Art Meets Nature – Wildlife Art Museum of Australia November 2018

Wildlife Art Museum of Australia
(WAMA) presents
an exhibition from selected Australian artists
ART MEETS NATURE
November 17 – 25, 2018
LUCY McEACHERN GALLERY
Wingeel, Victoria, Australia

"WAMA'S purpose is to inspire and enrich our appreciation of nature.
Why is this important? Simply, we all feel better when we are connected with nature,
and a happier more sustainable future depends on us all working with, not against nature"– WAMA

WAMA's vision to encourage interaction with the natural world  through art is a natural fit for my own work.  Below is my contribution to this exhibition – "Wylah".- an abstracted blown glass piece inspired by the Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo.
In recent years this species has been in rapid decline because of native habitat clearance, with loss of food supply and nest sites.

"Around where I live in the rainforest in Northern NSW, The Yellow Tailed Blacks are relatively common, the Glossy Blacks are vulnerable to extinction, and the Red Tailed Blacks have become locally extinct.  My personal engagement with the Yellow Tailed Blacks became quite close many years ago when we rescued a female YTB that had been knocked from a tree during a storm. Her wing was broken and a local vet taped the wing to her body for a potential healing.

We brought her back home and put her into an aviary we had. The family was hanging about providing that mournful song of theirs.  She wouldn't eat.  One day I noticed her claw caught in the bandage.  When trying to release it she bit me hard, very hard. I screamed.  As she released a little to go again, I quickly extracted my thumb.  It wasn't in great shape. So I had to go to the hospital for treatment and stitching. 

She died a couple of days later.  The usual birdsong around our place fell silent."

                                                      – Wylah – blown glass, 34cm H x 27cm W x 6cm D

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