A fresh look for Park Orchards mural
by JAMES POYNER
7th March 2022
AS PART OF the Park Orchards Recovery Wall project, as reported in February M&N Bulletin, the community, through Park Orchards Learning Centre’s Nature in Art group, has given Pauline Brooke’s village map a fresh coat of paint, and a mural depicting local flora and fauna.
The Diary spoke with members of the Nature in Art group about the project.
Terry Napier, the founder of the Nature in Art group, said their goal was to represent the nature of Park Orchards on the wall.
“Our main theme in Nature in Art is to remind people of the beauty of nature and what we are losing rapidly, so we hope the mural is going to be a constant reminder.
“We have had so much reaction to it including all the little kids from school coming home, and that’s been tremendous,” he said.
The idea was presented to the Nature in Art group via local “dabbler” and Nature in Art member Anne Gibson who was approached by the Park Orchards Lions Club when they decided to give Pauline Brooke’s map a touch-up.
“Trevor from the Lions Club said ‘we’re redoing the map which Pauline Brooke did years and years ago, do you want to do something on the rest of the wall?’.
“I just thought it would be a nice community project, get the Nature in Art students from the Community House involved.
“I thought we would depict the 100 Acres.
“All of that is pretty close to my heart, all the mess we’re making of our environment,” she said.
The mural took a little over three- and-a-half weeks to paint.
Anne and the group usually paint with watercolours, but for this project they had to use housepaint, which Anne explained was a challenge all on its own.
“I had to pick out a red, white, blue, green, yellow and black.
“Because they are not primary colours — because they are made up of other colours — mixing them was a real challenge.
“We had a bit of fun with this, some strange colours,” she said.
The Park Orchards Nature in Art group is the second biggest group of its kind outside the Botanical Gardens.
The addition of the animals to the town map breathe new life and new meaning into a long-standing town feature, and the mural’s message “tread lightly and care for country” is a fitting reminder we need to look after our environment, as well as our community.
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