I’ve spent the last few days catching up on newspapers and changing hair colour.
An item that piqued my interest featured artist, Beverley Teske, who is creating an installation out of bottle tops to be staged at the local museum.
Teske is collecting 61,555 bottle caps with each bottle cap representing an Australian soldier who died in World War 1. To date, Ms Teske said she had collected about one-third of the number of caps required and asked interested people to drop their caps at the museum before and during the installation.
The exhibition will also feature three large paintings, with one entitled Under Clear Blue Skies they Came to Die also representing the 61,555 soldiers with hand drawn crosses. Another painting also has 130,845 crosses representing all soldiers who died at Gallipoli.
Teske is quoted as saying, “The original piece was inspired when I saw Russell Crow in The Water Diviner. It really moved me that all these people died. I wanted to do something to acknowledge that”. World History via Russell Crowe. Don’t you just love that!
Can’t help with bottle tops, though I do have a few corks hanging around.
On my recent travels I visited a Cork Tree which was brought from England in a jam tin in 1861.
Known as the Wishing Tree in English folklore, it is said that the trees are surrounded with a strange power to bring good luck to those who observe certain rituals dating back to the time of the Great Plague of London 1665. At that time, people came from all parts of the country to walk around the tree three times and as they walked, to make a wish. Some came for better health, some for better fortune and others for a wife or husband. It was said that few were disappointed.
Fortune Favours those who see
More in me than just a tree
Look at my cork
And three times walk
Before my girth for all to see
I had visions of re-enacting mystical Druid rituals underneath the moon light. Unfortunately, the shade of this magnificent tree is also home to numerous Shetland ponies, and they are not one to share their environment.
Brizzy Mays Books and Bruschetta 
The bottle caps remind me of the Bialik Button Project where they collected 1.5 million buttons representing lives lost during the Holocaust, vision reminders are so powerful.
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You are so right, Jen. Last time I visited the War Memorial in Canberra there were marble statues of folded flags meant to represent the flags draped on the coffins of Australian soldiers in the Middle East theatre. Each statue had a soldier’s name. Lump in throat stuff.
Have a beaut weekend – must be nearly School hold for your mob
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Yes two weeks to go ☺
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