Words: Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] R[/dropcap]are images of the Fletcher Jones silver ball water tower have emerged from the private collection of engineer Ralph Jones who designed and supervised the construction.

Bluestone Magazine has been privileged to gain access to the images courtesy of the Melbourne University Archives which has been archiving the story behind the iconic silver ball as part of the Ralph Jones Engineering Services collection.

See all of the images here.

MUV archivist Melinda Barrie said the collection – donated by Mr Jones, who is now aged in his late 80s and living in Melbourne – included detailed documents and correspondence from 1965-1967 when the silver ball was being built.

It also includes Mr Jones’s submission to the 1975 Association of Consulting Engineers Australia -Engineering Awards, where his firm hoped to win a prize for the silver ball that, as far as we know, is without peer in Australia. (Unfortunately, the ball missed out on an award).

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T[/dropcap]he documents reveal that Mr Jones’s inspiration for the ball’s design came from US advertisements for water towers made by the Pittsburgh-Des Moine Steel Company, one of which included tripod legs.

The unique design was also borne of necessity because of the “poor mains water pressure” on the east side of Warrnambool at the time, Mr Jones wrote in his submission.

It also had to take into account potential earthquakes – given that the Fletcher Jones factory was in the middle of an area that in 1903 experienced two of the worst earthquakes in modern Australian history – and was built to withstand “moderate” earthquake loading.

With the Ralph Jones Engineering Collection ready to view at MUA, Melinda and her team are now turning their attention to a significant collection of photographs, documents, personal items and archival films donated by the family of Sir Fletcher.

The collection includes more than 3000 photographs – including many from the Warrnambool factory in the 70s, 80s and 90s – all of which will be cleaned and then 300 selected for digitalisation.

Melinda described the contemporary Fletcher Jones story as a vital part of documenting Victoria’s manufacturing industry.

“We view it as very important, as it celebrates the narrative of manufacturing and retail in Victoria…and so many of those stories have been lost,” she said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]M[/dropcap]eanwhile, in Warrnambool, moves are afoot to start documenting the local, personal stories around Fletcher Jones and Pleasant Hill.

A steering committee has come together with representatives from the Save the Silver Ball and Fletchers Gardens group, the Warrnambool Planning and Heritage Group, the Warrnambool Historical Society and the F Project, with MUA also helping out.

The group has already secured $5000 from the Gwen and Edna Jones Foundation (no relation to Fletcher), which will be used to record those stories considered a top priority because of people’s age or health.

“The next step for us is to sit down and determine who these people are and to capture those stories now,” said group convenor Julie Eagles.

The committee has applied for a further $15,000 from the Public Records Office of Victoria for a much broader project similar to the Silver Ball Screening Festival, where workshops are held to help people record their own FJ story, or that of someone they know.

“There is still such a strong connection between Warrnambool and the Fletcher Jones site, both as part of Warrnambool’s history and part of our individual histories,” Julie said.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]T[/dropcap]he individual projects of MUA and the local group may eventually lead to a collaborative exhibition or something similar in Warrnambool.

“Most of the people behind these great manufacturing stories want to see their stories out there and their work out there,” Melinda said.

“It is also part of our mandate here at MUA to make our collections accessible to the people, otherwise, what is the point?”

Melinda said the combination of the Ralph Jones collection, the personal collection from Sir Fletcher’s family and the work of the local steering committee would create a “well rounded archive” on one of Australia’s iconic businesses.

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]eetotalling has taken on a whole new meaning at the Panmure Hotel, with owner Annie Lenehan offering beer in the bar and a Bushells out the back.

In what might seem an unusual mix that actually works, Annie and partner Graeme Throckmorton have added a retro-style tearoom to the back of the pub where women – and it is mostly women – can enjoy an afternoon tea or even high tea.

“One older lady said to me that nobody serves scones with jam and cream anymore – well they do at the Panmure pub,” Annie says with a laugh.

