A Piece of History: Tom Bass’ Broadway Studio (Part 3)
Words from Christine Crimmins
To cap off our 3-part series (click here for part one and part two), long-term TBSSS teacher Christine Crimmins shares some of her fond memories of the Broadway space. Christine currently teaches the Tuesday and Wednesday evening classes at TBSSS, and was the dedicated Studio Co-ordinator for many, many years (maintaining the ‘magic’). Recently Christine has been exploring limestone – you might have seen some of her beautiful abstracted limestone shapes exhibited at TBSSS!
Christine tells us about how she was drawn to Tom’s School from the Julian Ashton Art School, and soon found herself falling in love with sculpture. Christine also discusses the many commissions that Tom (and his students) worked on at the Broadway space, and shares some interesting reflections on Tom, his teaching, and his guiding philosophy.
Let’s see what she has to say…
Christine’s recollections
It was always with a feeling of excitement that I would turn off the Broadway, busy with traffic, into a small laneway leading to the door of the Tom Bass Sculpture Studio. There was a repair shop for fridges and whitegoods on the ground floor and I seem to remember perhaps a jeweller or a goldsmith in the building as well.
Tom Bass AM started his school there in the early 1970s.
To students (like myself) of the Julian Ashton Art School at The Rocks, having studied drawing and painting the skeleton, the plaster casts, still life and in the life class, it was often suggested the next step was with Tom Bass at his Broadway school, to study working ‘in the round’.
Figure 1
Finding his TBSSS plaque on the laneway wall and venturing through the doorway, I looked up an old and dusty, wooden staircase (with a faint tinge of blue from a very worn coat of paint) to the top floor which seemed many but was probably only 3 levels up. An adjacent parallel void provided a ‘well ‘for hoisting goods and materials up to the studio above.
Once at the top of the winding staircase, the attic studio space opened up into a magic light, lots of windows, timber floors and rafters and many fascinating things to see.
The odd visiting pigeon was not unexpected! I remember Tom, in one of his video reminiscences, telling how he cleaned out all the pigeon droppings and whitewashed the walls with a plaster wash when he first moved in.
The vintage plaster sink, which is still serving the studio well in its existing home at Erskineville, backed onto the tool room. Work benches (which reputedly Tom inherited from the Opera House workshops), modelling-stands, holding mysterious draped and wrapped shapes, and shelves of plaster and wire creations met the eye.
The window over the kitchen bench (and the well-used, over-large tea pot) looked out over the rooftops of Broadway. You could see the roof of the old Sydney Morning Herald building.
Opposite the kitchen area was the library and sitting area. The library was a treasure trove of sculpture books, many of which make up the current rich and varied library resource used by students today at Erskineville. Tom’s suggestion to new students was to delve into the books and references and to pick 3 images you liked, three you didn’t like and then to explain your reasons to him. This method was designed to help you understand your own ‘druthers’.
Towards the back end of the space, looking down thru dusty windows onto Broadway, were lots of shelves and benches full of Tom’s sculpture works. There was also ‘Tom’s room’. In that room, Tom kept his dictionary and, if someone used a word in a particular way, it was Tom’s habit to fetch the dictionary and to check the meaning and usage of the word. As he did one time when I misused the word ‘chameleon’.
Tom was a great philosopher and enjoyed intense conversations about life and art. Every Thursday evening after the evening workshop class, he gathered a group of students and alumni around him for dinner at the Tui Thai restaurant in Annandale. One memorable evening occurred after Tom, with great ceremony, received an honorary Doctorate from Sydney university. Tom wore the flowing purple, red and gold gown and tasselled head-dress all day and on to the Thai restaurant in the evening, very pleased to be able to call himself ‘doctor’.
Figure 2
Many a great end of year party was held at the studio. And, annually, an auction of unclaimed or donated works attracted a lot of excitement.
Figure 3
Tom was also very interested in what made students ‘tick’ and spent many a long hour in close discussion with students, both new students and long-standing ones, helping to tease out personal experiences and thoughts and to resolve confusion.
One of the great things about the studio was that you could follow the progress of various commissioned works being created. I remember Tom constructing a large shape from wire and timber batons. It was like (and as large as) the underside of a wooden rowboat and was the preparatory work for the portrait head of the late Lionel Murphy, former Australian Attorney General. The nose itself was more than 1.2 metres long! Ingrid Morley was modelling in clay a 13 x piece Stations of the Cross for Rookwood Cemetery. And Dan Dominguez built a large piece for the Blake Prize for religious art.
When it became necessary to vacate the Broadway premises in the late 90s, the local Council found alternative studio space for the school at Clara Street, Erskineville. Tom was in no way ‘thrown’ by this development. One of his ‘mantras’ was that change is constant. A major relocation took place and, as the school was moving itself and all its accoutrements to the new site at Erskineville, Tom was heard to pronounce ‘We will take our magic with us!’
And all those now associated with the Erskineville studio will know that is what actually happened!
Image Captions
Figure 1: Tom Bass AM outside his Broadway Studio School. You can see the plaque Christine mentions hanging by the door.
Figure 2: Tom Bass AM and students chatting over tea at the Broadway studio.
Figure 3: Work in progress picture of Tom’s Lionel Murphy sculpture.