HOLDING pride of place at Brisbane's Eagle Farm racecourse is a sculpture of champion racehorse Black Caviar made entirely out of unusable plastic straws.
Scenic Rim artist Colleen Lavender was commissioned to create the piece after the Brisbane Racing Club made the switch from plastic straws.
Brisbane Racing Club senior marketing manager Deb Isaak said the work of art was displayed in the Guineas Room at Eagle Farm.
"It is the first thing guests see when they come in," she said.
"The project came about when we wanted to move to more environmentally friendly paper straws and we weren't sure what to do with all the plastic ones left over in our bars."
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Ms Lavender said she was offered the job because it was known she was into both recycling and horses.
"So they cleared out what was left in all their bars and couriered out all these plastic straws," she said.
"I had about 180,000 of them, 40 or 50 boxes in my garage.
"The project was delayed a bit because of COVID-19 but a few weeks before the end of last year we were back on.
"The project took about 12 weeks. I would sit watching telly and cabling all these straws together.
"I tried the glue gun but that didn't work.
"It took a bloody long time and it was a really big challenge but super fun."
Ms Lavender said the finished product stood about 2.8 metres tall and 3.5 metres long.
"We took it up to Brisbane in pieces and put it together there because the head alone would have filled a courier truck," she said.
"It was definitely time consuming and took up a lot of space so I was glad to see it go."
Ms Lavender's work is currently on display at The Centre Beaudesert as part of the Women's Work exhibition set to finish on March 26.
