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Biddy was born in Kiwirrkurra desert sometime in the 1920’s, the only child of her parents. With her Dad, three mums, half sister and brother, they walked twelve hundred kilometers from the western desert near Kiwirrkurra to Sturt Creek Station near Halls Creek when Biddy was just a child. They travelled for months through the harsh desert country, surviving solely on bush tucker and the waterholes that gave them drinking water. At Sturt Creek Station, Biddy and her family lived near the river for years until she was a young woman. Biddy got her first job as a maid and also worked at the local rations depot. ‘Those Kartyita (whitefella) like me – good worker me – I work there long time’. Biddy then walked to Old Flora Valley Station about one hundred kilometres with family they had one donkey that carried their water and food. They set up their camp and lived at the station. She also got a job as a maid in the station manager’s house. She gave birth to her daughter at Flora Vallery Station in 1959. Biddy tells the story of when the government came to take all the half cast children away from the station. ‘All the people been digging holes on the side of the banks to hide their kids, some got taken away, but me, I put my baby in the coolamon and walked right up to those government people and told them this is my only baby, you not going to take her from me. My daughter was very white with white hair. My daughter’s father came and talked up for me, he worked for the main roads. She eventually made her way to Halls Creek in 1973 and gave birth to a son. Biddy started painting at the Halls Creek TAFE in 2007 and currently for the Yarliyil Art Centre. She proudly paints her country and the stories of when she was young in western desert style. Although she is relatively new to painting, Biddy has grown profoundly as an artist and in 2012 took home the Mid-West Art Prize for the overall award of excellence & won the best work by an Indigenous artists at the Hedland art awards.
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(c) information provided by Yarliyil Art Centre