New kind

KAMBRYA College student Ashleigh de Vent has unofficially thrown her weight behind Metlink with the construction of Metcard Man.
The resourceful character was created over a month with chicken wire, bandages, paint, plaster, glue and, most importantly, about 300 Metcard tickets – and a dash of 16yearold Ms de Vent’s creative flavour.
“My friends think I’m really strange and keep telling me I have a weird obsession with Metcards,” she said
Call it what you like, but the invention has sparked statewide acclaim for the Berwick teenager after Melbourne’s daily newspapers picked up the story.
“Teachers are running up to me and telling me how proud they are of me,” she beamed.
“The students are just like, ‘Wow, this is so cool’, and my friends are like, ‘We know her, we’re friends with her’.”
It all started when a friend gave her a broken guitar.
“I thought I might make a guitar stand, but it didn’t quite work out that way, so I decided to go with this,” she said. “It has grown from there and now I have 20 more ideas for sculptures.”
The passion for the project stems from her lifelong goal of making a career out of art. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist since I was little,” she said.
Her passionate design has impressed her teachers, who are enamoured with her talent.
“She’s done a great job. She’s worked hard and been really selfdirected,” art coordinator Renee Spencer said. “We are all really, really proud of her.”
And Metlink is keen to discuss making her involvement more official. “They’ve actually got in touch with the school. They want to meet me and share ideas that they’ve got for my sculpture,” Ms de Vent said.
The meeting is yet to take place but now friends and family are filling her head with grandiose possibilities.
“A lot of teachers have mentioned that they might use them in ads or the BATBYGOBSTOPL campaign,” she said.
Her latest project involves a ballerina with a Metcard tutu and Ms de Vent is also thinking about models with bongos and keyboards, and a businessman and a cyclist.
But she also dreams of more highprofile productions.
“I’d like to see if I could get printing on Tshirts. I’m thinking like a big merchandise range of Metcards or maybe new uniforms for their train drivers,” she said.