User Profile

Amanda De George

Sculpture in the Garden: a feast for the senses

There’s something a bit whimsical about wandering in search of sculptures in the great outdoors. There’s the squelch of your boots as you traipse across rain-sodden patches of ground, the glistening of strands of spider web as arachnids move...

Amanda De George

April 2025

Science & Nature

A sting in the tail? Blue dragon nudibranchs wash ashore

I’m telling you, blue dragon nudibranchs bring people together. After finding her very first blue dragon (and then another and another) after the recent big seas, my friend excitedly sent me a photo and the location. While I was running and...

Amanda De George

April 2025

Arts & culture

Bianca Hester: Walking through time and process

Bianca Hester does a lot of walking. The now local artist, whose work Circuits of Solar Descent will feature in this year’s Sculpture in the Garden (SitG), started the ritual when moving from Melbourne to Sydney for work in 2013. This practice...

Amanda De George

April 2025

Arts & culture

Nuwa ganda (look up): Handwoven flying foxes headed for Wollongong Botanic Garden

There’s a breadth to Dr Virginia Keft’s work that I’ve had trouble condensing into a few hundred words. She’s a proud Muruwari woman, a multidisciplinary artist and the owner of Illawarra’s longest-running belly dance company, Cinnamon Twist. Her arts practice is wide ranging, and she is currently exhibiting her wearable artwork Women’s Business in Germany, while April will see her take part in Sculpture in the Garden.

Amanda De George

March 2025

Science & Nature

Helensburgh Glowworm Tunnel: should we be gatekeeping the gate?

I tend to err on the side of the dramatic when it comes to wildlife experiences, but some really do deserve the squeals that they induce; cicadas moulting out of their hard exoskeleton, fireflies floating by, their clear bright light signalling for...

Amanda De George

March 2025

Arts & culture

Danny Ivanovski: Sculptor creates steel tribute to trees felled by cedar getters’ saws

Working in steel, local artist Danny Ivanovski has transformed it from an element of destruction to creation in his series exploring the history of a rainforest tree. ”My final sculpture is a red cedar tree stump that I fabricated by cutting, bending, and heat-treating the mild steel. This was the very material that was used by the Cedar Getters to cut down these trees,” he said.

Amanda De George

March 2025

Science & Nature

Turtle-y awesome sighting of two endangered leatherback turtles off Port Kembla

Drones have really changed nature photography. Well, they have for some. I find it hard enough to keep the things in the air, let alone finding sea creatures in an enormous expanse of water, all the while dealing with battery warnings and the...

Amanda De George

March 2025

Arts & culture

Stephanie Quirk: Finding belonging through memory

A childhood memory of running through a clothesline full of freshly washed sheets was the inspiration for artist Stephanie Quirk’s entry into this year’s Sculpture in the Garden. The artist, educator and mother of two will be featured in the inaugural Ephemeral Prize, with finalists chosen for how their work responds to the Wollongong Botanic Garden site.

Amanda De George

March 2025

Science & Nature

Restoring Sharkey’s Beach through Bushcare

When I chat to Mark Fetterplace about his Coledale Bushcare group, I get to the most important question right off the bat: is it Sharkys, Sharkies or Sharkey’s Beach? If you’ve been in any community Facebook groups, you’ll understand why I...

Amanda De George

February 2025

Science & Nature

Backyard Zoology: Towradgi beach gets the seal of approval

Were you lucky enough to see the seal hauled out at Towradgi beach last week? A haul-out is when a seal temporarily leaves the water to rest or recuperate. If you’ve seen the seals down at the break wall in Narooma launching themselves out of the...

Amanda De George

February 2025

Science & Nature

Backyard Zoology: A bandicoot in the hand is worth two in the bush

There’s no way around it, when we live with nature, we affect nature and it affects us. It’s in the front of my mind when trimming back plants around our yard. Tiny crab spiders launch themselves on silken ropes, and plant hoppers leap skyward...

Amanda De George

February 2025

Science & Nature

On the hunt for unseasonable ghosts

The thing with writing about nature is that you quickly learn how little you actually know. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the basics of Omphalotus nidiformis, aka the ghost mushroom. Ghosties fruit in rotting or dead wood and at night, to...

Amanda De George

February 2025

News

Stories that Stir to begin in Woonona

If you love being inspired, learning about members of your local community and above all connecting with others, Entelechy Living at Woonona has been announced as the Illawarra home for the Stories that Stir movement.

Amanda De George

January 2025

Science & Nature

A rare corpse flower and why it’s okay to do your nature watching online

Putricia can be visited from 8am until 6pm daily. Once she blooms, Palm House will be open until midnight the following day.

Amanda De George

January 2025