Leeawuleena, 2001
lake driftwood and eucalpyt wood
variable dimensions
collection of the National Gallery of Victoria

This work was created between two places.
Leeawuleena (Lake St Clair) in Central Tasmania and Eddystone Point, North East Tasmania. This work is the result of staying at Leeawuleena in Central Tasmania with three Tasmanian Aboriginal artists who were creating fibre artwork during their residency program at the lake. I was drawn to the Lake shore and was most astonished by the water's action of constantly washing up, casting out, these forms that strongly resembled the heads of ancient birds. Birds have always followed me, and seem to speak to me in unexpected locations. I gathered these silent, bonelike twigs and put a head to each body. Several were collected whole needing no Frankensteinian attentions of matching head with body. They became enlivened and surrounded the hut's verandah wall where we stayed, they created shadow and watched us. It seemed they came through time, through the waters and decisions of the lake to wash them to near where we stayed. Something of the essence of how things were beyond my hands and yet came into my hands is the mystery or language of this work. I have placed them walking or marching up a gum tree branch in procession as that is how they seemed to arrive into my peripheral vision as I walked the lake shore. They now march up and almost out of a gallery space, the log holds them in wax filled cavities, wax which dripped like bird droppings. These creatures' movement from floor to wall is suggestive of a further place, a world beneath the floor and after the wall- from where they emanate from and may disappear to. I do not think they are of this time, this world, but manifestations of another that briefly spoke to me.