No Place like home - Plein air painting in Millers Point

Today's painting on the easel of my deck gallery feels appropriate for these uncertain times when many people have been confined to their home in unexpected lockdown and have been rethinking many things they previously took for granted. Such as the relationship between the individual,the community and the government.

Plein air painting on site with protest banner
MP22 '67 Lower Fort st - This is my home'
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
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What makes a house a home?

Is it just a place, or is there something a bit more intangible and numinous?

Why is where you live so important?

Plein air painting on site with protest banner
MP22 '67 Lower Fort st - This is my home'
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
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I had been painting the East Darling Harbour Wharves for at least a decade before the development of Barangaroo so radically transformed the nature of the western side of the Sydney CBD. Long before the consequences of the end of Sydney's Working Harbour were understood by the general public, I could see the knock-on effect and how it would change the shape of people's lives.

I increasingly started to paint in the streets of the Rocks and Millers Point,knowing that the departure of the heavy industry and shipping would leave this area once again vulnerable to developers and the government. Only a couple of decades earlier, similar pressures had been faced, and the push back from an alliance of residents and unions culminated in the Green Bans led by the revered Jack Mundey AO. Some redevelopment ensued, but residents were relocated into purpose-built social housing in the Sirius Apartments, and Millers Point mostly held its ground.

But this time seemed different.

Millers Point, a historic harbourside enclave with 19th-century terraced houses is only a stone's throw from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Walsh Bay Wharves and the former East Darling Harbour Wharves (now Barangaroo).

The grand terraces of Lower Fort Street perch on the escarpment overlooking the Walsh Bay Wharves. They spent the last century owned by the Harbour Trust in its various manifestations, and run as 'residentials' for waterside workers. The wharves, stores and workers' housing were completely integrated. The tight knit community was composed of people whose families had worked on the wharves, in some cases over 5 generations.

Plein air painting on site with protest banner
MP22 '67 Lower Fort st - This is my home'
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
Enquiries

In the 1980s the Millers Point residences passed from the control of the Maritime Services Board to that of the Department of Housing and there was a noticeable decline in service, repairs and maintenance of the properties.

In 2012 the NSW government decided that almost 300 public housing properties at Millers Point must be sold saying the revenue would contribute to the public housing budget although how exactly the money will be spent hasn’t yet been made transparent.

Plein air painting on site with protest banner
 MP22 '67 Lower Fort st - This is my home'
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
Enquiries

You could easily tell which houses were still inhabited. Banners were hung over balconies, spray painted onto sheets in stencil letters: 'Millers Point Not 4 Sale'; 'Say No to the Total Sell Off of Public Assets'.

The ubiquitous Reg Mombassa designed protest T shirt of a skull smoking a cigar and wearing a top hat, flapped from every washing line.

I painted a series of canvases recording the protests.

Plein air painting on site with protest banner
 MP22 '67 Lower Fort st - This is my home'
2014 oil on canvas 46 x 61cm
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The most creative protest banner was a washing line "This is my Home" on the corner of lower Fort Street and Downshire Lane in the shadow of the Harbour Bridge. It summed up every emotion and argument in a single pithy line.

As I painted this, I became friends with its author, Sally.

The artist on site with the local wildlfe
while plein air painting on site

I adore lizards, especially blue tongues, and was very happy when Sally lent me her blue tongue lizard to cuddle. To protect it from the local cats, it had a refuge in the garbage bin left lying on its side. I'd wondered why the bins were apparently scattered randomly on the tree stumps, and then realized they were lizard havens filled with rocks, food and water for 6 out of 7 days, and only used briefly for their original purpose.

I returned to paint a much larger canvas, but soon after, some low life stole Sally's T shirts. She replaced them with a set of towels with another appropriate and thought-provoking motto,  "Age in place" stencilled on them.

Sally was a real character. Despite almost unbearable daily pressure from the authorities, she had the moxie to take the Government to court to try to remain in the home she had lived in for over 30 years.

Unfortunately after putting up a spirited fight, she eventually lost the case and was relocated against her will.

Related Posts

Millers Point Three years On

(Vanessa Berry's blog 'Mirror Sydney'- with a photo of me painting in High Street)

"Millers Point through the Looking Glass "Clearing House

CLEARING HOUSE is the Tenants' Union of NSW's record of what's going on in Social and Affordable Housing portfolio redevelopment and renewal in New South Wales. They asked my permission to use my painting on this site.

Millers Point from the top of the Harbour Control Tower

Tie a yellow ribbon

There goes the neighbourhood

Walsh Bay History - Paintings of a passing Port

The Last of the Hungry Mile- Harbour Control Tower from East Darling Harbour Wharves

Today's canvas was painted from inside Wharf 4 in East Darling Harbour Wharves during the its last few weeks as a working port.

DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm

FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE

The once bustling wharf became a ghost town, as the cargo-loading infrastructure was dismantled, the 3 shore cranes were loaded onto barges for Port Kembla or Webb Dock, and anything remaining was put into storage or into a skip bin.

