Dress inspired by love of cassowaries and nature
Media Release 19 June 2018
A spectacular Cassowary Dress has been loaned to the community for display during the upcoming Mission Beach Community Cassowary Festival. Chani Pierce, contacted the festival committee with the offer to use the dress made by her late mother Patricia Pierce - Drake. Chani, an Innisfail local, said "We love Cassowaries & everything in nature". "It would be lovely to showcase something my mother created with a lot of time and effort". "The dress was even modeled at a Tafe event" Chani added proudly. "She spent a lot of hours also making baby chick cassowaries out of paper mache". Although Patricia, known as Trish, had been a dressmaker most of her life, it was in her later years that she completed several dressmaking courses at Innisfail Tafe. "Patricia was always very passionate about wildlife and the land" . "She adored cassowaries so much she created this cassowary dress. Chani said. She would go to great lengths to add detail" You can see it in the bead work". "We are very excited to have been contacted by Chani. " said festival committee member Penny Bell who collected the artwork this week. "I was even more excited when I got to see Trish's awesome creation". Chani has kindly donated her mother's treasured artwork to be displayed for the duration of the festival. "We are so fortunate to have been given the perfect mannequin for the dress by Sandra Cuming of Kaotica, Cairns" said Penny. The 'Cassowary Dress' has a fitting temporary home taking pride of place at the entrance to the Helen Wiltshire Gallery in the Mission Beach Village Green. Owner of the gallery, Hilary Watson, has nicknamed her new gallery 'companion' 'Cassidy' and invites people to visit the gallery to see Trish's wearable art creation "We hope it will inspire others to make their own costume for the Festival". The Mission Beach Community Cassowary Festival will run over four days from the 29th June to the 1st July with the main festival event held on Saturday 30th June from 9am - 4pm For more information contact the festival committee 0414 402315 cassowaryfestival@gmail.com The full program of events can be found on www.cassowaryfestival.com. |