Open Cast Australia

The second third of the Spoil installation was completed the other day. The map at the centre and the images of flowers and animals and indigenous Australians around the outside are from a vintage souvenier table cloth. I sewed on tiny red beads to represent active mines.This piece is almost as big as the spoil heap element of the installation, over half a metre across (as the crow flies).

Stitching the rusty and golden brown threads onto orange blankets to form the sides of the mine, and beading the map reawakened my desire to someday make a leisurely roadtrip around and across Australia. My Cape York expedition a few years ago gave me a taste for the outback which has yet to be satisfied. I find the textures, patterns and comparatively limited palatte of hot desert to be as engrossing, in their own way, as the textures, patterns and palatte of Antarctica's cold desert.