How to Turn Weeds into Gold

Posted on 20 February, 2012 by Connecting Country

Congratulations to the Taradale Landcare Group for working towards the restoration of Kangaroo Creek. This project involves eight private properties, important roadsides and land managed by Coliban Water. Connecting Country developed the site management plan and is providing a financial contribution towards the implementation of this project that has developed in conjunction with the landholders. Financial support has also been received for the project from the Victorian Gorse Taskforce and from the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment with the invaluable in-kind support from by the landholders, the Taradale Landcare Group and Coliban Water. A true community effort!

The article below explains the role of the Gorse Rabbit in the evolution of this project. Suzanne Donisthorpe is the author.

It was first spotted last Good Friday, high on a hill in Taradale. It loomed 12 feet tall, out of the paddock, swaying gently, silhouetted against the evening sky, faceless and slightly spooky.

We were up at our place in Taradale for the Easter long weekend and had invited a few people around for a party and a bonfire- as you do –in the country. But as wood is scarce and useful and we had promised a bonfire- we decided to use what we had to hand in vast abundance… gorse. Nasty, ghastly, invasive, gorse. The curse of Central Victoria. We had been hacking away at our shamefully large patch with the slash and spray method, so there was a big pile of dead weed around. ‘Let’s burn that’ I suggested.’ I’ll make it into something- then we can burn it,’ said my husband Frank, the sculptor. He is a man who loathes gardening, but when you can burn the results- well now you’re talking. And given it was Easter, what else but a rabbit?

And when he was done, it looked something like the wicker man or the rabbit from Donny Darko- whose name just happens to be…Frank, all very menacing in its furry gorse suit. But what could be better than to burn an effigy symbolising colonial environmental disaster- the twin evils of rabbits and gorse – all in one fell swoop? Burning the wicker wabbit- there’s a reason to party.

Of course before we burned the bunny, we took lots of photos and filmed the actual fire. But by Easter Sunday, we were missing the rabbit, now a pathetic, twisted heap of burnt wire. So Frank made another rabbit- it rose again in fact and we called it the Resurrection Rabbit.

RR stood sentinel over the Taradale valley for all of winter, aging visibly as his gorse skin dried out and his wire sagged. He looked out across at the living gorse which had spread alarmingly with all the rain. We heard that Connecting Country had some funding available for community projects to get rid of weeds and so we hatched the Gorse Must Die project with our neighbours. Meetings were called and the ball began to roll. Landcare got involved and things looked promising. Meanwhile more was happening on the art front.

We got news that Lot 19 – the wonderful art space out in the back blocks of Castlemaine – were having their annual Spring Sculpture prize. Frank looked at me, I looked at him, we both looked at the rabbit. It nodded slightly back. Of course- the perfect thing to enter. A sculpture about Central Victoria, with a black story. But Frank is a dreamer, so one rabbit was not going to be enough. He decided he wanted a whole family and so the rabbits began to breed. Now there were three- mother, father and child. Two stood watching and waving as the third sailed off in his corrugated tin boat. We called it The Departure.

In January 2011, Frank’s father Kurt Veldze passed away in Albany West Australia. He was 80 years old, and had been a fashion photographer in the Madmen days of the 60’s. He was born in Latvia and had fled Europe with his family escaping the Russians first and the hell of war that came after. We had his ashes but had not found a suitable time or place to say our final goodbyes. It struck us that we could burn the rabbit and Kurt’s ashes at the Lot 19 show, a fitting tribute we thought for a man who was both an artist and a traveller.

And so it was that we farewelled dear Kurt, we put his ashes in a velvet heart shaped box, put the heart in the rabbit in the boat, and set fire to it. Two gypsy violinists played as Frank said goodbye to his Dad. I watched the faces of the people gathered around. Some, but by no means all of them knew Kurt, but most were silent and thoughtful as the rabbit went up in flames. It was a beautiful moment for us all. Kurt would have been proud.

But this story has a happy ending. The Departure has been chosen as a finalist in the 2012 Montalto sculpture prize – up in Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsular. So as I write this, the rabbits are back here at Taradale. They are all being given new, fresh gorse coats and are being jazzed up for their next incarnation. Oh and about the gold- well Frank won the Lot 19 prize. And we have our fingers crossed for the Montalto prize, and better still, we have been successful in our application to Connecting Country and soon the gorse will be sprayed. Resurrection Rabbit has become the Pin Up Bunny on the Connecting Country newsletter.

After the gorse is gone, we might have to think of other ways to make art, but it’s a sacrifice we are happy to make.