Back on Sunday, 7th August 2011, I wrote a blog "Out and About Looking at Mosaics" which was about some local mosaics I had photographed, one of which was at Morgan, South Australia.
Imagine my surprise when someone contacted me about that mosaic (OMG somone read my blog!). The someone was in fact Barbi Harris, the artist who designed it (OMG the artist actually found my blog!).
In her email Barbi wrote:
I am the artist responsible for creating those mosaics.
At the time I was living in Morgan, and organised the mosaics as a community project. The design is mine (after consultation with the participants as to what they wanted portrayed), and I engaged a professional mosaic artist to help us (Mike Tye from Goolwa SA.)
There were 8 local residents besides myself and Mike involved in the project, and it took a total of 384 hours to complete. We gained a commendation in the SA Great Awards for that year.
After that project a few of us decided to keep going and we created another mosaic of the old council logo, which, when I left town was hanging outside the council offices.
I thought this was of great interest and I was impressed that Barbi and her friends had won an Award for their efforts and amazed at how long it took them to complete their task. I decided I would re-post images of the mosaic here along with the additional old Morgan Council logo mosaic and the information that Barbi kindly sent to me, as it is always of interest to know the background relating to a work of art.
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| Old Morgan Council photo courtesy of Barbi Harris |
Barbi has an extensive history as an artist and was an inaugural member of the Painters of the Flinders Ranges Art Group, and some might remember her as the artist in residence at the Tatachilla Winery at Port Willunga. Sadly for us, she no longer lives in South Australia, but she is still making Pelicans. It turns out Barbi discovered my blog whilst searching for photos of pelicans to assist with her latest project - a papier mache pelican. Barbi currently works within the mental health industry, and uses art as a recovery tool for those who are interested in either furthering their artistic interests or who want to just try. She has been commissioned to run five 2 hr workshops (once a week for 5 weeks), and they are going to make some large papier mache sculptures. Barbi apparently first got interested in papier mache when she was working in WA with disabled people, and together they made a big pelican.
I think it is wonderful how artists like Barbi are able to help foster community spirit and co-operation, as well as help those who are working to overcome the problems associated with various types of disabilities. I wish her and her friends every success in their endeavour and perhaps we might see some photos of the papier mache sculptures in due course. My thanks to Barbi for forwarding the background information.
Cheers
Heather.
