Kimberley Lizards and bead art inspirations

Australia is a place of extraordinary contrast naturally and culturally. In my ‘other’ life I have had the privilege to travel to one of the most dramatic and remote areas of Australia – the west Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. My work with Indigenous communities in the area has held profound meaning for me.


It's natural beauty is haunting and powerful. In part, this is because the West Kimberly has some of the oldest rocks in Australia as part of it’s landscape. In part, it is because of its enormous contrasts - two sides of the Kimberley are flanked by oceans (The Indian and Timor Sea), the other two are flanked by deserts (the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami). The Kimberley is vast – around 3 times the size of the UK and moving around such a large and remote area is hugely challenging but enormously rewarding. It’s no wonder then that it has offered many sources of inspiration for my bead art. Kimberly Lizard (just posted for sale on my Etsy site) is the first in a bead art series I have designed based on Australian fauna and I have chosen to start with fauna of the West Kimberley.

That a lizard is linked in my mind with the Kimberley is no accident. Western Australia has over 60 species of small lizards (Geckos) and 18 of the worlds 30 species of monitor lizards (this includes the smallest and the third largest of the monitor lizards) and many of those are found in the Kimberley. During my many visits to the Kimberley, I have only glimpsed but a few of it’s many lizards – my bracelet honors those I have seen and the splendour of the world they live amongst and the Indigenous communities that own the countries of West Kimberley.
.
Sources http://www.westaussiereptiles.com.au/ http://www.savannah-guides.com.au/page2-15.html www.jcvi.org/reptiles/species.php?genus=Varanus Map http://www.sdwk.wa.gov.au/community/maps.html