Industrial Cathedral

Industrial Cathedral
"Industrial Cathedral" charcoal on paper 131 x 131 cm Jane Bennett. Finalist in 1998 Dobell Drawing Prize Art Gallery of NSW Finalist 1998 Blake Prize Winner 1998 Hunter's Hill Open Art Prize

About Me

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Sydney, NSW, Australia
I'm an Industrial Heritage Artist who paints "en plein air".If it's damaged, derelict, doomed and about to disappear, I'll be there to paint it.
Showing posts with label crane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crane. Show all posts

Sunday 30 August 2020

Heavy Lifting

Plein air oil painting of crane lifting a boat at the Hungry Mile, East Darling harbour Wharves painted by marine artist Jane Bennett
DH143 Preparing for a boat lift
2007 oil on canvas 92 x 122cm

Available for sale

 










 
 
 
 
Today's painting on my easel on the deck gallery was a large canvas painted during my stint as "Artist in Residence" at the East Darling Harbour Wharves. Very few container ships were docked at the East Darling Harbour Wharves - in its last 5 years of operations most went to Botany, which handled container or "boxes" only. 
The East Darling Harbour Wharves specialized in break bulk cargo - items that can’t be transported by container, sometimes resulting in a diverse & rather incongruous payload. Sand, salt, gypsum was bagged or piled in gleaming unstable mounds on the wharf. Rolls of steel, pipes & timber lengths for construction were stacked in piles inside the sheds. Cars, vans, trucks, forklifts, excavators  & agricultural machinery were driven down the ramps of the Ro-ros at breakneck speed as though the wharfies were auditioning for yet another remake of ‘the Italian Job’ or the ‘Fast & the Furious”, & then parked in neat rows until they were lifted or driven onto B-doubles. 
A selection of excavators, mining or agricultural machinery and the ubiquitous rolls of steel coils would lie for weeks inside the sheds.  Luxurious 'hot-water' boats, most of which were larger than my house and definitely cost more, were nonchalantly lifted off the ships & dangled from the cranes like giant earrings. Some of these boats were so enormous that they looked almost capable of carrying the ship that brought them. There were even more oddball items such as helicopters, train carriages, yachts & caravans. And one unforgettable afternoon  a couple of horses broke free while being unloaded from their box and had to be caught and restabled, turning the wharf into a wild west show.
Plein air oil painting of crane lifting a boat at the Hungry Mile, East Darling harbour Wharves painted by marine artist Jane Bennett
DH143 Preparing for a boat lift
2007 oil on canvas 92 x 122cm

Available for sale














 
 
 
 
This canvas was painted from the centre of the area between the Patrick offices in Shed 5, looking north towards Shed 4, with the western end of Balmain in the background. The huge white shed of White Bay can be seen in the background in the gap between the crane & the boat that has just been unloaded.
The giant vermilion crane, “L3” is bathed in clear morning light, poised with its pink spreader aloft in mid air. It had just placed the boats on wooden structures known as “Nafis” so they could be hooked up to one of the 2 rather elderly forklifts to be positioned on the wharf until they were transferred onto a B-double truck & delivered to a marina. I asked whether the term ‘Nafi’ was an abbreviation or a brand name, or anything to do with the naval term 'Naafi" but nobody on the wharf seemed to know the origin of the word. Like many other items on the wharf, the Nafis were brightly painted, mostly in primary colours, but here there is an orange one on the left hand side & a green one on the left.  There were random clusters of them stacked neatly one on top of the other all over the wharf. 
The unnaturalistic colours of the machinery added to the pervasive feeling of living inside a Jeffrey Smart painting. The maintenance workers, who serviced the cranes & forklifts, always wore bright orange overalls, of exactly the same hue as the witches hats. I know that none of it was arranged deliberately to help me compose my painting, but there was a pleasing compositional triangle of the orange –clothed workman striding purposefully away from the orange sled, with the orange witches hat in the foreground. The spreader directly above his head also has a matching orange “A” shaped crane attachment, although to strike a discordant note, its framework is a teeth-jarring shade of pink. The reds, pinks & oranges of the machinery stand out strongly against the large expanse of clear pale blue sky & matching strip of sea are interrupted by the sap green of the trees of Balmain in the background. Oddly, the completed painting has the poise and compositional balance of Jeffrey Smart and Edward Hopper, although painted under infinitely more trying circumstances than a neat white studio. Although large & complex, this was a pure plein air painting- totally painted outdoors, no photography, no tricks. Just the culmination of a lifetime of observation.
It was an eye-opening experience to be able to see first-hand, how much work & how many people have to be involved in providing goods that we take for granted.
This was painted in September 2007, in the last few weeks of East Darling Harbour Wharves activity as an operational wharf. The following week, all three shore cranes were repainted in the yellow & white colours of AT & T livery, prior to being moved onto a barge & towed to their new homes in Webb Dock, Melbourne & Port Kembla.
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Friday 28 August 2020

