Page 18 - Port Douglas Magazine 46

art.
Just south of Port Douglas, where the
rainforest leans towards the sea tide, sits
Oak Beach, a quiet stretch of coastline
that shapes the life and creative pulse
of artist Rosey Cummings. She collects
sun-bleached rope, discarded fishing line,
fragments of plastic and other washed-up
debris, giving them a second life while
telling the urgent story of our threatened
coastline.
Her home studio, tucked behind a flourishing garden of
natives, ferns and winding vines, feels like an extension of
the landscape itself, a place alive with birds, butterflies and
other creatures drawn to the plants she grows. Standing
there, Rosey says something that stays with me: “This
landscape guides everything I make.”
Her practice is anchored, quite literally, in the land and sea
around her. She works with weaving and environmental
sculpture, but the materials she uses are far from
traditional. Most are natural, found or recycled, gathered
during near-daily walks with a bucket along Oak Beach or
collected during beach clean-ups with her sister and the
Tangaroa Blue Foundation across Far North Queensland.
Other pieces come from like-minded environmental
caretakers who, like Rosey, refuse to let coastal debris
vanish unnoticed.
Weathered ropes, tangled fishing line, broken plastic
pieces, oxidised wire and palm inflorescences are
reimagined as vessels, sculptural forms or coiled “sand
bowls”, each echoing the story of the shoreline where they
were found.
ART AS ENVIRONMENTAL WITNESS
Before settling permanently in Far North Queensland,
Rosey worked in Melbourne’s public health system as a
nurse in sexual health. After moving north, she continued
in the same field, often travelling to remote communities
to support local health facilities. Though she doesn’t
explicitly connect this work to her art, moving through
Sun Vessel; Beach Rope, rusted fencing wire, Coiled and Stitched.
different landscapes and communities shaped her sense
of place and sharpened her awareness of how deeply
people rely on and connect with healthy environments.
WEAVING THE Life in the tropics offered a different rhythm, and a deeper
appreciation for the fragility of coastal ecosystems.
The debris she gathers now lives on in her sculptural
works, not as trash transformed into beauty, but as
TIDES: The Art and witnesses to the pressures on our marine world.
“As I work,” Rosey says, “I reflect on the structures, forms
and colours of the materials and where they’re collected.
Purpose of Rosey What are they telling me? How much do I deconstruct
them? How do I see them differently?” Her practice is
both a conversation and a confrontation: delight in the
Cummings colours and textures shaped by the sea, and sadness that
they exist at all.
A GARDEN THAT TEACHES, A COASTLINE THAT
NEEDS HEALING
Rosey’s home garden is as much a part of her creative
life as her studio, a wild, vibrant space filled with native
Words By Maura Mancini plants, many chosen specifically to attract the local birds,
art.
butterflies and other pollinators. Her passion for
indigenous and native vegetation has deepened
while volunteering at the local council nursery.
Her environmental care extends naturally to the
coastline. Coastal clearing, often for ocean-view
developments, removes native vegetation that
anchors dunes, leaving the shoreline exposed
to erosion. Around her home, Rosey quietly
replants where she can, favouring casuarinas
and other stabilisers that once held the sand in
place.
“It breaks my heart,” she says, “watching trees
and other coastal vegetation vanish that used
to hold this beach in place.” Her art, garden
and activism are woven from the same fibres: an extraordinary woman who carried it on a
plane. In one of the studio rooms, piles of rope
grounded in respect for the land and shaped by are sorted into strands waiting to become bowls,
a desire to help restore it.
TECHNIQUE, TRADITION AND THE vessels or other densely woven and stitched
STORIES MATERIALS TELL forms reminiscent of coral, sea creatures, and
the tangled patterns of nature, including delicate
Rosey’s weaving journey began years ago, when jellyfish-like shapes made from natural looking
Margie and Yvette, two women living at Cooya, plastic mooring rope.
invited her to sit with them weekly, weaving Her technique is slow, intentional and physically
with natural fibres and sharing knowledge. demanding. For works made from Alexander
She honours those teachings, and those of palm inflorescences, she soaks the pieces several
First Nations weavers whose workshops she times before weaving. For others, she must strip
has attended, while emphasising that her work and tease rope apart and stitch using the rope
comes from respect and inspiration rather than strands themselves, a process requiring many Coastal Requiem; Vine wreaths,
cultural appropriation. spider lily string, seeds.
hours a day over several days and often harsh on
She recalls something a First Nations weaver the hands.
once told her during a weaving session, that she “It’s rare to find rope strong enough to stitch Vessel, crafted from found wire, old fishing line,
felt the maternal presence of her grandmother in with,” she explains. “It’s a love-hate relationship. a wooden reel and discarded crab pots, speaks to
her hands as she wove, a moment that continues The colours are beautiful, but I wish they weren’t the consequences of fishing-industry debris. No
to resonate. here at all.” Boundaries, a collaboration using rope collected
in the Outer Hebrides by a local marine biologist
Inside her studio, she shows me an enormous FUNCTIONAL, CONCEPTUAL, AND friend, underscores that ocean pollution knows
handcrafted wooden weaving frame, made for ALWAYS SITE-SPECIFIC no borders; debris travels on currents from the
her in her early twenties by a dear friend and USA, South East Asia, the Pacific and beyond.
master woodworker, Neville Sellick, a highly Some works are functional, pieces she has
regarded Victorian artisan who has since passed. rescued and given a second life, like the sun- A series of Anemones reveals how plastic mimics
It spent years stored in her parents’ shed until she lounges she restrung with beach rope. life on the sea floor, entangling creatures that
became determined to bring it north, an almost “A bit prickly,” she laughs, “but fine with a towel, mistake it for habitat or food. Rosey occasionally
impossible feat, eventually achieved through and they taught me about warp and weft. Tension accepts commissions, but the materials she finds
determination, excess baggage, and the help of dictate what’s possible. The ocean, not the client,
is everything.” Others are conceptual. Ocean often decides the direction of the work.
A PRACTICE OF CARE
Spikey Creature; Twined de-knotted crab pot string, stick, rusted fencing wire.
Walking through Rosey’s studio feels like
stepping into a dialogue between nature and
human impact, between decay and regeneration.
Each artwork is a record of place: Oak Beach, the
Coral Sea, the forest-edged dunes that surround
her home.
In a world where marine debris threatens
ecosystems from the Great Barrier Reef to the
North Atlantic, Rosey’s work serves as both
art and activism, a reminder that beauty and
responsibility can be woven together, and that
every shoreline carries stories worth preserving.
Collective, and her work has appeared in
Rosey is a member of the Port Douglas Artists
exhibitions across the region, including galleries
in Cairns, Call of the Running Tide; Go Troppo
and Escape Artists in Port Douglas and at the
Tablelands Regional Gallery.
In 2026, visitors and art lovers can follow her
practice on Instagram @rosey.cummings or
contact the Port Douglas Artist Inc. to arrange
your very own studio visit at Oak Beach. Enjoy!
Rosey Cummings
portdouglasartists.com.au