Up a dead end side street that in 15 years I've never walked in previously is this - courtesy of a wet Boxing Day interlude and a Xmas phone - discreet and yet imposing entrance. It's the only door in 30 metres of identical brick wall. Opposite are a bakers' supplies depot, an electrician's workshop, a taxi depot and something that purports to be a gallery over a derelict garage. At the cul of the sac are two logistics depots, which along with furniture and car repair make up the majority of the local industry.
It's possible, due to the absence of people on a public holiday, to skulk up the driveway of one of the depots and have a look at the back. Corrugated iron is a staple of Australian rears; in these modernist times people even use them for frontages, but when Marrickville was growing up (the last half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries) hiding things behind impressive brickwork was the norm. Not just a desire to impress; brickworks were a major industry in the 19th century, as evidenced by Henson Park, a former quarry recycled as a velodrome for the 1938 Empire Games. Also, I feel, by the texture of the clay about two feet down in my backyard; it could just about be used for modelling clay unwashed. Also, it's the same colour as local brick. The marble sheets have the look of a kitchen benchtop business.
But actually, not just benchtops, but art. If you had a friend who was (or yourself were) a truckdriver using the depots behind, or a bus driver working for the three coach bus line that shares the forecourt of the despatch sheds, and you were looking for an original greek sculpture, this is where you'd come. I wonder if s/he works in the pre-classical, classical, or post-classical style? Or is continuing to refine the craft, informed by the 20th century?
This is the side of the sculptor's shed. Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words, but this picture needs its sound effect; through this window is coming the sound of a piano, practised...heedlessly. A lot of mistakes, but plenty of competent passages too. Casual, bored by the long (Tuesday*) afternoon. If the window was still intact, maybe they'd know it had stopped raining?
* You need to understand public holidays in Australia. While it's true that Boxing Day was Sunday, Sunday is already a holiday. Not wanting to waste the few public holidays we have, it was moved to Tuesday.
Up a dead end side street that in 15 years I've never walked in previously is this - courtesy of a wet Boxing Day interlude and a Xmas phone - discreet and yet imposing entrance. It's the only door in 30 metres of identical brick wall. Opposite are a bakers' supplies depot, an electrician's workshop, a taxi depot and something that purports to be a gallery over a derelict garage. At the cul of the sac are two logistics depots, which along with furniture and car repair make up the majority of the local industry.
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