The wharf has now closed forever and Sydney’s traditional role as a working harbour is nearly over.
For Sydney Harbour to be stripped of its original character and purpose, was almost unthinkable.

Abandoned places have a haunting beauty.
They are points of temporary stasis in the turning world of urban change.

It was eerily silent; waiting for the demolition to start and the genesis of Barangaroo to begin.

Barangaroo is about hubris - a grand feat of ambitious central planning in search of a purpose. The vaunted economic rebirth of the area has like so much else been sent into hibernation by the Covid crisis.

DH181 The last of the Hungry Mile   
2007  oil on canvas  180 x 122cm

FINALIST 2007 SULMAN PRIZE

The columns of light poles point towards the Harbour Control Tower, which was one of the last vestiges of the working port in the area, and was demolished a few years later.
This Port Operations and Communication Centre was a milestone in the history and operation of the Port of Sydney. The construction of the tower gave oversight of maritime operations over all the Port of Sydney for the first time.

Nestling underneath, on the escarpment is the historic Hotel Palisade, once a rough waterside early opener, now gentrified for the expected inflow of tourists to Barangaroo on the west and the revamped Walsh Bay Wharves to the north-east.

Why the Hullaballoo about Barangaroo?

"May close without warning"

The Hungry Mile  
Tie a yellow ribbon

Millers Point

Isolation Gallery- Walsh Bay

Today's painting featured in my Isolation gallery is from over 20 years ago. It shows the redevelopment of Walsh Bay Wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I was 'Artist in Residence' at the Woolloomooloo Fingerwharves during their redevelopment & refurbishment in the late 1990s. Many of the same construction workers later worked on the transformation of Walsh Bay Wharves a couple of years later, so they inherited me as 'Artist in Residence'.

I painted the derelict, fire-ravaged and soon to be demolished Wharves 6-7  from the interior of Wharf 8-9.

The green netting and bright yellow boom contrasts with the red brick and weathered timber of the wharves.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

I can't believe how much this area has changed since this painting!

Barangaroo has replaced the East Darling Harbour Wharves, aka 'The Hungry Mile', one of the last relics of Sydney's Working Harbour. 

The residents of Millers Point have mostly been relocated, & the area almost resembles a ghost town.

W33 'Walsh Bay Wharves from Wharf 8-9'

1999 oil on canvas 61 x 101cm

More at my WALSH BAY WHARVES page on this blog

 

Paintings of a passing Port 

 

The last of the Hungry Mile 

 

Barangaroo - tabula rasa

"The Mother Art is Architecture"

"The Mother Art is Architecture" is part of a quote by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The full quotation is  : "The Mother Art is Architecture. Without an Architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization".

I am one of 6 artists, John Waters, Isabelle Devos, Jane Bennett, Stephen Nova, Chris Brown, and Hadyn Wilson currently exhibiting in the group show "The Mother Art is Architecture" at FrancesKeevil Gallery, 28-34 Cross Street Double Bay. Architecture is  the theme; yet each artist takes it in quite different directions.
Almost everything that I have ever painted has either been demolished or changed beyond all recognition: the pubs have been gentrified, working class terraces are now apartment blocks and Sydney is no longer a Working Harbour.
I have spent most of my career painting the loss of Sydney's "soul of civilization".

Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd127711.html

Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/franklloyd127711.html

I was "Artist in Residence" at the "Hungry Mile", East Darling Harbour Wharves during its last years as a working port, courtesy of Patrick Stevedores and Sydney Ports Corporation. When I knew that port operations were ending, I used the wharf itself as a studio and gained unprecedented access to every aspect of the activities there. I painted on the wharves, from the bridge of the ships (courtesy of the ship’s captains) and wonderful bird’s eye views from the top of Harbour Control Tower. After the last ship had sailed, I continued my epic series of paintings of Barangaroo, the largest and most controversial Sydney Harbour construction project in living memory.

MW62 Harbour Tower from Moore's Wharf '
2015 oil on canvas 51 x 41cm

I had the run of the top floor and the amenities level of the 87 metre high Harbour Control Tower from the early 2000s until port operations finished there in April 2011, and afterwards had access to create paintings of various stages of the construction of Barangaroo. I spent many  New Year’s Eves on the top floor, painting 360 degrees of the fireworks exploding underneath against the unforgettable harbour view.

Two major works on paper which I painted from the top of the Harbour Control Tower a couple of years apart, will be featured in this exhibition.

These two large mixed media drawings show the maximum possible contrast between old and new; between heritage and development; between tradition and progress.

One shows views over Barangaroo and the waterfront. The other looks out over Millers Point towards the bridge. A nod to the past - and a look to the future.

The 2 works overlap slightly,  sharing the sweeping curve of the workers terraces of High Street as well as the quirky asymmetry of the old Palisade Hotel in common. They are on the far left hand side of the earlier work, and on the far right hand side of the later work.

