 He taught art at various New South Wales country high schools before taking up a posting in 1971 to teach at the primary school at Papunya, a remote Aboriginal settlement 250 km west of Alice Springs.The 18 months of his tenure there saw the beginnings of the Western Desert Painting Movement.After encouraging the children to record their sand patterns in paint, he went on to encourage the adult men of the community to paint their Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall, preserving their traditional Dreamings, or Tjukurpa, and stories in paint.