mural at Mother of God gets smoked in and blessed

It is always a special moment if you get an opening for your artwork, but its one better if it gets smoked and blessed by an elder of the original Indigenous People.
At Mother of God School, the children and I worked on making this mural about the Kororoit Creek and an acknowledgement to the traditional owners of the land who lived by the Kororoit Creek in the area of Ardeer, the Wurundjeri. (which is on wall nearby).
This Friday the mural was smoked and blessed by Auntie Annette Sciberras of the Wurundjeri Tribe. She lit a fire and placed some wet green branches over the fire to make the welcoming smoke and all of the children at the school and visitors to the ceremony, friends, family and local residents walked through the smoke. Then  the mural was blessed with water from the Kororoit Creek.
All of the people present read out aloud the Acknowledgement from the mural.
And at the end all of the children sang a song.

Thankyou to the community of Mother of God for making this mural more than just an artwork.
I really enjoyed the service and the way you do things at your school

heres another page about the mural,

click on the link to go there.

http://mosaicprojectsbydebbieqadri.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/circular-mosaic-at-mother-of-god.html

Footprints of the Planet - Glen Katherine Primary School

Footprints of the Planet
A project of 52 circular murals that explore our relationship to the planet and how we affect the health of our natural environment. This project is currently underway. The 5/6 students at Glen Katherine Primary School have designed their circular murals and then made the ceramic artworks for them. Now my job is to put them together onto cement sheet boards with a mosaic background. There are going to be 52 murals which will be installed on two walls. Here are some of them being made or completed.

circular mosaic at Mother of God Primary School

This circular mosaic is part of an artwork which acknowledges the Wurundjeri people who lived along Kororoit creek near the school. This part of the mural is an artwork about the creek with the trees , plants and animals that were important to the Wurundjeri People when they lived there. The second part of this art project is a written acknowledgement which will go on the wall near this circular piece.

Brunswick South West Primary School ceramics challenge

At Brunswick Southwest Primary School I worked with years 3/4 students on a ceramics challenge.
Here's what we made.
these works have been built with earthenware handbuilding clay and decorated with liquid underglazes. As yet they are unfired.  They will come out much brighter when fired and glazed.
Well done you fellow artists!