website stats

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Jimmy Pike

I've displayed a couple Desert Designs ties before (here and here), but this is the first with a design by Jimmy Pike (1940-2002), the "first internationally known Western Australian artist". In fact, Desert Designs was born out of the recognition of his talent, founded by his art teachers Steve Culley and David Wroth in 1984 to promote his work. The figure repeated on this tie looks like Djungarabaja, the Little Chicken Hawk, who stole fire from a camp of women in the bush. (I've discovered there is actually no such bird as an Australian chicken hawk; it's a generic term for just about any bird of prey, but most commonly the brown goshawk and the collared sparrowhawk.) A bunch of Jimmy Pike ties can be seen on the neckties page of the Rainbow Serpent website (scroll down). A large sample of his prints can be seen here; and a more colorful selection here.

No comments: