art4place: 2015

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

A few more photos

It probably doesn't hurt to share a few more photos of the community participation in the official opening of the Peace in the Trees Sculptural walk?

An earlier Art4place blog post provides a good over of the journey of the creation and installation of the Peace in the Trees sculptures.

The official ribbon spanning Judy Gardiner's piece - Reflection.

The official opening was about celebrating the achievement of a piece of community art that recognised the contribution of community to its creation including: the artists; Sunshine Coast Council; local service groups, organisations and businesses; and the art installers. They were all invited to celebrate the contribution they had made to this community art.

Getting the official stuff underway (Cr McKay, Julie Hauritz and Barry Smith) - like the colour coordination.

Few shots of the community gathering

The magic moment - the ribbon is cut - the walk is open.

Couple of photos of nine of the artists who were present.

Big thanks to all the artists: Kim Moreland, Vivienne Bennett, Katie White, Ken Munsie, Michael Givenchy, Cathy Lawley, Carolyn Sheather, Edith-Ann Murray, James Crowther, Judy Gardinder, Sally Fisher, Emma McDonald, Barry Smith, Craig Medson; and after Craig's death, Wayne Markwort.

Ably supported by other Art4place committee members foreground and to the right!!!

Feedback suggests that many people find the walk an uplifting experience.

Peace in the Trees in the news

Just thought we would share a few cuttings from the Glasshouse Country and Maleny News celebrating the opening of the Peace in the Trees Scupltural walk at the beginning of September 2015. Big thank you to Cr Jenny McKay for doing the honours of officially opening the walk.

Great to see various groups represented Rotary and Maleny Visitor Information Centre); and also grand that families and friends of the artists came to the opening and participated in planting some Lomandras and joining in the celebratory sausage sizzle.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

The Peace in the Trees Sculptural Walk journey

The Peace in the Trees Sculptural Walk on the the Riverside Centre (town centre) end of the Maleny Trail (officially opened on 22 July) started its journey in 2012 as part of Art4place's Creative Spaces 2012. Craig Medson began the journey by securing and breaking Helidon sandstone (see above) in the shed at Maleny Retreat (thanks Maria and Wendy); and gently and expertly guiding 12 local artists in the creating of peace and environmental stone sculptures (check out the link and see photos below).

Earlier this year (2015) Art4place were granted funds by the Sunshine Coast Council to hire Wayne Markwort to again work with the local artists to fines the works so that the could become part of the SCC's public art collection; and be installed on the Maleny Trail on the Maleny Precinct. The artists were pleased that another experienced local stone sculptor was able to assist them to add to their works two years on.

Over a 12 month period Art4place has worked with Cllr Jenny McKay and Council art staff Ant McKenna and Julie Hauritz to transfer ownership of the sculptures to the SCC; and install them on the Maleny Trail walk.

There have been many many steps in the installation process. A big thank you to the installation team - mainly Rhyce Skodnik and Edith-Ann doing 'the heavy lifting' etc.

Selecting the location for each piece.

Soil testing and drawing engineered footings.

Transporting the works from Maleny Retreat to the precinct.

Digging footing holes and surrounding them with security barriers.

Pouring the punch pads - foundations with reinforced steel.

Drilling the pieces and inserting reinforcing steel; craning the pieces into place; levelling them; and securing them.

Pouring the concrete footings and trowelling it smooth.

Covering the concrete footings with crushed sandstone.

And adding the signs to the individual pieces and the main story boards

The installation is complete. The next blog will feature all the pieces in place. And the journey will be complete when the Peace in the Trees Sculptural Walk is officially opened on 2 September 2015.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Creating placemaking art for Maleny IGA

As can be seen from the periodic postings on this blog, over the last 5-6 years Art4place has been involved in a number of community and placemaking art projects. However, the IGA Project (including Flow - Obi Obi Creek over the fresh produce area; the industrial framework over the bakery; the layered Mountains over the checkout area; and the story boards near Flow and under the covered Waterfall Walkway) was one of our biggest projects and took up quite a bit of time in 2014-15.

Art4place was approached by Michael Lake of the F3 Design and Architecture to put forward a proposal for art features in the Maleny IGA as part of the redevelopment of the store. Over several months four Art4place artists (Fiona Dempster, Edith-Ann Murray, Noela Mills and Barry Smith) workshopped ideas, designs, colours, sizes, drawings and materials for the works with Michael and Sam and Rob Outridge (store owners). The four elements that made up the IGA Project came from this artistic, architecture and engineering process.

The artworks needed to be light so the frames were aluminium box and the surface panels were composite aluminium sheeting. Colours in the main were to be shades of silver and grey to tone with the store paint and tile palet.

Four huge 5mX3m panels for the Flow installation were fabricated by Freeform Sheet Metal to Michael Edith-Ann and Barry's drawings; and delivered to a farm shed outside Maleny for Noela and Edith-Ann to add some finer design elements to the panels.

The panels were transported to the IGA on a boat trailer for installation once the detailed Lomandra Longafolia seed images were completed.

Installing the 4 huge Flow panels were done at night after the store closed - often working around other workers and stacks of foodstuff. It was a challenge to get the panels through the front door (with only 100mm to spare); but an even greater challenge to lever the pieces into place; to have them evenly spaced; and ensure they were all on the same plane. We were lucky to have a team of young installers who were committed to accuracy; and for the work to be coordinated by Edith-Ann.

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - important to get the anchor points right. Panels suspended on 10mm threaded rod - all double and triple bolted and through trusses and bridging boards in the ceiling.

The layered Mountains were cut to shape by Miles Plastics according to Noela's scale drawings; and installed by the same dedicated team.

In consultation with Rob and Sam, Fiona developed the story for Flow and for the Waterfall Walkway. Her original calligraphic work was vectorised and handed over to Miles Plastics to be etched into exterior engraving laminate.

The artworks have been in place since before Christmas 2014. They are still creating much interest and much feedback to Rob and Sam.

Art4place would like to thank Rob and Sam Outridge for trusting Art4place with this project (and the earlier Waterfall Walkway project); and congratulate them for having the vision to include placemaking artworks into their business setting.

We also thank architect Michael Lake for seeing artworks as both an aesthetic and functional.

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