The morning of my first day I jogged down the paddock scattering the feeding wombats as black cattle and grey kangaroos stared at the newcomer to their country. But it is familiar country, on the river where I gave birth to my son 20 years ago. Near the town I went to high school. I had been to Bundanon before as a school student, then adult visitor, but today I was living here. The first day of 5 weeks. The apartment and studio are perfect, and I have settled in among other creative peers, feeling at home and grounded, in spite of the extreme winds. I focus on the tree lined horizon and begin to gather images. I drive the long treacherous way into town and buy food and a portable electric stove for melting rabbit skin glue. I return to find a black out and flat batteries in my scales. I need to measure 5g of alum and 50g of glue, the sizing will have to wait.
Woodducks shroud collection
home video made on samsung
Dad’s taxidermy egret
Its my birthday and dad is delicately gutting an egret.
a week later he stuffs the egret.
Tomerong Public School Mural
The talented year 5 and 6 students of Tomerong public school have been creating an amazing four panel mural. The theme is local tall trees crowded with local animals and birds.
Here are some pics.
Pirate and the Wood ducks
Yesterday I took dad to meet Pirate at his house. His front yard was filled with the most precious and diabolical bones, including whale, dolphin and other large sea mammals, other animal parts such as snake skin and green turtle shells and magnificent hunks of wood. Most bones and wood had intricate images of Aboriginal men and women or sacred animals etched or burnt into them. Dad loved meeting Pirate. They are similar, both with one eye and an obsession with animals and the practice of taxidermy in all its forms. Pirate’s practice includes decomposition in order to retrieve bones so we are looking for a suitable place to collaborate. He presented us with gifts. He gave dad a cattle egret and I was given two wood ducks! Sacred to my childhood, dad had given me a baby wood duck I had hand-raised. I took the ducks to a clearing under a tree in Woollamia to decompose. Darren helped me.
Dad’s Crow
I found a crow on the road just past Tarago after presenting at the ‘Where are We? Visual Cultures of Placemaking in a Precarious Age‘ conference curated by Melinda Hinkson at the ANU. I had presented about dad and his taxidermy and family history and he had been asking for a crow. When I saw it, a rare find, I knew he was for dad. Dad the taltos or Hungarian Shaman. He took the guts out of the crow yesterday.
On display at the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award Campbelltown
Collecting the Woollamia shrouds
I removed the bodies of the rosella and ringtail possum to reveal their bodily stains keeping the dried husks as painting subjects later.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/36965266@N08/sets/72157645704193419/
Winter Rosella from Nerriga
On the way back from staying with my family I found a freshly killed rosella, an eastern one without a tail.
I brought the limp body to the Woollamia home and lay them near the ringtail.
The cute Finch couple that live there watched me.
There they lay to decompose in the Woollamia bushland.