Norfolk Guardian

Today's painting on my deck gallery is a diptych of an unusual visitor to the East Darling Harbour Wharves.
I spent most of the early 2000s as ‘Artist in Residence’ on the East Darling Harbour Wharves before its redevelopment into Barangaroo. 
One day in 2005 I arrived very early on a calm clear morning & a couple of wharfies grabbed me as I signed in.They were very excited & yelled “Quick, get your easel, you must paint the Norfolk Guardian- you don’t see ships like this every day!” 
A smallish vessel was docking at Wharf 5. It had an oddly shaped crane in its centre, which I later found out was known as a ‘derrick’ crane as it looked similar to the old fashioned oil rigs. A Derrick ship’s crane is a relic of the past, harking back to the days before containerization forced uniformity of ship design & changed their lines from sleek to squat & boxy.
The luminous peach tones of the horizon meeting the skyline of Goat Island & the northern suburbs in the background harmonized with the butter yellow ship's crane & sky blue hull, making an odd contrast with the heavy industrial subject matter. 
I watched the complex interplay of the ship's crane with the shore crane with a mixture of fascination & trepidation as rows of pipes were unloaded with consummate skill.
I didn't know how long I'd have to paint it before it left, so I added an extra canvas to the original one, making the total image a square.
Plein air oil painting of Islander ship Norfolk Guardian unloading at East Darling Harbour Wharves painted by Jane Bennett
DH34A-B'The Norfolk Guardian Diptych' 2005





























 
       










 
each panel oil on canvas 91 x 46 cm
Available for sale

The M.V. Norfolk Guardian (IMO: 8600856) is a General Cargo that was built in 1987, sailing under the flag of Tonga, & freighting break bulk cargo to Norfolk Island, New Zealand & the South Pacific. Ports of call include Norfolk Island, Auckland, Lyttleton & Marsden Point, Tasmania. Transhipments can be arranged to various destinations in the South Pacific, including Samoa, Fiji, etc.
Cargo handled by the Norfolk Guardian includes: general cargo, hazardous goods, freezer/cooler, hardwood poles, sawn timber, processed timber products.
They also ship Personal Effects from Norfolk Island & New Zealand to Yamba, Australia.
"Break bulk" is a term used for products which can't be transported in containers. It includes a wide mix of articles- from salt, gypsum, cement to timber, steel coils and heavy machinery as well as cars, trucks and boats.

About 50 years ago, the containerization of shipping modified the wharves dramatically & transformed port cities beyond recognition.

The humble shipping container isn't just a metal box - it created the world as we know it today.

Once goods were loaded and transported around the world as "break bulk" cargo. Container standardization revolutionized global trade, making it easier, quicker and cheaper. However,with the advent of the container, some of the mystery & magic of the shipping industry was lost forever.

