Sculptor in Australia seeks a home for historic boats — ABC News Australia
Australian sculptor Tony Jones and like-minded people are seeking a permanent home for a collection of historic wooden sailing dinghies from the Swan River. The 81-year-old artist has collected these boats for 30 years and has also used maritime themes and vessel details in his own works, ABC News Australia reports.
Jones's workshop near Fremantle is filled with sculptures of birds, navigation markers and wind catchers, materials for future projects, and old wooden beams from long-dismantled jetties. It also houses boats: suspended from the ceiling, stacked by the walls, covered with tarpaulins, or placed in the work area.
Maritime theme in sculpture
Jones is known, among other works, for the statue of swimmer Eliza in Crawley Bay on the Swan River and the sculpture of C. Y. O'Connor on a horse in the ocean, a well-known landmark in the North Coogee area. At the same time, sailing, which he took up as a child near Chidley Point on the Swan River, became the defining motif of his work.
The collection includes historic, often rare, wooden sailing dinghies. According to Jones, they recall the past, predated modern boats, and are also skilfully made objects.
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Rolly Tasker's Olympic boats
Two Sharpie-class boats, Falcon 3 and Falcon 4, which Western Australian yachtsman Rolly Tasker used before and during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, are being restored at the workshop. Tasker and Malcolm Huck Scott won silver medals there — Australia's first Olympic medal in sailing.
The restoration is being carried out by Jones's longtime associate Matt Dickmann, a yachtsman, artist and woodworker. According to him, Tasker once salvaged some of the spruce timber for one of the boats from an aircraft that flew to and from Rottnest.
To preserve the dinghies, Jones, his friends, neighbours, yachtsmen and volunteers established the Swan River Sailing Dinghy Heritage Association. It aims to restore the collection and display it in a traditional riverside boatshed in partnership with local authorities, a yacht club or the Western Australian Maritime Museum. Lotterywest provided a grant for the restoration of Tasker's dinghies.
