00:00Death, you know, in society is treated very differently from other, other issues.
00:11And I realised I didn't put my hat on.
00:16I don't know.
00:17What does it look like?
00:18Is it?
00:19Yeah.
00:20That's good.
00:21I always call it feather work and people go, what, eh?
00:29I trained at Sydney College of the Arts and I majored in jewellery.
00:34And from that I was recruited into the fashion industry and did fashion jewellery where feathers
00:42were a very important ingredient at the time.
00:46And then when I set up on my own as an artist, I used a lot of beads and then feathers.
00:54I was using commercial feathers.
00:56And then one day while driving along Kingston Street in Camperdown, we saw a dead lorikeet
01:05on the road and my friend, you know, stopped the car and made me pick it up and I haven't
01:11looked back.
01:13I mean, using roadkill is just kind of a way of saying that we should be utilising things.
01:22We shouldn't be just sort of buying new all the time.
01:27Well, the first thing I want them to do is love it and they love it and think, I mean,
01:35this is the jeweller in me, you know, wanting and being beautiful.
01:41I think that's very important to me.
01:43I mean, I work hard on making them looking friendly and beautiful, but I want them to
01:50think about the bird's previous life.
01:53I start with a ceramic slash plastic piece and glue feathers to them.
02:01The feathers I try and imitate the bird's, you know, the bloomage of the bird.
02:07So I put the wings on a little dog or cat, then build a form using the feathers to mimic
02:17how the feathers appear on a bird or a living bird so that they then, like a griffin, are
02:25kind of half animal, half bird.
02:31Because I'm using roadkill or found feathers, they have an appeal and they talk about how
02:38we value pets, how we value wild birds, and how they really don't, they're two different
02:46things, yet, you know, we treat pets with such care and love, and yet wild animals with
02:56disrespect and discourtesy.
03:02Our right to use the road is never challenged.
03:05Our right to build roads is never challenged.
03:09And, you know, really, it should be.
03:13We shouldn't have the right to put lines all over the map.
03:18And roadkill, I try and make something beautiful out of something which is bad.
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