Sue explains her card as follows:
The History of Art Art is Life/ Functional ArtIt has been said that a people's culture is reflected in their art and their art in their life. I don't know where that leaves Australian art then if one looks at the Australian "yobbo" culture.
The Australian "yobbo" is an endangered species, (much like fine art) and is not to be confused with the Anzac.
The "yobbo' is usually the male of the species but can sometimes be the female. He is distinguished by a "beer gut" or protruding belly, a chesty Bonds singlet and a pair of stubbies (shorts). Formerly found propping up the bar of the local pub, but most likely now found in front of their wide-screen T.V. watching the footie with a tinnie (of beer) in the hand. The species is singularly recognized by the wearing of a pair of rubber, made in China, thongs. This footwear is known to have traversed vast areas of our continent, through all climatic conditions, to have aided in courtship rituals, (yeah mum, he has shoes on!) and to be the subject of unique sporting events such as the thong-throwing contest. Under-achieving retrievers have been trained to fetch using the common thong, and many a child's backside has worn a thong imprint as a back-up to more conventional methods of behaviour management. It is not known for sure the exact day that the world was introduced to a pair of thongs, but they now embrace millions of feet and hundreds of cultures world-wide. The thong is an Australian icon- an art form on its own...particularly when curled up and broken from years of loyal service and cruel exposure to the elements. As such, it deserves to be held in the highest public esteem that can be afforded it.
If you have trouble reading the text on the front of the card, here it is:
Thongs are left over footsoles.
They are a part of their owners,
More human and personal
Than shirts or underpants.Thongs know the feel of the ground;
They are like people's footprints left lying around.-- Colin Thiele
Sue's card is in several layers. The background is a heavily textured paper with color on the raised parts, forming the ocean. On that is layered something more like watercolor paper, with blue on the raised parts and silver and violet stripes, for the surf. A sand-colored paper has the Colin Thiele poem laser printed on it and the thong carving stamped on it. The story of Yobbo culture and the place of thongs in it, as related above, is on the back.