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Bob Innes was born in the town of Mount Barker, where he now resides, in 1946; though a considerable part of his life has been spent interacting with Aboriginal people and their culture.
In particular, he spent two years as the Arts Administrator at the Yuelamu Community, (Mount Allan Station) 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs on the Tanami Track, after dropping in for a visit in 1988.
At this time there was no internet, no mobile phones, or even a land-line to communicate with the outside world, with the Flying Doctor Radio and the weekly visit by a mail plane the only means of contacting either Alice Springs, via the radio, or the other cities and towns via a phone link through the Flying Doctor Radio Services in Alice.
The isolation from the rest of the world in the community had the bonus of allowing traditional languages and culture to remain strong, and coupled with the considerable publicity generated by the opening of a gallery and “keeping place” by Hazel Hawke, a Bi-centennial project, there was much interest in the Yuelamu Community.
Arriving just a couple of months after the opening, (to visit a nephew who was working there) Bob soon befriended the Anmatjerre and Warlpiri people, and kind of fell into the job of handling the artworks, collecting the stories associated with them, and venturing into the bush with elders to visit the sites associated with the paintings.
Bob was a keen photographer, and had a quality tape-recorder, and set about documenting traditional songs, and later, when the community acquired a video camera, some important visits to special sites.
When Bob returned to the Hills he began his Desert Dreams business, which allowed him to keep in touch with the community by returning for visits to purchase more artworks, and, as the technology advanced, beginning the Desert Dreams website.
Desert Dreams has now been operating for more then thirty years (albeit in a reduced capacity) and serves to promote artworks, to tell tales in Bob’s blogs, (The Desert Star) and to promote his book, The Captain of Solitude, which tells the tale of Collet Barker, who formed close friendships with Aboriginal people in his early explorations in Australia, before his tragic death at the mouth of the Murray in 1831.
The rapidly expanding township of Mount Barker, named after this gallant explorer, seems the appropriate place to locate Desert Dreams, with its stories and its artworks the summary of a life adventure somewhat in sync wth the district’s namesake.
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