Dates of birth were available for about half the Storylines sample. Almost all were in their 20s or older at the time, with just three in their teens. Nineteen year old Juanella McKenzie from Port Augusta was the youngest female and sixteen year old Reuben Oates from Tasmania the youngest male. As shown in Figure 1.1, the age distribution of this group around the median age of 49 is strikingly normal statistically speaking – in fact almost a perfect bell curve. This is quite a surprising result given the relatively small sample and more importantly the markedly younger age structure of the Indigenous population as a whole. Almost 25% of the Storylines artists whose age we knew were 60 and over, with shell stringer Auntie Dulcie Greeno the oldest woman at 86 compared with ceramicist Vic Chapman the oldest male artist at 77. Both are still working. It is tempting to conclude that being an artist provides satisfactions and consolations that help extend one’s life. Those Indigenous people who do live into old age and attain the status of elders within their families and communities may also be highly motivated to express their knowledge and their memories through art precisely because not many of their contemporaries have survived, and because they feel responsible for conveying community traditions and stories from their past to younger generations of their family and community. This could be said of artists like Elaine Terrick, Phyllis Stewart, Ellen Trevorrow and Thanakupi. Such motivations may reflect a cultural shift in Australia that has seen aspects of Indigenous people’s life experience and knowledge previously devalued and treated with secrecy and shame now embraced and shared with pride.

Dulcie at home with shell neckklaces, 2005 Image courtesy Siobhan Reid.

Vic Chapman 1996. Image courtesy of Tom Dion

Figure 1.1- Frequency distribution of known ages for Storylines artists