Feature image: Three earthenware pots by Hermannsburg Potters (l–r): Judith Pungkarta Inkamala’s Eeritja (Eagle) 2001; Elaine Namatjira’s Owl 1996; and Carol Rontji’s Pot: Eerarnta (Black cockatoo) 2000 / Collection: QAGOMA / © The artists / Photograph: N Harth, QAGOMA

Ntaria is a former Lutheran mission some 130 kilometres west of Alice Springs, now home to the Hermannsburg Potters. The Arrernte (Aranda) people from this area – inspired by the example of their forebear, renowned painter Albert Namatjira (1902–59) – are famous for their watercolours of the desert interior of Australia.

When the Arrernte community took over responsibility for the mission in 1982, Pastor Nahasson Ungwanaka (a key figure in the Hermannsburg community and husband of potter Rahel Ungwanaka) sought to establish social and economic ventures for his people. Although he had some experience with modelling clay figures in the early 1960s, he lobbied for more formal instruction in ceramics. This resulted in the 1990 appointment of Naomi Sharp, a teacher from the Northern Territory Open College of TAFE, and the subsequent establishment of the Hermannsburg Pottery.

Writer Jennifer Isaacs has noted that the late north Queensland potter Thanakupi:

. . . offered an example of an Aboriginal woman from a traditional background who had been able, through her craft of clay, to create a life for herself and live independently as an Indigenous person in Australia.

As pottery-making is not a traditional practice for Aboriginal people, Hermannsburg’s women potters view their work as an avenue for self-expression – the richly decorated, full-bodied vessels document their history and their day-to-day lives. This vibrant, handmade pottery and, in more recent years, paintings on canvas have been exhibited to wide acclaim nationally and internationally.