John Crowley, the Port Operations Manager, used to describe the East Darling Harbour Wharves (aka Port Jackson) as a ‘boutique’ wharf. 
Port Botany is built on a superhuman scale and only deals with containers, so is huge, homogeneous and increasingly run by robots. Port Jackson, on the other hand, had a mix of break-bulk & containers & therefore was more dependent on the personal skills and judgement of the individual wharf workers. 
Islander ships are dwarfed by the container ships & totally unsuitable for the huge computerized straddle cranes of Port Botany. 
Now that the East Darling Harbour Wharves are closed, most "break bulk" is unloaded at Port Kembla, although Blackwattle Bay and to an increasingly lesser extent Glebe Island and White Bay still handle salt, cement and gypsum. 
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Sunday 2 August 2020

Painting the industrial past on Cockatoo Island - Before and After

Cockatoo Island, the largest island in Sydney Harbour, is located at the intersection of the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers. It is the last vestige of the era of the Industrial Revolution remaining in Sydney.
Plein air industrial painting of cranes at Cockatoo Island by industrial artist Jane Bennett
CK8B & CK52 Crane & slipway from the Officers headquarters
1989 & 2007 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm
Between 1839 -1869 Cockatoo Island was a prison colony.
The inmates not only excavated the 2 tunnels and 2 graving docks that nearly bisect the island, but to add insult to injury they even had to build their own gaol using the excavated sandstone of the island! The only successful escapee was bushranger Captain Thunderbolt (his more prosaic real name was Fred Ward), who escaped on 19th September 1863.
After its stint as Sydney's 'Alcatraz' the island was used as a graving dock,  reformatory and industrial schools, and a major shipbuilding site.
In the early twentieth century Cockatoo Island became one of Australia’s most important industrial sites where ships were built, repaired and modified. Thousands were trained and employed there. I still meet people who did their apprenticeship as a boilermaker or fitter and turner on Cockatoo Island.
As the progressive removal of tariffs, regressive government policies, the high dollar and the pressures of globalization helped kill off Australian manufacturing, the focus of employment has turned increasingly to tourism, entertainment and service industries.
Most of Sydney’s former sites of industrial and maritime activity have now been gobbled up by developers for monolithic dormitories of beige apartment blocks. After many political battles, some remaining industrial structures of Cockatoo Island have been retained, against all odds. Although some large workshops, slipways, wharves, residences and other buildings remain, such as the Turbine Shop and the Mould Loft, many major buildings were demolished after Cockatoo Island closed as a dockyard in 1991.
Now it's a UNESCO world heritage site and its industrial ambience has been exploited for many cultural events. It was the site for the filming of X Men Origins -Wolverine and several 'reality' programs. Since 2008 it has been the flagship venue of Sydney’s Biennale. However, its original function as part of Sydney’s rapidly disappearing Working Harbour, has gone forever.
When I was 'Artist in Residence' there in the mid-late 1980s and then again in the early 2000s, I was the only artist on the island.
For the last decade, the public has been allowed to visit the island, but when I painted the 2nd canvas in 2007, it was still off limits. The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was frantically fixing up the infrastructure to be able to open it to tourists. I would travel by barge at the crack of dawn from Mort's Dock with the other workmen.
Plein air industrial painting of cranes at Cockatoo Island by industrial artist Jane Bennett
CK8B 2 Cranes on the North-West Slipway
1989 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm
Enquiries

I started painting on Cockatoo Island in the mid 1980s when it was still operational and submarines were still being refitted there.
I'd have to sign the Official Secrets Act and promise faithfully not to paint any submarines or sell any of my paintings to the Russians. I'd leave my easel, paints and table in the office of the Ship Painters and Dockers building between Fitzroy and Sutherland docks.
There was a sign "Pro Painter Foreman" on the door, which always made me laugh. I was so naive that I didn't know anything about the reputation of this notorious union!
These two canvases were painted at the same location,the north - western slipway, at the same time of day, at the same time of year and on the same format canvas - but 18 years apart.
Plein air industrial painting of cranes at Cockatoo Island by industrial artist Jane Bennett
CK52 Crane & slipway from the Officers headquarters
2007 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm
Enquiries

The most obvious difference between the 1989 and 2007 paintings is the omission of the pale green crane, a casualty of a storm not long after the 1989 canvas was painted.
This was the Butters crane, purchased from the Whyalla Shipyards in 1979, when Cockatoo Island was trying to adopt more innovative strategies,for the construction of HMAS Success in 1983-4. The rather forlorn looking crane left on its own in the 2007 painting, was the ex- West Wall crane, also a comparatively recent addition to the island, as it was relocated from Garden Island in the 1970s.
This partial modernization was a false dawn, however, as HMAS Success would be last ever ship built and launched at Cockatoo Island. Less than 8 years later, the island was closed.     

