All fired up

Designer + Blacksmith = The Collaborative Effect

 This event, coordinated by Alain-Henri Chazelles of IN HOUSE GROUP3, brought designer Alex Ritchie, (Creative Director of experiential design agency E2) and metalworker Guido Gouverneur (Blacksmith and Metalworker of Wrought Artworks and Steel Windows and Doors), together to discuss forged iron and conceptually designed architectural metalwork in the built environment.

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
 Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Guido and his team of blacksmiths also gave an exciting forging demonstration. 

Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Enquiries

I also gave a demonstration of how I paint fast-moving artisans working in darkness, while attempting to dodge the twirling batons of red-hot metal that they waved around with such nonchalant grace.

Exhibition by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
 painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
 Australian Technology Park Eveleigh Railway Workshops

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I exhibited a selection of my paintings of the Blacksmiths of Wrought Artworks as well as paintings of the fascinating interior and Victorian era heritage industrial machinery of the site.
One of the great drawcards of the ATP has been the continual operation of Blacksmith’s shop in Bays 1 & 2 South at the ATP.  From the very beginning it has been seen as maintaining a link to the buildings industrial past. The construction of the ATP had even included the erection of an acoustic wall so that the workshop could continue to function close to the new occupants. However the existance of the Blacksmith's shop was threatened when the Redfern Waterloo Authority served them with a notice to quit by the 30th September 2008. After a successful campaign and Open Day the RWA and the Blacksmiths then signed a Lease that preserved the operating Blacksmiths and recognised the vital importance of heritage preservation in the operations of the Technology Park.
See the history of the campaign to save the blacksmith :
Redwatch "ATP's operating Blacksmith"

Exhibition by Jane Bennett, industrial heritage artist,
painting the blacksmiths of 'Wrought Artworks'
Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Enquiries

 The photos of me in action were taken by Frances Keevil, the Director of the Frances Keevil Gallery.

E83 'Blacksmith forging '
2011 ink pastel acrylic on paper 9 x 10cm  
WINNER 2nd Prize for Miniature Painting 
2011 Royal Easter Show 

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E64 The Blacksmith 2011
oil on canvas 75x100cm
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See "Designer + Blacksmith = Collaborative Effect"

Next year, for a single day on Saturday 25th February 2012, the whole Australian Technology Park will be open to the public.

There will be another forging demonstration and I will have an even larger exhibition of paintings, as well as giving a demonstration of painting the heritage interiors and the blacksmiths.

 Eveleigh paintings

Related posts

Irons in the fire
Watching the forge fires fade
Macdonaldtown - A Station without a suburb
Eveleigh- Industrial Heritage Artist at Work
The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
Time for Safety 
The slow return from the fire 
The fire within 
En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)

"May close without warning" Solo exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery Part 2 "All that is solid melts into air"

More Paintings and Drawings from my solo exhibition
"May close without warning"
at the Frances Keevil Gallery
11 - 30 OCTOBER 2011
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

'May Close without warning...'

 My paintings and drawings are accompanied by some excerpts from "The Meanings of Deindustrialization" by Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, Saint Louis University 2003  Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History. Paper 33

Painting 'en plein air'  "White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings

"The point of departure for any discussion of deindustrialization must be respect

for the despair and betrayal felt by workers as their mines, factories,
and mills were padlocked, abandoned, turned into artsy shopping spaces, or even dynamited."

"White Bay Power Station " 
2011 oil on canvas 102 x 152cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings

"While economists and business leaders often speak in neutral, even hopeful, terms such as "restructuring," "downsizing" or "creative destruction," metaphors of defeat and subjugation are more appropriate for the workers who banked on good-paying industrial jobs for the livelihoods of their families and their communities..."

Painting 'en plein air' 

"White Bay Power Station Chimney stacks"

2011 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm

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"In fact, the first public use of the term "deindustrialization" identified the Allies' policy toward Germany just after World War II: an active process of victors stripping a vanquished nation of its industrial power."

"White Bay Power Station Coal Loader" 
2011 oil on board 35 x 28cm

"The dramatic evidence of industrial change and capital flight that litters our landscapes does, however, present a basic collective problem: How do we account for the destruction of an economic order that seemed so rooted and pervasive?"

"Industrial Cathedral"
charcoal drawing on paper 131 x 131 cm 

This drawing was a finalist in the 1998 Dobell Prize for Drawing (Art Gallery of N.S.W.) ; Finalist in 1998 Blake Prize for Religious Art ; Winner of 1998 Hunter's Hill Open Art Prize

"In the end, what may be most troubling about these ruined industrial landscapes is not that they refer to some once stable era, but rather that they remind us of the ephemeral quality of the world we take for granted."

"Grabber, Muncher, Ripper"
2010 oil on canvas 31 x 31 cm

Outside the derelict wharf, the demolition team waited patiently for all the preliminary drilling and checks to be completed before they got the green light to start.

The parrot beaks of the excavation attachments and their scarred and scaly skin reminded me of the animated re-creations of Tyrannosaurus rex.

These particular attachments are actually really called "Munchers"! The names of other attachments eg. "Buckets", "Grabbers", "Rippers" and "Pulverizers" are also reminiscent of comic books and children's toys.

"If Karl Marx was right in saying "all that is solid melts into air," then the industrial culture forged in the furnace of fixed capital investment was itself a temporary condition. What millions of working men and women might have experienced as solid, dependable, decently waged work really only lasted for a brief moment in the history of capitalism."

"Dave and Lok forging at 'Wrought Artworks', Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 2010 oil on canvas 36 x 46cm
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"Because capital was fixed in giant machines bolted to the floors of brick-and-mortar factories, the industrial culture that emerged in various places at various moments had an aura of permanence, durability, and heritage....."