HCT34  'Millers Point and Barangaroo
 from the top of Harbour Tower' 2010
ink acrylic gouache on paper 102 x 125cm
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By the time of painting the later work, the Palisade had nearly completed its transformation from a down at heel wharfies’ dive into a luxurious upmarket watering hole for the new residents of Barangaroo and Walsh Bay Wharves.

The earliest version of the Palisade was built in the late 1800s, but the Sydney Harbour Trust commissioned Henry Deane Walsh to build a hotel on top of the pub, which was completed in 1915. The Palisade Hotel was literally a landmark as it was the highest building in Sydney at the time. Many diggers sank their last beer at the hotel before they boarded ships bound for the First and Second World War. It was also used as a lodge for workers constructing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Over the years, the hotel has been frequented by many “colourful characters”. There's almost too much history in the walls.

Atop Millers Point, high above the harbour, the old Palisade Hotel sat forlorn for 7 years from the end of World Youth Day in 2008 until its reopening in August 2015, just in time for its centenary.  It had been closed in 2008 for an renovation by the then owner and sold at auction in March 2015 for about $20 million. Now the new owners have given it a $5 million renovation and reopened the ground-floor public bar.

This large mixed media drawing shows the view looking south from the Harbour Tower. The wharf buildings have just been cleared, revealing a bare expanse of concrete with a few cryptic markings which could either be for vehicles or possibly guidelines for future construction. The white marquee in the centre right of the wharf is the temporary cruise ship terminal. Soon afterwards, it was removed when the new cruise ship terminal at White Bay was opened.

 A faint shadow of the Harbour Tower is cast over a section of the wharf, about to be excavated for the Barangaroo Headland Park, which opened a year ago in August 2015.

The left hand side shows the early 20^th century Federation heritage architecture of Millers Point, still at this stage inhabited by the descendants of 5 generations of waterside workers. The staggered walls and gables that serrate the roofline of High Street are groupings of 4 individual flats, rather than individual houses.

Upper flats were divided from lower flats by an ingenious use of panels, to lessen noise and the risk of the spread of fire. Each flat had its own ventilated laundry, bathroom and scullery at the rear to maintain hygienic living conditions.

The lower flats had a courtyard to dry clothes and access to a rear lane for rubbish collection. The upper flats had rooftop drying platforms made of solid hardwood beams, packed tightly side by side and bonded by steel rods. The washing was launched into the air by nifty pulley mechanisms. Brick chutes and concrete tubes allowed rubbish to be dropped to the lane below.   

These humble dwellings were actually cutting edge design solutions to the problems of medium density urban living. They pioneered some of the earliest use of now ubiquitous technology in Sydney housing and incorporate some of the aesthetics and principles of Frank Lloyd Wright, who believed buildings should be made from the land and benefit the environment.

Another famous quote by Frank Lloyd Wright can be used to contrast the modest utility of the workers flats with the pomposity of recent development at Barangaroo : "A building should appear to grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize with its surroundings if Nature is manifest there.”

 

HCT42 'Vale Millers Point' 2014
 ink acrylic  gouache on paper
106 x 136cm
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This mixed media drawing was one of the last I was able to paint from the top of the Harbour Tower.

It's the quintessential Sydney Harbour view, with a breathtaking panorama of Walsh Bay Wharves and Millers Point below my feet, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

 I have painted every single building in this canvas from ground level, often from several angles, and met most of the residents and workers, old and new.

Detail of protest banners in High Street -

HCT42 'Vale Millers Point' 2014

ink , gouache on paper 106 x 136cm

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The heritage architecture of Millers Point is festooned with a few defiant banners protesting against the inevitable eviction of the residents of High Street, Windmill Street, Lower Fort Street and Dalgety Terrace.

Reg Mombassa designed a T-shirt with the logo of a skull smoking a cigar and wearing a top hat, symbolizing the real estate agents and developers now infesting the once sleepy backwater.

A few hang from the rooftop drying platforms in Dalgety Terrace.

Close up detail of
protest T Shirts in Dalgety Terrace
HCT42 'Vale Millers Point' 2014 
ink acrylic  gouache on paper 106 x 136cm

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At the time of painting, the Palisade Hotel was soon to be re- opened after 7 years of emptiness. In contrast, the city and Walsh Bay Wharves remain shrouded in darkness. 

In the background, cranes pick at the skeleton of the half demolished Hammerhead Crane on Garden Island. 

Earlier that year I had braved the daunting bureaucracy of the Navy to become the ‘Artist in Residence’ on Garden Island for several months so that I was able to paint the last days of this historic naval relic before it was demolished.

While painting this work, I realized the Harbour Control Tower was under threat of demolition, despite being an iconic landmark. 

The demolition process began in March 2016 and will continue until the end of the year.

Another quote from Frank Lloyd Wright :

“Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived.”