Special Event - Understanding our shorebirds

Understanding our shorebirds

Artist Bridget Nicholson would like to invite members of the public to help her make thousands of clay eggs. Bridget has been engaged by Orana Arts and the Office of Environment and Heritage’s Art of Threatened

Species program to produce art about three threatened shorebird species: the little tern, pied oystercatcher and beach stone-curlew.

These birds return every year to the Harrington and Old Bar area to breed on the beaches and sand spits of the Manning River. Beautifully camouflaged eggs are laid on the beach in small scrapes in the sand, but ironically it is this camouflage that places the eggs and chicks at risk.

‘My initial reaction was to try and make a ceramic egg. The tricky part in this is the sealing of air within and then the shaping of the outer shell. As you shape the ‘shell’ you feel the air and its’ amorphous being, the sensation translates this sense of fragility and the idea of holding something precious and vulnerable, care is awakened. With this in mind my intention on is to entice others into the making of clay eggs.

Bridget spent two weeks at the Gallery in December to start the egg making process, and this process will continue at the Gallery with our volunteers directing the egg making process. Visitors are invited to come and make an egg with our volunteers every Friday and Saturday during Gallery hours over the next 5 weeks. Book as a group or just drop in. No extraordinary skills required, just willing hands! All eggs made will be fired/coloured and form part of a collection to be exhibited as a touring exhibition in 2020.

When

Location

Manning Regional Art Gallery, 12 Macquarie Street, TAREE, 2430, View Map