Panorama drawn from the top of the silos of the 
"Mungo Scott Flour Mills, Summer Hill" 
2010 charcoal, ink and gouache on paper 118 x 118cm

The Operations of these flour mills have been transferred to Picton, on the periphery of the south western suburbs, about 2 years ago. Now this mill will be redeveloped into an apartment complex similar to other former mills in Dulwich Hill and Newtown.

"Forging chisels (Drawing down), 
'Wrought Artworks' Eveleigh Railway Workshops" 
2011 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm

Enquiries about similar paintings

"Working people saw in the decline of this industrial order the dissolution of their society, culture, and way of life, and the betrayal of their trust by those whose decisions shaped their fate."

Related posts

Power
"May close without warning" Solo Exhibition at Frances Keevil Gallery
Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2
White Bay Power Station : Inside Out
Power House
"May close without warning" Part 3- Meet the artist
Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station 

Irons in the fire - Part 6 -Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick

A Tale of 2 Prizes

Just returned to Australia from my exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, to find a little box of acrylics, sketch books and other art paraphernalia that had been sitting on my doorstep unnoticed.
As well as winning actual money as 2nd prize at the Royal Easter Show, some kind sponsor had thrown in some art equipment as well.

I could easily go through all the paint in those little tubes in a single afternoon, but all donations gratefully received!

E83 'Blacksmith forging '2011 
ink pastel acrylic on paper 9 x 10cm  
WINNER 2nd Prize for Miniature Painting 
2011 Royal Easter Show
Sold 
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

When you add the cash amount to the cost of the box of paints, this tiny little painting actually won more than double its price in prize money ! I wish I could keep that standard up for every painting!

'The Blacksmith' 2011

oil on canvas 75 x 100cm
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

However, my other equally worthy contenders for prizes got nowhere. 

A thorn in my side has been the so-called "Plein Air Painting" Prize. I doubt that I will ever bother entering again.

As I am one of the very few genuine plein air painters in existence, who doesn't just paint small studies but lugs giant canvases around wharves, demolition sites and foundries, to the bemusement of hundreds of surprised wharfies, blacksmiths and demolition contractors,  I consider this art prize a farce. The trouble is that after decades of painting swiftly in adverse weather conditions in front of workmen and passers-by, my works just don't have that clumsy slapped together look demanded by the organizers. 

My works rarely have much 'studio intervention' other than simple repair work ( bird dirt, insect,twig and dust removal ; and removal of grubby fingerprints from carrying them awkwardly) They have been painted quickly, but as these might well be the only records of a particular event or even an entire location, they have to look as though time were not an issue, or the lack of time an excuse for bad painting. In other words, they have to compete on their merits. 

Ironically, the same works entered in the Plein Air Painting Prize (not the ones shown here by the way) had won art prizes elsewhere in which the painting process was not an issue.

Now I've had good works chucked out of countless other art prizes and just laughed about it - I take a philosophical attitude.

The funniest occasion was when my rather nice watercolour of the Spit Bridge got thrown out of the Royal Easter show, and, wanting to get it out of my lounge room, I put it in the Wynne Prize for Landscape for a bit of a laugh. It promptly won the Trustee's Prize for Watercolour and the Pring Prize  - the joke was that if it hadn't been chucked out of the Royal Easter Show I would never have thought of entering the Wynne.

In all my years of winning prizes and selling paintings at the Royal Easter Show, getting my painting thrown out was the biggest favour they ever did me!

So why does this particular art prize stick in my throat? Because it is a Plein Air Art Prize.

I have never had a work hung in this particular art prize where I am quite possibly one of its few genuine practitioners. And I probably never will.

I have been told that my works don't have the 'look' of having been painted 'en plein air'. Yet they are. To be regarded as 'credible' my paintings should be messier, more thickly painted, more indecisive,dumber, clumsier, more unfinished, with less ambitious perspective and simpler composition and design. I have paid the penalty for my painting skill.

The works should be smaller as well- this art prize has the strange size restriction of being geared towards vertical work, with a generous vertical height limit of 2m but a horizontal one of only 85cm.

Because "nobody paints large canvases 'en plein air' !"

The predictable result is a bias towards a vertical grid of little studies. Fine, but one of the valid aspects of landscape painting has always been the "sublime"- the feeling of being overawed and overwhelmed, even physically threatened by the landscape. In this art prize there is no room for the heroic.

In short you mustn't challenge their preconceptions of what a plein air painting is. And I have no use for work that toes the line and does the 'expected'. I have been punished for my temperament as well as my skill in painting.

 I've seen artists (usually amateurs) paint outdoors in parks, gardens or the rural environment. But in all my decades of painting I have never seen anyone except Tom Carment tackle the urban environment we all mostly actually live in, 'en plein air'. I can't help feeling that artists  indulge in escapism by going off for expensive weekend retreats to the bush for 'inspiration' instead of noticing the hidden beauty closer to home.

So today I will take my unloved and unbelieved paintings  from the art gallery loading dock, back to the wharf, construction site or foundry where they were created. At least the truck-drivers, wharfies and security guards who watched me paint them, know how to appreciate them.

And they certainly do.

These works have now all been sold.

 E53 The Blacksmith Bay 1 Eveleigh

2011 oil on canvas 122 x 152cm
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
SOLD
Enquiries  : janecooperbennett@gmail.com

Related posts

• Irons in the fire
  

• Watching the forge fires fade
• Playing with fire
  

• Macdonaldtown - A Station without a suburb
• Strike while the iron is hot

• Eveleigh- Industrial Heritage Artist at Work
  
•  Eveleigh paintings
• The village smithy (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)
• Time for Safety 
• The slow return from the fire 
• The fire within 
• En plein air with street cred (sydney-eye.blogspot.com)