THE ART, WORKSHOP AND SHOWROOM Marny is an environmental artist and sculptor working mainly with old wood, metals and ochres. Much of her work pertains to early Australian settlement history and exudes humor and a passion which each viewer will recognize and inturpret as a result of their individual life experience. "One's life passage, how, when and where they exist and the happenings in the wider world constantly permeate through in art". ARMLET This is a piece from Marny's South Australian Adornment Collection Many of these adornment works were constructed in the early 1980s after Marny shifted with her husband Garry and 2 young sons to a Station Property, Wittalocka near Keith in SA. These works have been exhibited in part and full in Holdsworth Galleries Sydney, The ‘Desire to Adorn’ exhibition at Ayres House, Adelaide Festival, New Land Gallery, Port Adelaide and The Green Triangle Bicentennial Exhibition Mt Gambier and Travelling. They have featured on Healthy, Wealthy & Wise Channel 10 in 1996 and Getaway Channel 9 TV in 1999. Several pieces have been purchased for collections in England, Canada, Norway and USA. ‘Breast Plate' won the SE Crafts Aquisitive Award SA in 1991 and was purchased for the Barbara Wallace Memorial Collection which is housed at the Millicent Art Gallery SA. Works are constructed only on commission. MR McGREGOR’S GARDEN GATE This work was constructed from Red-gum pickets, iron fragments (trap, chains, locks etc.) and other found timbers from a farm settled near Mundulla (Bordertown SA) circa 1860’s. A piece that both encapsulates the hardship and aspirations of remote settlement but also a humorous comment on Beatrix Potter’s ‘Mr McGregor’ and his paranoia of Peter Rabbit and family who occasionally raided his garden for vegetables and herbs! Farming hazards are universal no matter where! WRINGER! Kooringa Memories 1950s "Kooringa is the name of my childhood home purchased in the Land Ballots around Ararat, Vic. and settled in 1852. I was born towards the end of the 2nd world war and this piece visualises many of my early memories. The overall shape is of the wringer on the old Pope washing machine. I saw my mother doing battle with most days, usually heavily pregnant. (The rolling pin, old Oregon wood bed parts, a furniture finial, knob and inkwell) The door bell which rang only occasionally and caused great excitement for us children. The thicket of Red-gums and Yellow box which followed the meandering creek below the house. The little old utility truck puttering back home at nightfall". HOME GROWN Age patenaed adzed Red-gum sheep yard rail timbers, apreists bee box end, iron garden tools, butchers gaville. This is a grid-work constructed on threaded steel rods. After Garry had a brain tumor removed in the early 1990s the family moved to the lower SE of SA near Naracoorte where Marny established workshops, a gallery and two B&Bs. During this time she also initiated and achieved a 'vision'. The reclaiming of the ownership of the Naracoorte Art Gallery building from the SA Government which also involved the establishment of a community backed Naracoorte Regional Cultural Trust. Working with the regional architect and advice and assistance of Country Arts SA she secured two Arts SA Capital Facilities Grants. This money was used to upgrade the antiquated electrical wireing and disintergrating plumbing of the former Corporation Building. In addition this old council chamber was refitted to 'A' class exhibitions gallery requirements thus securing the Naracoorte Art Collection a permanent home. Garry recovered remarkably well and built 2 freestone dwellings and established a 50acre vinyard! A final return to Victoria was made in 2006.