This mural project was my most intensive to date

Two murals of 42m in length and lots of engagement with all 230 students.

Last week I arrived home in Freo from my residency project in Kojonup. Kojonup is a little farming town on the way to Albany that many people might know from the giant wool wagon sculpture on the highway there.

I was hosted by one of the teachers, Taryn, and stayed on her farm that has sheep, canola and other crops. This was a really unique experience for me being a bit of a “Freo city slicker” and having never stayed on a working farm before. Every night as I went to sleep there was a deep loud chorus of “Baaaaaaa” sounds due to it being “lambing season” which somehow was in fact surprisingly soothing to drift off to.

This project was my most intensive to date: Two murals of 42m in length and lots of engagement with all 230 students. (About 3 weeks of planning and designing, and then 3 weeks of being on location.)

I learnt a lot about Kojonup from the stories of the students and staff. I translated some of these into the designs. The grey-blue pattern flowing across the mural represents the freshwater brook that runs through the town. Jamie McVee, Aboriginal and Islander Education Officer at the school, designed cultural symbols for the students to paint in the mural. I especially love the animal tracks that she added of the kangaroo and goanna that weave through part of the mural.

I couldn’t not include a sheep in the design as I learnt that Kojonup’s claim to fame was that they were the first town in Australia to have a million sheep in 1969.

I soon realised just how little I knew about sheep as I accidentally used a “shedding sheep breed” in my original design which I sent off for review and not a merino. I felt rather embarrassed at my lack of farming knowledge-I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as a sheep that could shed and drop its own wool without being shorn but there you go? That’s pretty wild!

Though I can know claim that after my residency I know a little more about farming. I even got to go on a tractor to do some “seeding”.

Every student in the school from age 4 to 16 got to have a turn of painting a section of the wall. The students seemed to really get a lot out of it, and it was very encouraging that many of them wanted a second turn. I saw some of them proudly showing their friends what sections they painted during the breaks.

The fauna and flora featured in Part 1 are:

Carnaby’s cockatoos (the male has the pink around his eye)
Western grey kangaroo
Heath’s goanna
Merino sheep
Concealer Moth (Philobota xanthastis)

Flora:

Grannys Bonnet, Isotropis cuneifolia (a favorite of mine if you haven’t noticed)
Red Lechenaultia, Lechenaultia formosa, the floral emblem of Kojonup
Eucalyptus sp.
Spider Orchid
Acacia sp.

Huge thanks to Taryn Sexton and the school grant committee for making this wonderful project possible and for giving the students such a unique opportunity to leave a mark at their school. It was lot of work to get this project off the ground!