General News
1 August, 2024
Councillors decide artwork themes for water tower
There is nothing so daunting as a blank canvas – especially one the size of the Nyngan water tower - as the nine Bogan shire councillors discovered during 50 minutes of discussion at the July council meeting.
Bogan Shire Council has grant funding to paint a mural on the water tower – but deciding on the subject matter has been a challenge, especially as there is a looming deadline for the funds to be spent.
A community survey yielded 90 ideas - from which councillors were asked to arrange into something which the community would appreciate looming above it for years to come. Trying to find common ground from the suggestions - which lurched from Steve Irwin to stalking tigers, river scenes, palm trees, grazing sheep, every sport played in Nyngan, mining, railway scenes, ANZAC tributes and Indigenous art, was never going to be easy – especially in the format of a regular council meeting.
Councillor Graham Jackson kickstarted the process by proposing an artwork which combined almost all of the suggestions. “I think we should keep it in the present and reflect the past as well. We could have a picture of all the different sports, the Bogan River, possibly with the water skiers, and have sheep – merinos - wheat crop, even an open pit of the mine with an Aboriginal outline,” he said. “And I also think we could even have a picture of the Big Bogan right at the top as well.”
Cr Karl Bright saw a theme in flora and fauna in and around the Bogan River which he thought wouldn’t put too many noses out of joint, and put his hand up to talk about it. Acting general manager Deb Wood tried to wrestle the gathering talkfest into “meeting protocol” and reminded councillors it wasn’t a forum for general discussion. Despite a few minor protests she was firm on the need for suggestions to be put as motions – and then voted on, discussed and amended. Cr Jodi Douglas had a stab at this by formatting something she thought might please the masses beyond the council chamber – suggesting the direction be “what made Nyngan” and include the railway, agriculture, and mining.
This was met by approval - although Cr Richard Milligan was quick to amend it with a nod to the region’s Indigenous heritage as well. Cr Victoria Boag spoke to the scope of the artwork and suggested there would be more impact if it was a simple design rather than trying to cram “too many little things” into it just to please everyone. As the meeting wrestled to get a resolution from the railway-agriculture-mining-Indigenous motion, Cr Doug Menzies took a sideways leap and suggested it was all too common and instead the proposed artwork should focus on Nyngan’s uniqueness.
“Every second town you go through has got a shearer or a driller or a paddock of wheat or something like that. I know they're nice pictures, but there’s nothing individual about them,” he said. “Every town within 200 miles of us has very similar flora and fauna, but Nyngan is the only town that experienced a flood that caused the whole town to be evacuated. And that was how the town became known by three quarters of the country. And if you want to talk about sport - we can't try and identify a few from all the different sports because the junior netballers love their netball, the junior footy players love their footy, the cricketers love their cricket. Everybody loves that stuff. But we can’t put it all on there.
“If we want to do sport, we should look at our two gold medal winning Olympians. They’re the overarching sporting representatives out of this town. Every town's got a rugby league club or rugby union club or a cricket club or a netball club – but they don’t have two gold medal winning Olympians.” After 30 minutes of head-spinning attempts on the meeting-protocol motions, mayor Glen Neill became concerned the session was stretching on a bit and managed to move the meeting “out of committee” and into general discussion.
This was met with a collective sigh of relief and concluded shortly after with councillors agreeing on four possible themes for the artwork, all to include “Aboriginal designs”. They were:
Theme one: the 1990 flood evacuation – possibly a recreation of a photograph from the time.
Theme two: mining and agriculture of the Bogan shire area.
Theme three: Olympic gold medallists Phillip Dutton and Jack Hargreaves.
Theme four: a design incorporating the Bogan River and its wildlife and recreation.
These themes will now be handed to a professional artist for concept drawings, from which the final design will be taken. Bogan Shire Council’s director of engineering, Graeme Bourke, said the image would be on the eastern and northern faces of the tower (overlooking O’Reilly Park and the Nyngan Bowling Club) and start at around three metres from ground level to prevent vandalism.