Transmogrify

'Transmogrify'  is a combination of 'transmigrate,' (to pass from one body into another) and 'modify,(to change the properties, form, or function of )

To transform into some other person or thing, as by magic; convert or transform in general.
To completely alter the form of.

Starting painting "Panorama of Moore's Wharf and ships" oil on canvas 25 x 152cm

This canvas was started on 2 August 2011, but has been through quite a number of permutations and still isn't finished. I wanted a record of the hidden side, the working side of this lovely heritage sandstone building, and I kept changing my mind about what to include or leave out. So buildings, boats and trucks got painted in and out dozens of times.

It's been a wrestling match between me, the surroundings, the workers and the canvas!

This is the original idea for the composition.

The perspective was complex and challenging, even before people started to move things around.

Then 'Fast Eddy' parked his truck in front of the blue container...
The bottom right hand corner of the canvas looked a little empty anyway, so I started to paint the truck.

Then the truck left before I had a chance to finish painting it.
'Fast Eddy' didn't know exactly when he'd be back, or whether he'd be with or without his truck or where he'd park it. So I scraped the truck off with a razor blade, to remove the lumps and bumps and give a good surface for the next application of paint. A frustrating day spent scraping off paint and re-applying it without making the painting any better.
The lone fisherman on the end of Wharf 8/9, Walsh Bay Wharves opposite called out to me as he left "Skunked?"
"What?!" I called back. There were a few little fish in the water, but no skunks. I wondered if he was referring to me and what he meant by it. I was unsure if I should resent it or take it as a compliment.
Apparently to be "skunked" is to go home without catching at least one fish!
No, I didn't "catch any fish" that day. However by pulling this painting apart and putting it back together again I've learnt a lot about perspective problems, plein air painting, the wharf and how it works.

The truck has been excised and I can now turn my attention to painting the 'Shirley Smith'.

The brilliant red and yellow of the 'Shirley Smith' is a delight to paint against the cobalt blue sky.

However, the format of this canvas is an extreme horizontal panorama, and now the brilliance of 'Shirley' threatens to overpower everything else in the painting.

I increase the size of the Moore's Wharf building to balance the composition.

It still needs some tweaking. I've added a little orange pilot boat, the "Port Jackson" between the crane and Moore's Wharf.

This is a small oil study from another angle of the "Port Jackson" being lifted back into the water after the blokes had finished cleaning her. I was made to move my position, as I would have been in the way.

However, the bottom right hand corner still looks too empty to balance the composition...

Fortunately 'Fast Eddy' brought another truck back, and someone obligingly left the little yellow forklift in front of the north end of Moore's Wharf. Now there might be enough red and yellow on the right hand side of the painting to balance the 'Shirley Smith'.

This painting has turned into a monster, eating my paint and my precious time.

I've no idea whether I'll ever be able to finish it, but it's been an ever changing record of everything that has happened on the wharf over the last couple of months.

Related posts

Sitzkrieg

View from the ivory tower

"May close without warning" My Solo Exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery

Bacon and Eggs in Miller's Point

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

Sitzkrieg

1. A stalemate
2. Warfare marked by a lack of aggression or progress.
3. inaction, doing little or nothing
4. phoney war

Coined on the model of blitzkrieg : German Sitz, act of sitting; see sitz bath + German Krieg, war.
For almost a year there has been an eerie paralysis at Barangaroo. After the last wharf was demolished, the excavators went home.
Nothing much has been happening. Just waiting.
Waiting for court challenges to be resolved, waiting for a change of government, waiting for a "short, sharp" review of the project.
Now the phoney war is over.
The calm before the storm has ended.
The demolition has finished. Barangaroo has begun.
LendLease has started deep excavation at the southern end.The excavators have reawakened from their hibernation, and the first crane has arrived.

At the northern end, a ziggurat of sandstone blocks has appeared. Sheets of black plastic cover the holes in the ground from where they have been extracted. The quantity of high quality yellowblock here could refurbish every heritage sandstone building from Macquarie Street to Sydney University, but that won't be its fate. It is doomed to become the Barangaroo Headland Park.

Quarrying beautiful yellowblock sandstone, only to cover it with grass or throw it in the water - it's a crying shame.

North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf

Painting of "North Barangaroo Headland Park from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf "31 x 61cm oil on canvas 2011

"The North Barangaroo Headland Park painted from my studio in the loft at Moore's Wharf "31 x 61cm oil on canvas 2011

And the sinister blue border line wiggles ever closer to Moore's Wharf, home of Sydney Ports Corporation's Emergency Response Tugs.

