Wooden Clap Sticksby Carol Young

Aboriginal men and women carve animals and other implements from dry wood they find or tree roots they have dug up. They often use the roots of river gum or mulga. They use the shape of the wood to make models of animals or hunting and gathering implements. Some sculptures or implements are plain, while others have patterns and symbols relating to their Aboriginal culture. They put a piece of fencing wire into the fire. When it is hot, they burn designs on the wood.

Clapping sticks or clap sticks and also known as bilma, bimli, clappers, musicstick or just stick, are a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument. They serve to maintain rhythm in voice chants, often as part of an Aboriginal ceremony. The usual technique employed when using clapsticks is to clap the sticks together to create a rhythm that goes along with the song.

Artist:Carol Young
Title:Wooden Clap Sticks
ID:CY003
Medium:Mulga Wood
Size:21 x cm
Region:APY Lands, South Australia

Artist

Aboriginal artist Carol Young was born in 1972 in Alice Springs and spend her childhood on the Pipalyatjara community, which is located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia. The Anangu people speak Pitjantjatjara as their first language. Carol's mother's homelands is Warbuton in Western Australia. Carol is an artist who paints at the Ninuku Arts centre and is also a talented basket weaver.

As a traditional Aboriginal woman Carol is a custodian of Dreamtime stories associated with her country and cosmology that has been passed through generations. She has strong connections and intimate knowledge of her culture, which is shares in her paintings.

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