Cade Lucas
The irony wasn’t lost on Kirra Grimes.
To celebrate NAIDOC Week, the Bunuba, Naaguja Yamatji woman originally from Western Australia, designed an Indigenous guernsey for Tarneit Football Club to wear in its home game on Saturday against West Footscray.
Grimes ended up designing the Titans’ guernsey because her partner, Torres Strait Island man Michael Naawi, plays for them.
Naawi only joined the Western Region Football League division 3 club this season after he and Grimes moved to Point Cook and it’s fair to say Tarneit’s first ever Indigenous jumper wouldn’t have come about otherwise.
Yet on Saturday when the Titans wore the design, the player most responsible was wearing it on the side lines .
“He’s injured his collar bone, he’s spewing” laughed Grimes of her partner’s misfortune ahead of the game which Tarneit lost by 40 points.
Naawi’s uncle, a fellow Torres Strait Island man, was able to play in the jumper. Both men only learned of their Aboriginal ancestry after attending Indigenous culture session at the club earlier this year.
“There’s a Torres Strait Dharii at the top which represents the two Torres Strait men that play for Tarneit, Michael and his uncle John Proud,” said Grimes before explaining the different meaning at the bottom of the design.
“And at the base are song lines with footprints that represent the players journey’s, whether that’s on the field or in their personal lives.”
It was that session that inspired Grimes to design the guernsey.
“It took about two weeks from the start which is a pretty good turn around” she said of the design that was done digitally on an iPad.
It’s a feat made all the more impressive given Grimes isn’t a trained artist and did it all while juggling full-time work.
“I don’t see myself as an artist. Our art is part of our culture and our storytelling rather than a profession,” she said.
I think it comes naturally to all of us.”
