Painting Mungo Scott Flour Mills, Summer Hill Part 2

Today's painting on the easel of my deck gallery is from 2009 and is of the last flour truck to depart the Mungo Scott Flour Mills in Summer Hill.

SU9 Summer Hill, Mungo Scott Flour Mills Last Flour truck .
2009 oil on canvas 28 x 36cm
Available for sale
This vast behemoth was the last operational flour mill in Sydney.
Mungo Scott Ltd acquired the land for £3000 in 1916 and built the flour mill with an estimated £10,000 budget in 1921-22.

SU3 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills Late Afternoon
2009 oil on canvas 30 x 30cm
Available for sale
It exploited the newly built Metropolitan goods line between Wardell Road and Darling Harbour.
The Summer Hill freight line, alongside Hawthorne Canal, was used twice a week to service the Mills. This branch line was the last operational section of the once mighty Metropolitan goods line before it was redeveloped as light rail/cycling track.

SU2 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills Evening
2009 oil on canvas 30 x 30cm
Available for sale
A huge fire in the mill in 1927 was believed to have been caused by sparks caused by passing trains igniting stored flour.
The landmark silos appeared in the early 1950s, as Goodman Fielder grew the Mill’s capacity. Allied Mills took control of the buildings in the 1950s and they were used as a key processing facility for wheat grown in New South Wales until 2009.
The last train ran to the Mungo Scott flour mill on 1 December 2008.

SU1 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills by Night
2009 oil on canvas 30 x 30cm
Available for sale
As the Mungo Scott Flour Mills were conveniently close to the Taylor galleries in Smith street where I held regular exhibitions, I was well placed to be able to paint canvases of some of its last operations, including some of the last flour trucks to leave the Mills. 

Allied Mills finally vacated the site forever in about 2010 and moved their operations to a huge site in Picton, in Sydney's south-west, which I drive past whenever I exhibit my paintings at the Thirlmere Festival of Steam.

SU6 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills Last Flour truck
2009 oil on canvas 41 x 61cm
PRIVATE COLLECTION : SYDNEY
Enquiries about other Summer Hill paintings

The precinct is now redeveloped and is home to offices and more than 400 apartments.

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Painting from the silos of the Mungo Scott Flour Mills

The empty mask - Edwin Davey Flour Mills

Painting from the silos of Mungo Scott Flour Mills, Summer Hill

Today's painting on the easel of my 'deck gallery' is a view of and from the silos of Summer Hill’s famous Mungo Scott flour mill. This vast behemoth was an icon of Sydney’s inner west skyline for nearly 100 years.
It also evokes memories of a gallery where I used to exhibit between 2003 - 10.
From the early 1990s I used to exhibit in the Delmar Gallery in Summer Hill. When the Director, Max Taylor, left to establish his own gallery, the Taylor Galleries, I exhibited there from 2003 until its closure in 2010. The Mungo Scott flour mill was just a few doors down from the Taylor Galleries in Smith Street, Summer Hill. I was utterly fascinated with it and often painted views of it from the surrounding streets before or after delivering or collecting paintings.

SU12 Mungo Scott Flour Mills Night from the top of the silo
2007 oil on canvas 30 x 30cm 

 Available for sale
One day in 2004 I finally plucked up the courage to ask to be allowed to paint there. They couldn't have been kinder!
I was given the 'grand tour' of the Escher like maze of criss-crossing, zig-zagging walkways from the main building to the top of the silos. When I returned to paint there, everyone helped carry my easel and wet canvases.
Just as well, as while I was certainly strong enough, I would have been hopelessly lost getting from one building to another. It was so confusing navigating the various levels, and it was complicated by the fact that it was still an operational flour mill.
My guide wore a 'Gumby' style hairnet, goggles and gloves. He joked that people knew whether or not they were gluten intolerant within the hour.
Apparently I am - I was sneezing, wheezing & itching, and had to wear a mask whenever I painted there as I had trouble breathing. I've never really liked bread, and now I know why!

SU8 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills Panorama
2004 ink acrylic pastel on paper 118 x 118cm 

 Available for sale
The silos were truly scary, especially at night. They were very high up, sloped & some didn't even have guardrails. When I was drawing and painting my huge panoramas of the unforgettable view of the inner west from the top of the silos, I was frankly terrified as I had unfortunately picked the highest silo, and for extra points it didn't have a guardrail.

