Jenny Butt
Martumili Artists“Growing up in Bidgy (Bidyadanga Community) with old people that came from the desert. We lived in old camp, that’s the area which now they call Udilla street in Bidgy, with my dad and my aunties. They never speak English or couldn’t understand any English. But they taught me a lot of bush life and told me a lot of stories about themselves and also they took good care of me. We lived in a tin shed.
I started doing painting in Bidgy at tafe with Jacqui (a lady who ran course work and sells creative wears for the community). I started painting pattern about the colour of the ocean and the sand and the land, growing up near the beach.”
– Jenny Butt
Jenny grew up with family in Bidyadanga, a community located on the Kimberley coast in Western Australia, where the Great Sandy Desert meets the sea. The word Bidyadanga is derived from pijarta/ bidyada (emu watering hole).
Jenny went to school in Darwin at St Johns College, then returned to live in Bidyadanga. She enjoys traveling to see family, regularly travelling to Parnngurr Aboriginal community (Cotton Creek), located within the Martu homelands, and 370km east of Newman. Here she visits her grandmother’s side of the family; brothers and sisters living in Parnngurr.