Related posts

"May close without warning" My Solo Exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery

Cut off

1. To remove via cutting.
2. To isolate or remove from contact
3. To end abruptly.
4. A designated limit beyond which something cannot function or must be terminated
5.  Break a small piece off from

At 4pm last Friday afternoon, I arrived back at Moore's Wharf after a day spent putting the finishing touches on my enormous painting of White Bay Power Station.
I saw a crane through the trees of Clyne Reserve, the pocket hankerchief size park next to the Sydney Harbour Control Tower.
The men in the workbox were from Telstra. They were removing Telstra's communications equipment from the strange little "belt" around the waistline of the Tower.
There is something symbolic about the phones being cut off in a building devoted to communications. 

"Sydney Harbour Control Tower and Clyne reserve" 2007 oil painting on canvas 46 x 36 cm SOLD

This is the Tower in earlier days when East Darling Harbour Wharves were still operational.
I have been told that everything has to be stripped out of there by the end of September.

The Barangaroo Development Corporation want to buy it, if they haven't already done so.
The prospect of its demolition inches ever closer.
Won't be long now.
I wonder if it will last until the opening of my exhibition?
I'll be showing other Barangaroo paintings from the 11th -30th October 2011 in my solo exhibition "May close without warning" at the Frances Keevil Gallery,Bay Village, 28-34 Cross St, Double Bay 2028.

Enquiries : info@franceskeevilart.com.au
"Sydney Harbour Control Tower is looking at a fall"
Henry Budd: The Daily Telegraph August 05, 2011

Related articles

• Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station - Part 2 (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• White Bay Power Station : Inside Out (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• Power House (janebennettartist.blogspot.com)
• View from the ivory tower (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Bacon and Eggs in Miller's Point (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)

View from the ivory tower

Millers Point from top of Harbour Tower

ink acrylic gouache on paper 120 x 131cm

HIGHLY COMMENDED : 2011 Royal Easter Show
Exhibited and sold "May close without warning..." Frances Keevil Gallery
Enquiries about this and similar paintings

A moody charcoal and ink drawing of a bird's eye view of Miller's Point in the early morning from the Harbour Control Tower.

This panorama is a study for an even larger oil painting on canvas, which could be my farewell to the Tower.

Every time I go up there may be my last, so I treasure every moment.

If I arrive early enough at Moore's Wharf, I've been allowed to tag along when people from Sydney Ports Corporation have to pack up and remove various bits of flotsam and jetsam from the Tower.

On my last visit, the first aid and cardiac equipment was removed, so that gives everyone extra incentive to watch their cholesterol and not to hoe into the chocolate cornettos kept temptingly in the fridge at Moore's Wharf.

Now the entrance is from the bottom level via the Barangaroo gatehouse on Hickson Road, as the entrance from the Merriman Street level has been shut and locked. Merriman Street has a charming cluster of heritage terraces perched on top of the sandstone escarpment, and is bordered by the now empty Palisade Hotel at one end and Clyne Reserve at the other.

At least 2 people have to be present on a Harbour Tower visit, just in case the lift packs up, although exactly what the second person could do if anything happened except sympathize is anyone's guess. It's a frightening thought, as mobile phone reception is not too good in there at the best of times.

The lifts always seemed to be out of order whenever I had an especially large canvas. 4 separate trips up the interminable flights of stairs to the amenities floor (canvases, table and chair, easel, trolley luggage with my painting medium and brushes and lunch) then 2 extra flights to the top floor to sign the register book, then back down to the amenities block to get some painting done. And then at the end of the day, the journey in reverse - but with an extra trip, as a large wet painting has to be kept away from anything else.

The tower sways in the wind, sometimes almost imperceptibly, and sometimes with a rolling motion that can induce seasickness. It can be distracting when trying to paint fine details.
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 Millers Point lies at my feet.
There was such an overwhelming mass of tiny details that I needed to tackle this subject in tone and line before risking getting bogged down in an oil painting. I wanted to understand the rhythm of the landscape. Previously I had painted many sections of this scene, but this was an ambitious attempt to unify the views from 4 windows in 3 separate rooms into a single cohesive work.
Unfortunately this drawing's frame was badly scratched at the Royal Easter Show, so I'm getting my gallery to re-frame it. It's expensive to frame large works on paper and I try to avoid it when possible, but I think that this will be one of the key works in my solo exhibition. The title of the exhibition is "May close without Warning" and will be held from the 13th - 30th October 2011 at the Frances Keevil Gallery, Bay Village, 28- 34 Cross Street, Double Bay 2028.