SU7 Summer Hill Mungo Scott Flour Mills Panorama
2004 oil painting on canvas 91 x 122cm 

Enquiries about other Summer Hill paintings 
The spectacular view made up for the danger. The Summer Hill freight line carving its way through the inner west was directly beneath me.
Soon it would be literally re-cycled. Some of it would be reserved for light rail, and some would be a cycling track.
I was lucky to get to the Mungo Scott Flour Mills in time. Summer Hill was fast being engulfed by the tide of gentrification transforming former gritty industrial zones into hip neighbourhoods, driving up rents and pushing artists even further away from the inner city.

Related Posts

My page of Urban Landscape paintings

The Empty mask

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.

CK8B & CK52 Crane & slipway from the Officers headquarters
1989 & 2007 oil on canvas 61 x 46cm

Enquiries

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.

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.

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.     

Related Posts

My page of Cockatoo Island Paintings

No 'glamping' on Cockatoo Island

Article written by Steve Meacham in the Sydney Morning Herald

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
Enquiries

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
Enquiries

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
Enquiries

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

Monet and Streeton meet Windsor Bridge

Windsor is one of the 'Macquarie towns' on the Hawkesbury River created in the early 19th century by Governor Lachlan Macquarie as the foodbowl of Sydney.

 TSWB1 Windsor Bridge from western side
2013 acrylic on canvas 46 x 61cm

Available

Thompson Square, established in 1795 at the centre of Windsor, is thought to be the oldest public square in Australia.

The old Windsor Bridge was a beam bridge built in 1874 for horse-drawn vehicles.

This canvas was painted in 2013 before NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) department had started work on the replacement bridge, 35 metres (115 ft) downstream from the existing bridge.

The bank on the Freeman's Reach side of the Hawkesbury, where I painted this idyllic view marks exactly where the new bridge is now situated.

I painted these scenes in jacaranda flowering season as the bluish mauves offset the bright greens of the foreground.

TSWB3 Windsor Bridge early morning from western side
2013 acrylic on canvas 46 x 61cm
Available

The old bridge is an austere construction with modestly proportioned piers and the engineering of the cross bracing  consistent with the challenges of its location.

TSWB12 View from Windsor Bridge in jacaranda season
2015 oil on canvas 25 x 51cm
Available

As you can see from the painting above, the real charm of Windsor Bridge is revealled in its river vistas.

Monet would have loved this spot. And my gallerist, on seeing these works, did ask if I'd painted them in France.

This area certainly inspired Arthur Streeton, one of the Australian Impressionists, who painted his masterpiece "The Purple Noon's Transparent Might" not far from here.

TSWB16 'Construction of the new Windsor Bridge' 2019
oil on canvas 91 x 183cm
Available

But now the timeless harmony of the sleepy river and the Georgian, Victorian and Federation architecture of Thompson Square has been surrounded by a maelstrom of excavation and construction.

Most of the old trees have now been felled.

The new bridge opened to traffic on 18th May 2020.

The new approach road rises up on a large visually intrusive embankment as it cuts a swathe  through the square.

There is now a bitter battle to save the 140 year old bridge from demolition. The RMS has stated that it will start removal in the coming months, but many would prefer the old bridge to be restored and left in situ. 

Related posts

My page of Windsor Paintings

Painting Thompson Square, Windsor

The Boiling Frog

Fish and chips

The Phantom Toll House

Millers Point from the top of the Harbour Control Tower

Before the inevitable demolition of the Harbour Control Tower, I wanted to paint a very large panorama of this amazing view.

I'd 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. Afterwards I had occasional access to create paintings of various stages of the construction of Barangaroo. 

I'd spent many unforgettable New Year’s Eves on the top floor, painting 360 degrees of the fireworks exploding underneath against the spectacular harbour view.

The perspective was very tricky, so I warmed up with a few smaller works first.

This is a small study of the rooftops of the heritage Miller's Point terraces and the former Bond stores of the Walsh Bay Wharves.

Work in progress " Miller's Point  and Walsh Bay Wharves

from top of the Harbour Control Tower "

2014 oil painting on canvas 36 x 46cm

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There was such an overwhelming mass of tiny details that I needed to tackle this subject in a series of small works before risking getting bogged down in a huge oil painting. I wanted to understand the rhythm of the landscape.

The perspective is made more complex by the landbridges over the twisting streets winding their way from the angled rows of Walsh Bay Wharves up the hills.

The entire suburb of Miller's Point lies at my feet and the roads seem to curve towards the Opera House in the middle distance.

