The Australian Crane, better known as a Brolga loves to “dance” and this exuberance of courtship captures for me their innocent joy for living that I hope my scrap metal art can express.

I watched a video of dancing brolgas and was enarmoured with their beauty. I froze a number of images, printed them off, and with them as a guide I went to the shed and fashioned this brolga from the materials I had on hand.

The dancing brolga stands 6′ tall with a wing span of 4’6″. The base is a 3’6″ wagon wheel “tyre” with 2 leaf springs crossed on which the brolga stands. Legs are made from horse-drawn wheat stripper “fingers” and steel rods with the feet also made from these fingers. The body is 3 car suspension coils and the neck is exhaust pipe. The head is minimal: just a spring. It is the beak where I want the focus to be. This is made of harvester fingers. The wings on brolgas are huge! I’ve tried to create this largeness with custom orb finely fluted galvanised iron shaped over a horse drawn carriage leaf spring. I bronze welded these. All the other welding is by Mig welder.

In the breeze the brolga moves, not unlike a dance! It graces our driveway and greets us with a reminder of the joy of living.

Inspiration …

Just what is the inspiration behind Scrapart?