbles is also imminent.
Ζούμε με την ελπίδα
Frank