LilMtnCbn
03-18-2004, 07:32 AM
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/atlanta_world/0304/17stolen.html
History colors Aboriginal artist's life
Mural in East Atlanta reflects Australia's racist past
By SHELIA M. POOLE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/17/04
For years, Australian artist Pamela Croft was told to hide her Aboriginal
heritage.
She felt the white world — the world of her adoptive parents — hated that
part of her. Her adoptive mother would call her derogatory names. Her adoptive
father wanted her to use the Lord's word to lift her birth mother and other
Aboriginals "from the depths of sin."
Today, Croft has learned to embrace the duality of her cultures — Aboriginal
and Western.
"It was a difficult journey for all of us," said Croft, who recently
spearheaded an effort to paint a mural in East Atlanta that draws heavily on
symbolism from Aboriginal culture and her Kooma clan.
She's titled the 20-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide mural "Bringing Nations, Cultures
and Communities Together" and thinks it might be the largest example of
Aboriginal art in the world.
Handprints represent connecting the human spirit with that of Mother Earth.
Blue lines symbolize rivers. A map of Australia is painted in the Aboriginal
colors of red, black and yellow. And there's the wildlife of Australia — a
kangaroo, goanna lizard, emu and platypus.
She said she did the mural, on the side of the Australian Bakery Cafe on Flat
Shoals Avenue, as a way to thank Atlanta for being so good to her son, David,
who has lived in the metro area for five years, and to give the Australian
community here an ambience of home.
"Symbols identify who you are," said Croft, 49. "It shows you belong to a
place. I did it for my future generations."
The future wasn't so certain a few decades ago. Croft is part of the "stolen
generation." From 1870 to 1970, Australia's government instituted a policy to
erase Aboriginal culture. An estimated 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander children were forcibly removed from their homes and adopted by white
families or sent to orphanages.
The plan called for the "blackness" to be bred out of Aboriginal people, having
them fully assimilated into the white community. Even now, the victims of the
forced removals report problems associated with the trauma of losing touch with
their family, culture and language.
Croft has her own version of that experience. For two years, the government
tried to take Croft from her mixed-race mother — a waitress — and place her
with a white adoptive family. Each time, her mother fought back, until Croft
was 6 years old, at which point she gave in on the condition that she could
have yearly visits — for a few hours each time — and could write and call
Croft.
Croft lived with the family for about a dozen years before she married a white
swimming pool cleaner turned salesman. She said she was a victim of domestic
violence, but it took years to leave her husband because she was determined not
to separate her family.
Today, she still finds herself rebuilding those lost years, and she's doing it
partly though art.
Her abstract paintings and sculptures, on display in Atlanta, Cobb County and
Macon, deal with issues of identity and displacement.
"I couldn't find my voice for so many years," she said. "This is my way of
talking."
Croft's work has graced the National Museum of Australia, several regional
galleries in the United States and private collections. Last year she earned a
doctorate in visual arts.
When she looks back on those years of separation from her mother and the
discrimination she encountered, Croft said some inner strength enabled her to
survive. She went though a healing process that helped her deal with the trauma
and her anger.
"The Aboriginal spirit is still strong," she said. "A lot of people still can't
comprehend that this is part of history."
Several years ago, she bought a 100-acre ranch in central Queensland state in
Australia, where she lives with her partner, Mark; her other son, Timothy; and
her biological mother and stepfather. They plan to turn part of the land into a
site for ecotourism.
"Our time is now," Croft said, explaining her decision to share her space with
her mother. "We're both on a healing journey."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
History colors Aboriginal artist's life
Mural in East Atlanta reflects Australia's racist past
By SHELIA M. POOLE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/17/04
For years, Australian artist Pamela Croft was told to hide her Aboriginal
heritage.
She felt the white world — the world of her adoptive parents — hated that
part of her. Her adoptive mother would call her derogatory names. Her adoptive
father wanted her to use the Lord's word to lift her birth mother and other
Aboriginals "from the depths of sin."
Today, Croft has learned to embrace the duality of her cultures — Aboriginal
and Western.
"It was a difficult journey for all of us," said Croft, who recently
spearheaded an effort to paint a mural in East Atlanta that draws heavily on
symbolism from Aboriginal culture and her Kooma clan.
She's titled the 20-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide mural "Bringing Nations, Cultures
and Communities Together" and thinks it might be the largest example of
Aboriginal art in the world.
Handprints represent connecting the human spirit with that of Mother Earth.
Blue lines symbolize rivers. A map of Australia is painted in the Aboriginal
colors of red, black and yellow. And there's the wildlife of Australia — a
kangaroo, goanna lizard, emu and platypus.
She said she did the mural, on the side of the Australian Bakery Cafe on Flat
Shoals Avenue, as a way to thank Atlanta for being so good to her son, David,
who has lived in the metro area for five years, and to give the Australian
community here an ambience of home.
"Symbols identify who you are," said Croft, 49. "It shows you belong to a
place. I did it for my future generations."
The future wasn't so certain a few decades ago. Croft is part of the "stolen
generation." From 1870 to 1970, Australia's government instituted a policy to
erase Aboriginal culture. An estimated 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander children were forcibly removed from their homes and adopted by white
families or sent to orphanages.
The plan called for the "blackness" to be bred out of Aboriginal people, having
them fully assimilated into the white community. Even now, the victims of the
forced removals report problems associated with the trauma of losing touch with
their family, culture and language.
Croft has her own version of that experience. For two years, the government
tried to take Croft from her mixed-race mother — a waitress — and place her
with a white adoptive family. Each time, her mother fought back, until Croft
was 6 years old, at which point she gave in on the condition that she could
have yearly visits — for a few hours each time — and could write and call
Croft.
Croft lived with the family for about a dozen years before she married a white
swimming pool cleaner turned salesman. She said she was a victim of domestic
violence, but it took years to leave her husband because she was determined not
to separate her family.
Today, she still finds herself rebuilding those lost years, and she's doing it
partly though art.
Her abstract paintings and sculptures, on display in Atlanta, Cobb County and
Macon, deal with issues of identity and displacement.
"I couldn't find my voice for so many years," she said. "This is my way of
talking."
Croft's work has graced the National Museum of Australia, several regional
galleries in the United States and private collections. Last year she earned a
doctorate in visual arts.
When she looks back on those years of separation from her mother and the
discrimination she encountered, Croft said some inner strength enabled her to
survive. She went though a healing process that helped her deal with the trauma
and her anger.
"The Aboriginal spirit is still strong," she said. "A lot of people still can't
comprehend that this is part of history."
Several years ago, she bought a 100-acre ranch in central Queensland state in
Australia, where she lives with her partner, Mark; her other son, Timothy; and
her biological mother and stepfather. They plan to turn part of the land into a
site for ecotourism.
"Our time is now," Croft said, explaining her decision to share her space with
her mother. "We're both on a healing journey."
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