Related posts

Bacon and Eggs in Miller's Point

Bacon and eggs in Miller's Point Part 2

The Empty Wharf

Ghost Tower

The empty wharf' oil on canvas 25 x 51 cm 2009

It's finally happened.

Sydney Ports Corporation has moved out of the Sydney Harbour Control Tower at Barangaroo and into their spiffy new purple and silver premises at Port Botany.

The mushroom head of the tower now stands, isolated on the empty wharf, looming above the holes and piles of demolition rubble starting to accumulate around its base.

The construction workers and excavators appear like rats nibbling away here and there until the entire complex collapses.

There was no fanfare or publicity to mark the end of an era.

Only an eerie silence.

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 4:Through a glass darkly

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower.

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level

at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower

Painting of Barangaroo at sunset, waiting for the fireworks.

People have gathered on the 'knuckle' of North Barangaroo to see the fireworks. When this area was still an operational port, the wharfies and their families used to sit here and have a picnic outside the now demolished Shed 3.

The parade of tall ships and other Heritage Fleet vessels decked out in fairy lights, sailing the length of Sydney Harbour, is my favourite part of the whole celebration.

Self Portrait with painting of Sydney Heritage Fleet with fairy lights.
One of my traditions is to paint the fireworks on New Year's Eve and other major celebrations from the vantage point of the top of the Sydney Ports Corporation's Harbour Control Tower.
This may be for the last time.
There are no guarantees that this Tower will have any place in the redevelopment of Barangaroo. If it is to be retained, what function will it serve?
The interior spaces of both the amenities floor, where I paint, and the top floor, where the port operations are carried out, are very snug, to say the least. There isn't much room. The Tower is a magnificent observation post with breath-taking 360 degree panoramic Sydney Harbour views, but the number of people that could visit at any one time would be severely limited. I am worried that the Tower would be seen as being not economically viable to maintain in the new Barangaroo.
It could be demolished at any time after April 2011, which is when all the port operations will be finally transferred to Port Botany. Even if it is not immediately demolished, it will be inaccessible for a couple of years while major earthworks will be disrupting the Northern end of the Barangaroo Headland. The sandstone escarpment will be buried in earth to provide a slope down from Merriman St to the new shore of the Barangaroo Headland Park. I wonder how the inhabitants of the quaint little terraces in Merriman St will cope? They are a stoic, laid back bunch, but these changes will be traumatic.

Happy New Year!

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 2: Moore's Wharf from the eye in the sky

Painting on New Year's Eve 2010 from Amenities Level at the top of the Sydney Port's Harbour Control Tower.

Painting Moore's Wharf and the Sydney Ports Corporation

Emergency Response Tugs while waiting for the 9pm fireworks

My easel is set up in the lunchroom of the amenities floor.

I am short, and the window is small and tantalizingly high.

I spent the next 8 hours literally standing on tip-toe, painting the view.

When I was younger, I spent several years at ballet class, not realizing that training my calf muscles not to protest would ever come in handy later on as an artist.

A bird's eye view of tugs and workboats

Moore's wharf has a fascinating roof structure - very tricky perspective from above.

From ground level, the building's curve is not immediately apparent.

As expected, the parade of tugs arriving and departing drove me bonkers.

When one would finally return from an outing, they would dock it in the opposite direction to how it had been when it had set out.

Just to annoy.

Art and life
I tried hard to take a photo of both the canvas on my easel with the view. The combination of the high set of the window, the narrow working space (the door is directly behind me) and the dark interior compared with the glaring light outside made this my puny camera's best effort.

It's interesting how even in this age of digital photography, something as slow and old-fashioned as painting can still be more effective.

The human eye has no trouble combining a dark interior scene with an extremely light exterior into a cohesive image - but the camera does.

People endlessly nag "Why paint on site? Why not just take photos?" Well, this is one example of the limitations of photography. Add to the dark/light problem, the glare of glass, and the smeared and grimy windows, and any photos taken through these windows are barely adequate as memories.

It helps when painting this series of works from this vantage point that I have already painted everything in this area before. Singly, in pairs and in groups of three! The buildings, the boats, the wharf, the water - from almost every possible viewpoint and in every season and weather.

Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 1: Nice Rooftops

I arrived at the Harbour Control Tower very early for New Year's Eve - about 10am and left after 4am. It was a very long day and a night and a day up there.

A small study of the rooftops of Miller's Point.

Unfinished oil painting on canvas 25 x 20 cm

Painting Miller's Point from top of Harbour Tower.
Starting a new canvas. I'm going to paint a very large panorama of this area while I still can. The perspective is going to be very tricky so I'll try a few smaller works first.
I can't help thinking of a hapless overseas star being asked the inevitable question by some hack before they had even got off the plane - "So....What do you think of Australia?" The snappy answer to the stupid question was "Nice rooftops" I can't recall who it was (John Lennon?)