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Article written by Steve Meacham in the Sydney Morning Herald

Monday 29 June 2020

Painting Spirit of Tasmania in drydock Garden Island

Today's painting on the deck shows a plein air painting of the Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Captain Cook drydock, Garden Island.

Plein air oil painting  of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock  painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 5 'Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Captain Cook drydock'
2013 oil on canvas 45 x 92cm


It was an amazing experience to watch the whole operation of drydocking and I was so lucky to be able to paint it from the floor of the drydock, with the immense bulk of the ship looming up above me.
On this occasion the Spirit of Tasmania 1 was in drydock for about 3 weeks between July and August 2013.
Every sea-going vessel has to undergo this maintenance process twice within a period of 5 years.
Plein air oil painting  of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock  painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 5 'Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Captain Cook drydock'
2013 oil on canvas 45 x 92cm


When the ship arrives at the dock, it has to be positioned accurately so that when the water is pumped out it will rest exactly on the blocks at the bottom of the dock.
Once the ship is in position, the entrance to the dock is closed using a watertight gate, known as a caisson, sealing the ship off from the rest of the harbour.
The time from when the stern of the ship first touches the blocks, to when the full weight of the ship is bourne by the blocks is the most crucial and potentially dangerous period in the entire operation.
The ship must rest on an even keel and not be lopsided or tilting down at one end.
Even 1 metre off the sender line could result in the ship toppling over.
Care also must be taken that the ship doesn't refloat after it is resting on the blocks.
When the ship is finally resting on the blocks it is called "Taking the blocks" and after all the water has been pumped out of the dock, then the inspection, cleaning and repairs can be carried out.

Plein air oil painting  of Garden Island Drydock  painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 11 'Captain Cook drydock Garden Island'
2013 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm

An awe-inspiring 280 million litres of water had to be pumped out of the Captain Cook graving dock before work on the ship can begin.
It is a hypnotic sight to watch the water slowly drain over a period of several hours.
This is a painting of the southern end of the dock, and inside the walls you can see the black depth indicators pointing like giant rulers into the bottom of the dock.

Plein air oil painting  of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock  painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
Plein air oil painting  of Spirit of Tasmania 1
in Garden Island Drydock





















Dry dock walls are built on a heroic scale. They need to resist the enormous hydrostatic forces unleashed when the dock is being dewatered.
They reminded me of the monumental architecture of lost ancient civilizations such as the Egyptian, Mesopotamian or Aztec.

Plein air oil painting from the bridge of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock showing a forklift being lowered into the dock painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 5B 'Fabulous flying forklift in Captain Cook drydock'
2013 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm

Heavy machinery
such as forklifts, cranes and scissor lifts were then lowered onto the dock floor by the two cranes on either side of the dock.
In my largest canvas you can see no fewer than 8 cranes, as well as 2 portaloos!
It was a very long walk up to the surface!

The first major job was to wash the slime off the outer shell plating with high pressure waterjets. Although this certainly does make the ship look much prettier, the real reason is that it helps reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
Then the outer shell plating is coated with anti- corrosive paint, as seawater takes an enormous toll on any surface exposed to it. Any parts of the ship that will be submerged are then painted with a coat of anti-fouling paint.

Plein air oil painting  of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock  painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 5A 'Workmen on Spirit of Tasmania 3
in Captain Cook drydock'
2013 oil on canvas 10 x 10cm 


















Propellor blades, rudders, underwater valves, cathodic protection systems, anchors and cables must be inspected for corrosion and cracks.
There was also extensive work on the interior and the stern doors.

Plein air oil painting from the bridge of Spirit of Tasmania 1 in Garden Island Drydock showing the Hammerhead Crane and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background painted by industrial heritage artist Jane Bennett
GI 7 'Andre on bridge of Spirit of Tasmania 1
in Captain Cook drydock'
2013 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm













I included many of the contracters in my series of paintings. This, painted from the bridge of the ship also shows the soon to be demolished Hammerhead Crane set against the scenic backdrop of  the Sydney Harbour Bridge.


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