Annie bought the historic hotel (built 1871) five years ago, but took over the lease in August 2012. She has since worked hard to make it very much a family friendly place and a country pub with a point of difference.

“It was a very traditional pub in the sense that it wasn’t the sort of place you could walk into and feel entirely comfortable,” Annie says.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I [/dropcap]n earlier times, a hotel could get by offering cold beer, a bed and a basic meal, but expectations have changed.

“These days, pubs can’t survive by just selling beer over the bar anymore, you need to be able to cater for a very different clientele,” Annie says.

A tearooms decorated in rose pink and an eclectic mix of retro and vintage items collected over the years is about as different as it gets.

“Nothing in here matches,” Annie laughs, “but it works.”

The tearooms also contain a sample of the more than 200 teapots that Annie has collected for many years, despite being a non-tea drinker for most of her life.

“I only started to drink tea about five years ago,” she says.

“But I have always loved teapots!”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap]nnie was born in Panmure and moved around the south-west quite a lot as a child and, later, in her 30-year career in hospitality.

She was living and working in Port Campbell when she decided to make the move back to her home town.

“I am a country girl. I really don’t like the city and can’t wait to get out of it when I go,” she says, and I assume she is talking about Melbourne, until she reveals it is Warrnambool.

Shortly after opening her tearooms, one of Panmure’s local identities, artist Glenda Hirth, dropped in to welcome her to the town and to see if she could host an event for the local Country Women’s Association.

“Glenda ran it by the CWA committee and they agreed. They had an absolute ball and have been coming here ever since,” Annie smiles, knowing endorsement by the local CWA is high praise indeed.

This more genteel side of the Panmure pub would surely meet the approval of the late Violet Meere, who helped her husband, Herbert Walsh, run the hotel in the early 1900s after being initially reluctant to work in such a male-dominated domain.

Annie hopes the tearooms will see the pub thrive into the future.

“Too many country pubs are closing down: well this one is not going to.”

[box]The afternoon teas, which are served at weekends, can be stylish or simple: Devonshire tea, mini high tea and a full high tea, with or without champagne. Groups by arrangement. Panmure Hotel, Princes Highway, Panmure. Ph: (03) 55 67 6270 [/box]

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]here is something incongruous about a big Stihl chainsaw being able to transform a slab of wood into a delicate work of art, but this is exactly what Brad Hunt is perfecting.

The former wooden boat builder – he served his apprenticeship with Port Fairy master craftsman Garry Stewart – has taken his love of timber and a strong creative streak to start his own small business, the wonderfully named Pull Start Art.

Working from his father’s shed on Hopkins Point Road, Warrnambool, Brad creates smooth sculptures from a whole range of timbers, including cypress pine, redgum, black wattle and eucalypts or whatever offcuts have come his way.

“These are from 100-year-old oak trees,” he says, slapping the rough bark on a pile of stumps, some of which are almost as tall as he is.

The leftover oak was donated by a farmer who was going to push the tree stumps into a pile for later burning, “and I said, ahhh, ‘no you’re not!”’ Brad laughs.

He has similarly come by bits of timber from the original Hopkins River bridge, lumps of cypress pine found by the roadside in Melbourne and other workable logs that were destined for the scrapheap until either Brad, or his friends, intervened.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] U [/dropcap]sing one of three Stihl chainsaws, including a dime-tipped bar designed specifically for carving, Brad turns a piece of non-descript raw timber into something quite different. Sometimes it will be a whale, a dolphin or perhaps a pelican, and another it could be a chicken, horse’s head or dragonfly.

It all depends on either what he has been commissioned to make, or what he “sees” in the wood.

“Certain logs lend themselves to certain things,” Brad says, “and I can just see what I want to make from it”.

Brad can spend a week “looking” at a log, waiting for its character and shape to settle in his mind, before he starts work with the chainsaw: after all, it is not like you can start again.

