UPDATE: A LOCAL farmer refusing a police request to take down a “pornographic” hay bale sculpture depicting a bull serving a cow says it has received international attention.
Bruce Cook, who lives on the Kactus Point Charolais property on the Murray Valley Highway at Lake Charm, constructed his unique take on “hay art” — a trend taken up by several farmers across the area — earlier this month.
However, earlier this week Mr Cook received a phone call from local police after a neighbour complained the artwork was offensive and obscene.
The officer told him he could be charged with “publishing pornographic images” unless he took it down.
Mr Cook says he is “just a slow farm boy with a weird sense of humour” and won’t take it down without a court order.
“I reckon people would have to have a dirty mind to see [the obscenity],” he says.
“I don’t see it — I’ve got problems with my eyes but I don’t see any hassles with that.
“They shouldn’t be looking into my paddock, they should just be concentrating on the road.”
In a letter to the editor in last Friday’s Gannawarra Times, Mystic Park resident Elvie Gannon expressed her dismay with the structure, which she described as “offensive, crude, and in the very least, in very bad taste”.
“Is this really the picture we want visitors to take away from our shire? I don’t think so,” Ms Gannon wrote.
Since receiving local media coverage, Mr Cook has been contacted by a number of national and international news organisations about the artwork, saying he is enjoying being in the limelight.
“When Channel Seven came here, they said I might be nervous – I said, no nerves no nothing,” he laughs.
“I’ve talked to about 15 radio stations already and the UK wants to talk to me tonight.”
He says he has had an accomplice in his mischief, Lake Charm local Melinda Davison, who “planted the seed” for the idea to make the structure and enter it into a hay art competition after showing him a photo of two of his cattle in a compromising position.
“She said, why don’t you make some hay art? and I had the photograph here and I drew it up and said, yeah I can make this,” he explains.
“We’re gonna put a couple of calves in there, she put lights on there last night and they’ll be on there tonight.”
Mr Cook says he wants to auction the artwork off and donate the proceeds to the Royal Children’s Hospital, but locals have begun an online petition and Facebook page to save the hay bale bull, with some even offering to buy it off of him.
“There’s a big banana, a big strawberry and big other things, they want the bull.”
