Saturday 16 August 2008

Bowerbird costume

Bowerbird costume by Eloise O'HareThis is a bowerbird costume on the left. I made many years ago for the Bowerbird Recycling Centre in Merrickville, Sydney, Australia. Making the costume was a monumental task and I had to call for assistance from a lovely lady who worked in costumes department of the Sydney Opera House. She later took me to see an opera in Hobert that had an Opera on for the visually impaired, which was really amazing.

The bowerbird was the mascot for a recycling project and toured festivals all over the place. Real bowerbirds collect blue objects to use as a ‘love luring tool’. They use the objects to create a fancy display and hope to pull a Sheila that way. This is why the bird in the photo is blue - real bowerbirds aren’t that blue.

The red creature in the photo is Tyridactilman, a children’s book character. I adore mascots and when two of them bump into each other at an event its even better.

3 comments:

Spurwing Plover said...

And let the Bowerbird build his bower and impess a mate

Spurwing Plover the angry Shorebird said...

BOWER BIRD THEY LIKE TO COLLECT CERTAIN ITEMS BUT ITS MR BOWER BIRD WHO DOSE IT SOME CAN COLLECT VERY UNSIAL ITEMS

Anonymous said...

What an amazing effort to make this costume. I stumbled across this as looking for a costume idea to dress up as for my school for NSS Storytime next term. Do you still have this?