“If a design doesn’t work out, and that can happen, then I will often make a smaller carving from what is left,” he says.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap]fter the initial, relatively energetic chainsaw work on a piece, Brad settles into the more refined and much quieter stage of sanding and polishing, which is when the timber really comes to life.

“It really puts a smile on your face when the timber reveals itself to you through its different grains and colours,” he says.

“That is the part that I really enjoy.”

Chainsaw art is not quite where Brad, 33, imagined he would be when he first left school and enrolled in a commerce degree before realising he was not someone “to sit behind a desk” but needed to work with his hands.

The boatbuilding apprenticeship was advertised in the paper, and Brad secured an opportunity that would see him not only learn a traditional craft, but take him to the tiny Pacific island of Kiribati as a volunteer helping locals to build various watercraft.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap]fter experiences like that, it is almost impossible to settle into a regular 9-5 job, so Brad decided to create his own.

Supported by the New Enterprise Initiative Scheme (NEIS) and part-time work at Deakin University, Brad launched Pull Start Art in June – and is slowly building a name for himself.

When we meet, he tells me about a major in situ commission where he will transform a 2.1m cypress pine stump on a property into a majestic horse’s head.

And while commissions are an important part of his work, he would ultimately like to see his work in local galleries.

“That’s the artistic process for me – using my own ideas and my own creativity.”

[box]The Pull Start Art studio and workshop is at 29 Hopkins Point Rd, Warrnambool (look for the whale). Ph: 0438 517 200. You can also find it on Facebook here. Brad will give a demonstration of his work at the Koroit Truck Show on the Australia Day long weekend, 2015.[/box]

OPINION – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] L [/dropcap]eading Melbourne graffiti artist Matt “Adnate” Last has been chosen to create a $13,000 interactive mural in the heart of Warrnambool.

The Ngatanwarr (“Welcome”) Mural will transform a prominent – but as yet unnamed – site with a 20sq/m mural with an indigenous theme that will be developed in consultation between the artist, who is not indigenous, and the local Aboriginal community.

The interactive mural is central to a wider project being developed by a steering committee that includes representatives from the Gunditjmara Aboriginal Cooperative, the Warrnambool City Council/Warrnambool Art Gallery, Leadership Great South Coast and the F Project, for which a total of $22,000 has been raised from various government and philanthropic sources.

Adnate is the second, high-profile spray paint artist to secure a large-scale mural commission in Warrnambool, following that of Scottie “Bonsai” Neoh, who was awarded the $15,000 commission for the Mortlake Rd pedestrian underpass.

Unlike the Bonsai commission, however, the Ngatanwarr Mural went to expressions of interest, albeit in a tight turnaround time.

The call went out in mid September, with artists given around three weeks to submit an EOI.

Chairman of the selection committee, Paul Lougheed, from Leadership Great South Coast, told us that four local artists were among those to submit an EOI, with Adnate selected “by a panel including representatives from the aboriginal community, arts community and other interested community members”.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]here is no doubt that securing the services of Adnate is a coup for Warrnambool: his striking work can be found in major cities around the world and, earlier this year, he was chosen to paint a rare, blank 23m-high wall in Melbourne’s famous Hosier Lane.

And there is no doubt that his work will be a drawcard, particularly as it will include interactive QR codes to tell the stories behind the images.

But the perennial question again comes to mind: how can local artists get ahead if they keep being overlooked for significant local commissions?

We raised this same question earlier this year with the Bonsai commission, which followed the awarding of a $20,000 commission to Melbourne artist Ewan Coates in 2010 for his bronze sculpture The Three Pillars of Gratification, and another $20,000 commission in 2011 that was won by Ballan artist Velislav Georgiev for his work Chance Encounter, that sits on the corner of Lava and Liebig streets.

It is a vexed issue.

On one hand, Warrnambool can’t simply close itself off to artists from elsewhere, but on the other, a $13,000 commission (which includes materials and equipment) is the sort of work that can start to make an art career viable to a local artist.

