When Spider Kalbybidi disappeared there were several theories, but the Yulparija agreed on one thing - that there had been some violation; 'magic and power' were at the heart of the matter. Spider was ‘caught and claimed’, as the lawmen had said: 'ancestral figures of awesome potency' had come for him.According to that law also, Spider was undergoing a transformation and, as a 'man of high degree' he would now evolve from being a human to another plane of existence, 'know his ancestors' and 'become one with them'.
For six months nothing happened and life at Bidyadanga regained its rhythm. Emily repeatedly watched the documentary film of a trip she had made with Spider and the Yulparija artists to their traditional homeland in the Sandy Desert, still trying to understand what had happened to Spider. Then one day Weaver Jack declared that Spider was finally 'gone', had made the transition, but just as Emily started to accept this, something else happened. As she and photographer Leon Mead were recording images of the painting to assess the damage, Leon said to her: 'there’s something (else painted) underneath that painting'. Emily studied the canvas and 'began to make out symbols circles, crosses, faint hints of radiating lines' and now she began to understand.
When Emily confronted Spider’s old friend Daniel Moko with the news: 'there's another painting under that painting', Moko simply said: 'yes'. Emily pressed him further: 'A law painting? And that’s why they came to get him?' Moko replied: 'That old man was boss. Boss for all that country in that painting. And he's in that country now, he painted it. He's walking around; he's with the ancestors'.Without delving any deeper into Aboriginal law, which is neither my cultural framework nor my right, this story nevertheless confirms the power of the image. For me it clearly supports the existence of an Imaginal realm of consciousness, a realm that has 'alchemical ' or transformative power. To the uninitiated it might look as if Spider had transgressed the law somehow, and that's why his ancestors came for him. But as a lawman himself Spider had a right, he knew the 'country' and by creating an 'image' of it, he painted himself into it because he was an old man and it was simply time to go.
images - Spider Kalbybidi:
Naru 2007, Acrylic on linen, 80 x 60 cm
Untitled 2007, Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 140 cm
Untitled 2007, Acrylic on linen, 122 x 61 cm
