Art That Grows from the Ground Up

WORDS by Maura Mancini

If you’ve wandered through Rex Smeal Park in Port Douglas or strolled along Front Street in Mossman, you might have noticed something peeking out from the everyday: bursts of colour, clay creatures, glinting tiles, and stories told through mosaics. These are not just pretty walls. They’re public artworks crafted by many hands and guided by one creative spirit: Sam Matthews, also known as Moo.

A Jill of Many Trades

Sam Matthews Moo defies simple definition - gardener, builder, ceramicist, community artist, creative dynamo, she’s entirely original. Or, as she puts it, a “Jill of many trades.”

She rolled into Port Douglas in the 1980s like a character from a great Australian movie: on a Harley Davidson with her cattle dog, Aussie, perched on a leather cushion strapped to the fuel tank. She came to work on the Sheraton Mirage, when the town was on the cusp of transformation. What was meant to be a short stay turned into a lifelong chapter, as it has for many Port Douglas locals.

She founded the Secret Garden Nursery with her friend Karina Eagle and was one of the few women gardeners in town, bringing colour and creativity to Port Douglas’s tropical greenery. Her flair soon extended to the Pink Flamingo Resort and later her quirky guesthouse, The Moo Bay Muse. She also exhibited with Port Douglas Artists Inc and mentored others through Douglas Arts Studio (DAB).

Her nickname? A nod to West Australian humour. “I built a place in Cow Bay in the Daintree,” she explains. “And being from WA, where we nickname everything, Cow Bay became Moo Bay.”

Guests at her guesthouse assumed she was the muse herself and began calling her Moo. “I never corrected them,” she grins. “It just stuck.” And Moo she remains —
how she’s known, and how she signs her work.

Rex Smeal Park mosaic 2017 Community Art Project mosaics Rifle Birds. Ellen Terrell Ceramics with mosaic surrounds

Art with Dirt Under Fingernails: From Soil to Clay

Before clay, there was soil. Moo’s deep connection to nature and community made her gardens and guesthouses feel like art installations. But her mosaics, especially those created with the community, have become her most visible and celebrated work.

Over the past few years, Moo, alongside creatives like Leanne Emmitt, Ellen Terrell and Liz Showniruk, has helped deliver several community-led mosaic projects in the Douglas Shire.
These colourful, collaborative works highlight the natural world and the ecosystems we share, aiming to spark wonder, connection, and awareness about the fragile beauty around us.

Moo’s first major project, Life Among the Trees, transformed the Rex Smeal Park amenities block with rainforest creatures made in community workshops held at Douglas Arts Base and Mossman Community Centre. When a wheelchair-accessible toilet was added in 2019, they extended the mural with Part Two, supported by a Douglas Shire Council community grant.

“We live on the edge of reef and rainforest, full of wildlife, there’s endless inspiration,” she says.

Participants created birds, butterflies, frogs and insects using outlines traced on mesh and tiny pieces of ceramic, glass, and pottery tiles. These were installed among hundreds of colourful, hand-painted leaves, then tied together during a few weeks' installation process.

A Mosaic Ecosystem

Commissioned by Douglas Shire Council and supported by the Queensland Government’s Regional Arts Development Fund, Making Mosaics for Mossman is even more ambitious: a 51-metre artwork winding along Front Street. It’s alive with butterflies, ants, bees, a giant cane toad and vines, crafted by many, for many. The process blends art and community.

“When people help make something, they care more,” Moo says. “It creates a real connection.”

Locals helped create small pieces: seeds, beetles, ladybirds, bees that were fired, cut and arranged like a giant, one-of-a-kind puzzle. “Nothing is uniform,” Moo says. “That’s the point.”

Creating the mosaic took months, workshops, material prep, installation. It’s a slow, detailed process. “Mosaic is incredibly labour-intensive,” she says. “It takes patience and problem-solving, especially on this scale with so many people involved.” Moo steers the vision but welcomes variation. Once the panels were finished, they were mounted, installed, and grouted. The result? Layered, living public art reflecting the textures of local life.

Between May 2024 and April 2025, Moo and Leanne Emmitt ran 52 workshops with around 13 participants in each. Sixty-nine ceramic decorators crafted more than 700 tiles and 46 mosaic artists assembled 115 panels. There were 11 Kuku Yalanji language contributors, 24 haiku poets, five ceramicists, and seven installation helpers.

All pitched in, donating thousands of hours, all voluntarily. The result is a true mosaic ecosystem: butterflies flitting, bees swarming, ants on the march, with interesting insect information and haiku poems hidden among the tiles.

Locals speak of it with pride. Tourists stop for photos. And Moo continues planting seeds—literal and metaphorical for a more connected and colourful world.
These projects remain deeply grassroots. “No contractors, no corporate teams — just locals, making magic,” she says.

A Life Unexpected

“I’m inspired by solitude and the natural world,” Moo explains. “I like working with my hands and watching things grow.” Her artistic practice plays with opposites: fragments and wholeness, beauty and disruption, stillness and movement.

She still loves old Holdens, cattle dogs, warm compost and watching ants go about their day. “I like making beautiful things that might make people think about uncomfortable subjects.” Her life is a mosaic in itself: vibrant, handmade, and always evolving.

The Bigger Picture

To Moo, community art is more than decoration: it’s a tool for connection. “Strong, interesting communities don’t just happen. People build them,” she says. “And art helps us do that.”
She keeps the process open, accessible and delightfully imperfect. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she says. “It just has to be real.”

So next time you’re in Mossman or Port Douglas and you bump into one of these mosaics, look closer. You’ll see frogs, birds, insects, poetry, and laughter. You’ll see fragments pieced together by many hands. Somewhere in the shimmer of tile and grout, you might just find a little bit of Moo and sense the quiet magic that happens when a community builds something extraordinary together.