Comparing art with life. I'm standing on a chair to compare my painting with the view outside.

I had to stand on a chair to paint this work as the windows are a bit too high for me to see the terraces. I'm 5'1"- short, even for a woman.

Exactly the same height as Toulouse-Lautrec.

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

from top of the Harbour Control Tower "

2010 oil painting on canvas 36 x 46cm

In the afternoon I start another small canvas. A small study of the rooftops of the heritage Miller's Point terraces and the former Bond stores of the Walsh Bay Wharves. The roads curve towards the Opera House in the middle distance.

Barangaroo :The 'Pill'

Barangaroo: the Sydney Harbour Control Tower 

Behind the fence- Beware of the artist!

The setting sun bathes the sandstone escarpment and Sydney Harbour Control Tower in a warm golden glow.

Art versus life

My canvas is sitting on top of my trolley luggage, which contains my essential equipment. My paints, my brushes, my palette, my easel, my toilet paper and my lunch. It's a long walk back and the French box easel weighs over 10 kilos with the paint inside. All French box easels have annoying design flaws. With this one the easel legs have an alarming tendency to detach and whack me on the back of shins whenever I least expect it. Although I can always count on them doing so when I'm climbing scaffolding or trying to pack up quickly to get out of the rain. Shoving it inside the trolley luggage was the best compromise I could come up with.

This is the unfinished painting sitting on top of my trolley luggage after a hard day's painting:

"Barangaroo Headland :
Sydney Harbour Control Tower, the escarpment and the Sydney Harbour Bridge "
2010  oil painting on canvas 31 x 61 cm
$2,000

Enquiries about this painting :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com  

On the far left is a Federation era heritage sewage pumping station. Slightly behind this is the handsome sandstone Moore's Wharf building and the roof of a Walsh Bay Wharf pier. The charming terraces of Merriman St in Miller's PointSydney Harbour Control Tower.  perch on the sandstone escarpment, which is neatly bisected by the mushroom head of the Sydney Harbour Control Tower.

Painting the Harbour Control Tower at Barangaroo
"Barangaroo Headland :Sydney Harbour Control Tower and the escarpment" 2010
oil painting on canvas 61 x 61 cm 
$4,200
Enquiries about this painting :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com  

While I was painting this, the radio station Nova was holding some kind of promotional event, on the knuckle of the northern end of Barangaroo. It was a bit distracting and I felt a bit nervous leaving all of my things lying around at the mercy of the crowd whenever I had to have a loo break. But they had set up a pop-up coffee bar in the middle of the wharf, so I'm everlastingly grateful to them as I love my coffee and never usually get a chance to drink any while I'm painting - it tends to go sour in a thermos and milk turns to yoghurt in the sun.
This is a close up of the painting I started that morning:

"Barangaroo Headland :Sydney Harbour Control Tower and the escarpment" 2010
oil painting on canvas 61 x 61 cm 
$4,200
Enquiries about this painting :
janecooperbennett@gmail.com  

The concrete mushroom head of the Sydney Harbour Control Tower looms above me as I sit in its shadow.

The Harbour Control Tower has been a Sydney Harbour icon since it was built in 1972. It is sometimes known as the 'Pill' - because it controls the berths (bad wharfie joke) It boasts a 'loo with a view'- the toilet in the amenities section of the upper storey has a 270 degree view stretching from the Rocks in the east to Balmain in the west.
The Harbour Control Tower will still be used by Sydney Ports Corporation until their room in their spiffy new purple and silver headquarters at Port Botany has been fitted out. As far as I know this will happen in April 2011.
I don't know whether there will be a role for the Harbour Control Tower in the new plans for Barangaroo. It has a fabulous 360 degree view of Sydney Harbour - there is really nowhere else to be in Sydney on New Year's Eve to see the fireworks. When they are set off from the rooftops of the CBD buildings you are almost directly above them. I have spent 4 out of the past 6 New Year's Eve celebrations painting the fireworks and the tall ship's pageant from the eye in the sky.
I still have one of my easels stored on the amenities floor. I'd better go up there and paint soon or they will throw it away.
I hope that it isn't pulled down. I'd miss it.
See more of my paintings at my blog "Industrial Revelation" 

Related articles

• Another one bites the dust

• Something old-Something New- Some paintings at Barangaroo (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)
• Painting Miller's Point from the top of Harbour Control Tower New Year's Eve 2010- Part 4:Through a glass darkly (barangarooartist.blogspot.com)