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Detailed Artist CV PDF  Barbara Weir

Grass Seed Dreaming

In the Utopia region, there are many varieties of grass. One grass that is found in the spinifex, sand plains, and sand-hills produces a seed that is collected, crushed into flour and made into a paste to produce a bread that is a staple food. 
This grass, which is a member of the portulaca family can grow up to fifteen cm high and is reddish in colour. It is found throughout the year, but is particularly abundant after a fall of rain. Due to the grazing impact of cattle and other introduced species the grass is not as plentiful and the seeds are harder to collect.

Traditionally people collected these seeds in an unusual way. Because the seeds ripen at different times of the year, many seeds fall to the ground to be covered by sand and lost from view. Aboriginal people looked for the nesting site of a particular ant. This ant, which had collected the seeds and eaten a certain portion, discarded the rest. The discarded seeds were found in a pile just outside the nest, to be collected, cleaned, ground into a thick paste and cooked into seed cake by the women.

These seeds were an important source of food for Aboriginal people however this bread is not often made today as packaged bread is available from the store.

This story is important to Barbara Weir who in Grass Seed Dreaming depicts the grass with interwoven sinuous strokes covering the canvas.  The work may be in multiple colours or variations of a single colour.  Sometimes Barbara shows the grass being burnt in hues of orange, red, ochre and brown or she may paint white grass on a black background to give the impression of the grass after it has burnt.