Unlike in metropolitan areas, major commissions are rare in the south-west and many of the murals you now see around Warrnambool were done for very little money, but significant goodwill.

We look forward to seeing what Adnate produces, but at the same time will continue to argue that at least some of these large commissions should stay “at home”.

[box]The Ngatanwarr Mural will be launched on Friday March 20, 2015, to coincide with ‘Close the Gap’ day. You can find more of Adnate’s work on his website here.[/box]

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]T[/dropcap]he greatest compliment you could pay young artist Bronwen Arnold, who works under the name Bronwen Rose, is that you find her work disturbing.

Because that is exactly what she wants it to be.

“I am fascinated by a world where everything is beautiful and everything hurts,” she says.

The 20-year-old, who was raised in Dunkeld but now lives in Warrnambool, believes that art should take the viewer out of their comfort zone by twisting the familiar with the unexpected. Hence most of her works, be they digital painting, traditional painting or sculpture, look appealing at first glance: but then reveal a darker side.

Doe-eyed, pixie-faced characters are missing limbs, or have been disembowelled. Eyes are bloodshot, teeth are crooked, skin is disfigured.

It doesn’t make for pretty work, but it is absolutely memorable in that it is confronting, yet clever.

“A lot of (artists) in Warrnambool are inspired by coastal scenes and while they are beautiful to look at, and you can say ‘that is nice’, that is the end of the conversation,” Bronwen explains.

“I want my art to be unsettling and for people to talk about it; I want it to have an ugly beauty.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]B[/dropcap]ronwen is in her second year of a Diploma of Visual Arts at South-West TAFE where her teachers include the wonderful Jeanie Gleeson whose work explores the boundaries between comfort and discomfort and what is regarded as “beautiful” art. (See our earlier story on Jeanie here).

Another influence – or even a hero – for Bronwen is contemporary artist Patricia Piccinini, whom she met while volunteering at the Warrnambool Art Gallery during Patricia’s recent exhibition that, despite its confronting themes, was among the gallery’s most popular.

“I love how people react to Patricia’s work. One of my jobs (as a volunteer) was to invite people to touch this little furry, strange critter (made by Patricia) that I was carrying around and most people refused to even touch it,” she laughs.

While Bronwen may sound like a dark thinker, she is in fact the opposite.

Her preference for wearing black, the striking arm tattoos on the soft underside of her forearm, and a 24mm gage tunnel in her ear (kind of like a sleeper on steroids) belie the fact she has an easy laugh, and the down-to-earth charm of a young woman who grew up in the country.

“My parents bought the Dunkeld Post Office which is, like, as old as old (it dates back to the 1850s), and I grew up there. Yep, in a post office,” she smiles.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”]B[/dropcap]ronwen also admits that her favourite colour is not black or blue, but pink, rose pink.

“My bedroom looks like an explosion of grandma florals – pink everywhere – with my collection of teapots all around the place,” she shrugs.

This is not the space of a tortured soul, but someone who loves playing with the juxtapositions of life: the gaps between pretty and ugly; black and pink; teapots and tattoos.

Her next series of work will explore skin and its many variations. Bruises, birthmarks (Bronwen has one), discolourations, pigmentations, freckles, albinism and a condition called vitiligo, where patches of dark skin lose their pigment, will all come under scrutiny.

“I saw a woman once who had vitiligo, and she had the most chocolate, velvet skin with white patches. She was absolutely amazing, so beautiful. She looked absolutely beautiful,” Bronwen explains.

I wondered how many times that particular woman had been told, because of her imperfection, that she was “absolutely beautiful”?

And therein lies the secret to the work of Bronwen Rose.

[box]Bronwen is the recipient of the Lukasz Chomentowski sponsored studio space at The Artery, Warrnambool. She will be part of Arts on the Grass at the Fletcher Jones Garden Christmas Market, Sunday December 14, 11am-3pm and you can also view more of her work on the South West Arts Atlas.[/box]

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