Michael Lyons - December 2020 Artist of the Month
Our December Artist of the Month is Artist, Craftsman and Didgeridoo Player Michael Lyons, a Wiradjuri Elder whose iconic Sandhills Artefacts Gallery and Workshop has been an essential stop for tourists exploring our region for over 30 years. Michael harnesses his extensive knowledge of Culture passed on from his father to create didgeridoos, bull roarers, clapsticks, coolamons, boomerangs and more in the Traditional ways. Michael’s beautifully detailed paintings with frames crafted locally in Narrandera, utilise a burning technique that is distinctive to his style. The stories that are typically told through his work are that of the Wiradjuri Nation and the Sandhills, covering topics such as Totems, nature, drought, and Traditional ways of living: “That’s Aboriginal Art – it doesn’t have to be perfect, as long as it tells a story.”
Michael’s talents have attracted celebrity patronage over the years. The eclectic list of people who have bought his works includes Eddie Murphy, Bill Clinton, former Governor General Peter Cosgrove, BUPA Insurance, the Red Bull Formula One team and musician Santana. As his art has been sold in many galleries throughout his career, it is not possible to keep up with where every piece ends up, but Michael knows they have travelled the world. He puts his success down to circumstance, though the high quality of his work speaks for itself: “I suppose I’m pretty lucky really, probably at the right place at the right time. All the artists in Australia - and they pick me.”
It has taken Michael 30 years to build up the Sandhills Artefacts business with the help of his late wife and his family. Michael’s wife Lucy held a strong belief in him and his work at the beginning of his career and encouraged him to aim high by approaching a Sydney based gallery with the first works he created: “My wife, she was the one that pushed me. She pushed me to go into the first shop in old Sydney town. I think I may of sold maybe $600 worth of boomerangs and the first bark painting I’ve ever done. I took it up there to old Sydney town, and she made me go in there.” Comparing that first sale with his current career, Michael says “And now I sell that many paintings and didgeridoos I don’t know where they end up, but I remember that as plain as anything.”
In 2013 a travelling tourist who visited Michael’s gallery, uploaded his art to YouTube. In going viral, the video reached the eyes of the Niort City Council in France. Michael and his family were invited by the French Government to attend and showcase their culture at the 85th annual Niort Tourism Festival in Paris, which centered on the theme of Australia. Not having Internet at the time, the Narrandera Argus were contacted in an effort to get the invitation through to Michael. Initially thinking they were pulling his leg, a call to the French embassy in Canberra confirmed the validity of the invitation. Michael boarded his first airplane flight and with two sons and his grandson, visited France for 8 days. Michael says the magnitude of the experience didn’t truly sink in until he saw the Eiffel Tower. The trip offered a new perspective on the business side of his arts practice. Noting the forceful selling techniques of the French, he says “I realised you’ve got to push yourself a bit more. You’ve got to go out and face more people. I was pretty shy until I came back from there.”
The early stages of the 2020 pandemic saw a decline in Michael’s successful business, with an estimated 87% drop in revenue due to reduced commercial sales, cancellations of group events and stagnation in the tourism industry. In response Michael has pivoted to an online presence with a gallery web store and social media accounts, and is seeing positive results. In this age of online accessibility it is easier than ever to support First Nations artists, however there are ongoing issues in the Australian market with cheap foreign knockoffs and fake souvenirs. Michael suggests that art buyers and tourists go to high-end art galleries or go straight to the Indigenous Artists to be sure of an item’s authenticity. He was amazed to find that a place like Alice Springs has cheaply made overseas knockoffs flooding the market. “They had a sticker years ago you could put on your boomerang or didgeridoo to say it was authentic. But they stopped that. But they should have something like that. It probably won’t stop this stuff from coming in because it’s like a plague – its like Coronavirus. As long as it’s marked to say it’s from Indonesia, to say it’s made in China – a lot of the people that bring this stuff in (to the country) take the tags off it. I know people up in Queensland that are employed to take the tags off the boomerangs. And that’s what the government should be doing – either stopping it or making them put a sticker on them to say it’s made in Indonesia or China, because the average tourist wouldn’t know.”
In recent years Michael has switched his focus from exhibiting in many art shows, to crafting his artefacts and working within the community. Part of this work includes teaching his Culture in local schools, working with children as young as three and up to aged 18. “A lot of people at home don’t teach their kids the Culture. When they lived on the hill, when I was a kid they would always be doing their Culture, swimming in the river, watching the old people, making boomerangs or sitting around the campfire telling stories. But now they don’t do that. When they moved into town, I suppose they’ve got to live like white people. You cant light a fire up the street. The stories are lost, so when I go into the schools I tell a lot of stories when I play the didgeridoo. A lot of the kids know them because they’ve learnt some of the stories along the way, but not all of them. I take four people, one will do art, or they do bush foods, cooking kangaroo and emu. Others look at artefacts, grinding stones stone axes and their uses.”
Michael also shares his ancient knowledge through the Cultural tours he runs out of his workshop and gallery. Michael is an engaging tour guide with a great sense of humour, making him a most entertaining host. His tour guests receive a special experience of visiting hidden places around his Traditional Country of great cultural significance. Locals who attend these tours are amazed at what they didn’t know was in their backyard. Koori Beach, Traditional Rock Art, shelter trees, birthing stones, scar trees, ring trees, canoe trees, caves, fibre and food plants are just some of the sights included on the tours. The tour days are rounded off with a delicious bushtucker feed made by Michael featuring Traditional foods like saltbush, witchetty grubs and emu eggs.
There are several locations art lovers can view Michael’s works outside of his gallery. ‘Life on the Sandhills’ was a project where Michael along with artists Owen Lyons, Dexter Briggs and Andrea Briggs gifted three newly commissioned artworks to the Narrandera Library, which are on permanent display. The artists worked with Cad Factory Local Producer Kerri Weymouth to tell the important stories of life on the Sandhills and the many First Nations families that live there. Michael is also currently exhibiting with ‘Narrandera Walk In Art’ an initiative from Tracey Lewis that will see work from over 40 local artists form an extensive Art Trail within Narrandera’s local businesses to promote tourism.
If you would like to support a local First Nations artist, you can get in touch to book a Cultural tour, browse the extensive range of artworks and artefacts, or commission a unique piece on Michael’s online web store. Keep up to date with Michael’s arts practice by following Sandhills Artefacts on his Facebook and Instagram pages where he holds giveaways and shares interesting facts about his processes.
Images and story by Camille Whitehead, Saturday 19th December, 2020.
