Creating art from horse poo and weeds

Wagga artist Emily Shannon shares how she creates her unique artwork from prickly pear found on travelling stock routes.

Transcript

00:00So this is my Silky Swainson pea. The paper is made from horse poo and I have made some ink using

00:09lake pigments which is basically a pretty complicated chemistry process to shift a botanical

00:15dye that's a liquid into insoluble pigment crystals. So I've made that from weeds. So

00:24here you've got some quickly prepared picture which is actually going to be fading over the

00:28time of the exhibition which is intentional because that just leads into the idea that

00:35these species that I'm depicting here which are part of our box gum grassy woodland are

00:40endangered and are literally fading before our eyes. The other weed pigment I've used is

00:46privet berries which are abundant around the streets of Wagga. I did not need to look far

00:50and they have been used in the dyeing industry for a very long time but I was able to apply

00:55some of that scientifically and move it into pigments. So it's completely handmade and it's

01:01part of my Cultivate exhibition here at the Station Gallery this side of November. I hope you can come.