IF Brian Campbell thought his profile as an artist had lifted when he completed the ‘Ghosts of Bullocks Past’ for the Gulargambone community in April 2018 his latest project is likely to see his reputation skyrocket.
“I want to tell outback history in whatever I do,” Mr Campbell said. “It had never occurred to me to use netting until Alison Dent asked me to do that project.”
“It’s the learning process you go through,” he said. “You don’t know what you can do with the netting until you do it.”
With his latest project Brian has taken the skills he learned on Gulargambone’s bullocks and applied them to ‘The Bus’, a depiction of three young children astride one horse on their way to school.
“It was an idea I’ve had for a while,” Mr Campbell said.
“I was going to draw it but in this (netting sculpture) I think it tells the story.”
Mr Campbell applied to submit the work into Mudgee’s Sculptures in the Garden competition and was accepted on 14 September.
The acquisitive competition’s prize money is substantial and each artist was required to submit two photographs and a description with a maximum of fifty words.
“I think we only used two sentences,” Mr Campbell said.
The Bus is constructed primarily of ‘half inch netting’ with a bit of steel rod and some quarter inch mesh, but beyond that needs little explanation.
Each of the figures that emerged from Mr Campbell’s imagination tell their own story and reveal their own personalities, helped along by thoughtful details such as school satchel, a book and a slingshot.
“There’s a clean-cut older fella, the lout in the middle, and a girl with her head in a book,” says Mr Campbell.
The netting is an unforgiving material, cutting the artist at every opportunity and Mr Campbell has a few new scars as a result.
What’s more, mistakes are hard to hide.
“You can’t rub out, you’ve got to cut off,” Mr Campbell said. “You get to the stage where you think it’s not working or you don’t like it. You’ve just got to push through and hopefully it gets better.”
Mr Campbell has continued to experiment with new techniques and tools he makes himself.
“I’ve doctored a lot of screwdrivers, trying to make the tools better and that takes time,” he said. “They don’t make many tools for this.”
Much of the shaping is achieved by whacking the netting with a stick.
“I’ve updated from ordinary timber to a cadagi root,” Mr Campbell said. “The shape is better and it’s a bit stronger.”
With the work due in Mudgee on Friday 5 October for display over the weekend of 6&7 October, finishing touches are now being applied.
“I’ve got to put buckles on the reins, fix up the book a bit and tone the horse up with a stick,” he said.
In keeping with his earlier work, the horse was modelled on the Campbell’s 26-year-old gelding, known as ‘Tuff’ who reluctantly allowed himself to be measured and moulded before the work started at the beginning of June this year.
“His real name was Bartop Rainmaker,” Mr Campbell said. “He was a retired rodeo horse that used to belong to Mooney (Wright).”
“He’d been a pick-up horse and a champion hazing horse. He even won an Australian title,” he said.
“Then he was a kids’ pony and my nephew’s boy won some ring events on him at the Show.”
Sadly ‘Tuff’ died soon after Mr Campbell had finished constructing his likeness in the netting.
“His mouth has got that bit of a grin on it and even his bow back is true to an old pony,” Mr Campbell said. “He speaks for himself.”