HCT47  'Millers Point from top of Harbour Tower'
oil on canvas 36 x 46cm

As you can see, my palette changed by the time I finished this work - one of the hazards of working 'en plein air'. I started early, but didn't finish for a few hours, so the clear pale yellows of the morning deepened to the burnt orange and rich purple shadows of the afternoon.
I had to stand on a chair to paint this, as the windows on the Amenities floor were a bit too high for me to see the terraces.
I'm only 5'1"- short, even for a woman.
Exactly the same height as Toulouse-Lautrec. Unfortunately I love painting canvases on an epic scale.

The tower would sway in the wind, sometimes almost imperceptibly, and sometimes with a rolling motion that can induce seasickness which is distracting when trying to paint fine details.

In the far distance, you can see the silhouette of the half-demolished Hammerhead Crane on Garden Island, which was finally removed by October 2014. I had just finished a stint as 'Artist in Residence' on Garden Island painting this before the demolition started.

The demolition of the Harbour Control Tower would be next. However I did manage to finish a few large scale panoramas from the top floor, before I lost one of my best studios forever.

The State library now has several of these works in their collection.

Related articles

Paintings of the old Port

Millers Point, 3 Years On

Out from the storerooms -paintings from the State library Collection

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Last of the Hungry Mile

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Eaten by robots

The mother art is architecture

Meltdown-Oxycutting, William Wallbank and Sons, Auburn

The now derelict 'William Wallbank and Sons' was a foundry on the Parramatta Road, Auburn, built in 1932.

I've been painting the machinery before it is all stripped out and sent to a scrap metal yard.

AWW5 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry

2017 oil on canvas 46cm tondo

Some of the ladles and other machinery that couldn't be sold intact were being broken up for scrap by oxycutting. 

During this exciting process, I painted some small and medium circular canvases, known as tondos.

In Art, the circular format of the tondo was often used for religious subjects.

Extreme chiaroscuro was also exploited by artists such as Caravaggio, to heighten the contrast between the gloomy background and the intensely illuminated saints or angels.

The fire in the dim interior gave the scene a mysterious atmosphere, reminding me of the nocturnal paintings of one of my favourite artists, Georges de la Tour.
Figures in his paintings are enveloped in shifting accretions of darkness - hands and features picked out by pooling, smoky light. 

AWW5 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry

2017 oil on canvas 46cm tondo"

Oxycutting is one of the oldest welding processes.

A torch is used to heat the metal to its kindling temperature. When it's cherry red, a stream of oxygen is focused on the heated part and chemically reacts with the ferrous metal, producing more heat and forming molten iron oxide which is then blasted out of the cut.

The melting point of the iron oxide is about half that of the metal being cut, so it will immediately turn to liquid iron oxide and flow away from the cutting zone.

AWW5 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry

2017 oil on canvas 46cm tondo"

Starting a cut in the middle of a workpiece is known as piercing.

Once it has started, steel can be cut surprisingly quickly, far faster than if it were completely melted through.

Sometimes remnants of iron oxide remain on the workpiece, forming a hard "slag" which can be removed by tapping or grinding.

AWW6 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry
2017 acrylic on paper 56 x 76cm

The hottest part of the flame is approximately 6,000 °F (3,300 °C) - hot enough to easily melt steel.

But the flame of the cutting torch is not intended to melt the metal, just bring it to its ignition temperature.

The rest of the heat is created by the burning metal itself.

AWW5 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry

2017 oil on canvas 46cm tondo"

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A basic oxy-acetylene rig is faster than a petrol-driven cut-off grinder, as well as lighter, smaller, quieter and not as prone to severe vibration. 

Oxy-acetylene torches can easily cut through ferrous materials as thick as 200 mm. 

However oxy-acetylene has its limitations. It can only efficiently cut low- to medium-carbon steels and wrought iron.

High-carbon steels aren't suitable because the melting point of the slag is closer to the melting point of the parent meta.The slag from the cutting action mixes with the clean melt near the cut, which means the oxygen doesn't reach the clean metal to burn it. With cast iron, graphite between the grains interferes with the cutting action of the torch. Stainless steels can't be cut either with this process, because the material doesn't burn as easily.

AWW7 Oxycutting, William Wallbank + Sons foundry 2

2017 oil on canvas 46cm tondo

Painting this was fascinating, but there was an undercurrent of sadness, as it

marked the point of no return.

The life of the former foundry was at an end, and its vivisection will be the last fires lit inside.

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice."

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

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Scar Tissue

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Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station