The town of Cervantes in the Shire of Dandaragan may only be small, but its community certainly achieves big things when the residents get together.
One of those projects is the Cervantes Art Trail, which kicked off in June with the installation of a giant steel dhufish sculpture on the main road into town.
The concept for the Cervantes Art Trail is a combined effort of participants from the Cervantes Historical Society, Cervantes Cultural Committee, Central West Men’s Shed and community volunteers.
The plan for the trail is to install community-created artworks with themes that reflect the local region along the 3km stretch of road leading from Indian Ocean Drive into the Cervantes townsite.
The artist of the dhufish sculpture, Murray Ford, retired to Cervantes eight years ago after owning and running a steel fabrication business for the previous thirty-four years.
When he was approached by the Cervantes Historical Society to create a fish sculpture for the trail, Mr Ford chose the dhufish as his subject, since it is one of the most predominantly caught and highly prized species in the area.
The fish was constructed using leftover agricultural parts including plough discs and car springs attached to a steel form and it took approximately four months to complete the 350kg sculpture.
It is the first sculptural project to be installed as part of the Cervantes Art Trail project with more artwork and sculptures to be added in coming months.
