Artwork created by Peak Hill artist Mr Scott 'Sauce' Towney, now features on an exclusive collectible coin from the Australian Mint.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
At its monthly meeting on May 19 Parkes Shire Council voted to include the coin in its memorabilia collection and congratulate Mr Towney.
Indigenous Australians were the first astronomers and have been using the stars as navigation maps, calendars and to tell stories for tens of thousands of years.
Sauce Towney's Emu in the Sky constellation is captured on a silver uncirculated coin as part of the Australian Mint's Stardreaming series.
Mr Towney specialises in drawing and pyrography creating art from an Indigenous perspective.
He has been a finalist in the NSW Premier's Indigenous Art Awards and has completed many commissions.
Mr Towney experiments with a variety of materials as a base for his contemporary style of Indigenous art and has made a major contribution in his community by creating artwork that helps in the preservation of culture and symbols of the Wiradjuri nation.
In 2016 cultural astronomer and then-Big Skies Collaborator Trevor Leaman commissioned Mr Towney, through Arts OutWest, to create a set of graphic representations of Wiradjuri Murriyang, the Wiradjuri Skyworld, as part of a Wiradjuri Cultural Astronomy Project.
The Wiradjuri Murriyang images were framed and exhibited at the Skywriters Project's first Big Gigin Parkes Shire Council's Coventry Room in 2017 where they remained on the wall for the Central West Astronomical Society's Astrofest the following weekend.
Mr Towney's Wiradjuri Skyworld images are also installed as public art on the Community Cultural Wall in the main street of Peak Hill.
The Australian Mint selected Mr Towney's Celestial Emu to be part of their Star Dreaming Series.
The coin depicts the Celestial Emu whose shape can be seen in the Milky Way and appears in the lore of many language groups throughout Australia. In the Eastern lands, including Wiradjuri, the orientation in the sky after sunset was used as a food resource calendar, to indicate the right time to collect Emu eggs.
It was also used to inform Elders when to prepare for Burbung (Bora) ceremonies.