Newdegate Machinery Field Days: Recycled Art Sculpture Competition to showcase creativity

Budding artists and sculptors have the opportunity to get their hands on a share of $4500 this Newdegate Machinery Field Days with the inaugural Recycled Art Sculpture Competition weaving its way through the event.

Competition organiser Greta Wolzak said the recycling art concept was inspired by Sculpture By The Sea, and Rockingham Castaways Sculpture Awards and was open to anyone that had excess junk or materials on hand and needed a reason to be creative.

“There’s lots of creative people in the area and we decided to bring that energy into this year’s field day to showcase what creative sculptures can be made from random junk in your backyard,” Ms Wolzak said.

“It’s for people in the country to have some fun and make something from nothing, to reuse and think about what materials can be repurposed into something beautiful.

“The artworks need to be made from at least 65 per cent recycled materials, suitable for outdoor sculptures that can withstand the winter weather.”

She said there would be a Kulin Community Bank Recycled Art Sculpture Trail throughout the oval which would allow people to view the artworks as they wandered the site.

Newdegate youngster Flynn Turner, 12, is no stranger to using recycled materials to create something wonderful after spending four years restoring an old truck on his family farm.

While he can’t enter the piece in this year’s competition, because it is too big to move, he plans to use his experience recycling to make a giant cactus out of barbed wire.

The old truck was just a chassis when his family moved to the farm nearly five years ago, and since then he has set about turning it into a “tree house truck” — complete with a floor, tray and more.

“I built a cab, with a seat and wheel, and then built the trailer and put the grill back on,” he said.

“I’ve used an old deck from a house at Bremer Bay, some wooden pallets, some old things from our kitchen, and some things I’ve found in the bush. The only new thing has been nails.”

Kade Lloyd, 10, is another young gun weighing up his options for the competition, but is fairly sure he’s made up his mind.

“Dad and I are thinking of making a tree out of old chicken wire with sheep tags as leaves to stand about 1.5 metres long — even taller than me,” he said. “We have a lot of scrap metal on the farm.”

The Recycled Art Sculpture Competition consists of a first prize worth $2500, a runner up prize of $1000, and a people’s choice award of $1000, in which people can vote for on the Wednesday of the field days.

Ms Wolzak said the Newdegate Primary School was also getting involved with student art to be displayed in the Dyson Jones Wool Shed on the oval throughout the event.

The Recycled Art Sculpture Competition is sponsored by the Kulin Community Bank.

KCB business development manager Tom Murphy said when he put the idea of sponsoring the competition to the bank’s board they responded that “it was a no brainer”.

While it is the first time the bank has sponsored the event it’s not the first time they have supported recycled, or art projects in the region.

Mr Murphy said Kulin’s Tin Horse Highway was all made from recycled metal and ”Rural Bank and the Kulin Community Bank have been supporting the Newdegate art show for a fair while”.

“It’s the beauty of community banking, being able to put back into those that support us,” Mr Murphy said.

“We support whatever we can in Newdegate as a way of saying ‘thank you’.

“We have a lot of support through business in Newdegate and we like to invest profits back into where our business comes from.”

The Kulin Community Bank has a “great partnership” with the Newdegate Machinery Field Days and Mr Murphy has been attending the event for the entire seven years he has been at the bank.

“I’ve been attending the field days every year, and we are always embraced by the crew there,” he said.

“They are a very lovely group who work really hard for their community.”

The Kulin Community Bank sets up in the “old railway building” out of the cold, with easy access to the donut stand, and was open to all to visit.

Mr Murphy said this year he was hoping to have students from the Kulin District High School manning a repurposed trailer outside the bank’s display.

“We are hoping to have turned the van into a mobile coffee trailer for the school kids to learn skills to run it themselves,” he said.

“It’s another good recycling story.”

WHAT ARE YOU MAKING FOR THIS YEAR’S FIELD DAYS?

Nikita Ness, 10

I’m making a scorpion out of nuts and bolts from around the farm, and Dad is going to help me weld it. It will be about 40cm long. I’m really inspired by Wheatbelt sculptor Jordan Sprigg.

Marlie Van Graan, 10

It’s hard to decide but I’m thinking something to do with plastic and newspaper, maybe in the shape of a diamond with a fish swimming above it. I love diamonds and animals.

Milton Thompson, 9

I’m making a mask with a leftover lemonade bottle, it should be really cool.

Lexi Tonkin, 10

Dad and I are making a basket out of an old ice cream tub and weaving old chip packets from his lunch box, as well as hay and tin foil through it. We can bring it on holidays and put shells in it.

This year’s Newdegate Machinery Field Days will be held September 6 and 7.

View the digital edition of the 2023 program here.