Therese Ryder facts for kids

Therese Ryder, born in 1946, is an amazing artist from the Eastern Arrernte people. Her traditional skin name is Ngale – Perrule. She comes from a place called Ltyentye Apurte Community, which is about 82 kilometers southeast of Alice Springs in Australia. Therese is part of the Iltja Ntjarra Many Hands Art Centre. She mostly paints beautiful landscapes of her traditional lands in the Central Desert. Therese is also a language expert who helped create the Central and Eastern Arrernte Dictionary in 1994. She also wrote a book called Ayeye thipe-akerte: Arrernte stories about birds in 2017.

About Therese Ryder

Early Life and Family

Therese Ryder was born at Todd River Station. Her father, Jack, worked there herding cattle. Her mother, Nancy, worked as a cook. Therese's father's homeland includes places like Loves Creek, N'Dhala Gorge, Trephina Gorge, Corroboree Rock, and Williams Well. The Arrernte name for this land is Pwanya. Therese's mother's homeland is Titjikala, but she was born at Maryvale Station.

Her family traveled often. When Therese was about 6 or 7 years old, they moved to Santa Theresa Mission. This place is now known as the Ltyentye Apurte Community. At the mission, Therese had to live in dormitories with other children, away from her parents. From a young age, she was taught to paint with watercolors. This is still her main way of painting, though she sometimes uses traditional dot painting styles too.

Her Art and Homeland

Therese Ryder paints about her homeland. She says, "My paintings are east of Alice Springs, around Ross River, my father's country. Aboriginal people must paint their country and their stories." This shows how important her land and stories are to her art.

Therese continued to work as an artist through the Iltja Ntjarra Many Hands Art Centre. This center is known as "the home of the Namatjira watercolour artist." Therese found out that the famous artist Albert Namatjira was a distant relative on her mother's side. Therese has become a successful artist. Her artworks are part of many important art collections across Australia. Her paintings have been shown in exhibitions all over the country.

Working with Languages

In 1978, Therese moved to Alice Springs. She started working in the language department at the Institute for Aboriginal Development. There, she helped create the "Central And Eastern Arrernte Dictionary," which was published in 1994. She also taught the Arrernte language at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, a Catholic high school. Therese has also worked with other language experts, sharing her knowledge and skills.

Stories About Birds

In 2017, Therese Ryder wrote and illustrated a book called Ayeye thipe-akerte: Arrernte stories about birds. This book shares her love for her homeland and the birds that live there. In the book, Therese writes about bird songs and how birds can bring messages or be a source of food. For example, she talks about the angepe, which is a crow. She says, "When you hear crows talking, maybe early in the morning, you think they are making a crying sound. That’s when you know you are going to get some bad news or something. That happened to me three times."

This book was published with a poster and an app. The app combines her drawings with the Arrernte and English names of birds from Central Australia. Batchelor Press and the Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics published these works.

See also

• Art of Australia