Before social distancing rules - back in the days when 12 people could crowd onto a narrow veranda overlooking a paperbark swamp - The White Bluff collaborators met at Sculptor John van der Kolk’s studio to share ideas, futures, and processes. The resident kookaburras kept their distance. And the kangaroos ignored the team completely, lying on their sides in the shade of the trees down by the water’s edge.
The conversation within the group evolved into a discussion about the tension and (perhaps) interchange between beauty and ugliness. It led to this snippet of conversation, discussing a previous exhibition at Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery many years ago. The exhibition was by Byron Bay artist John Dahlson who used pieces of plastic collected at the beach, hundreds of thousands of them, to make beautiful brightly coloured images. Botanist and ecologist Greg Elks commented: “The ugliness was in my mind, because I knew what those bits of plastic were doing to the ocean but I had to think past the beauty of the image.”
But this exhibition held a different kind of resonance for sculptor John van der Kolk who shared this anecdote: “That exhibition was a major epiphany for me. I had seen Dahlson’s work before. I went to the exhibition and there was one piece of plastic in one of the works, I think a blue panel. About 15 years before, I had made the pattern for that plastic product when I was working as an industrial designer. It was an injection moulded pattern that was made in massive quantities for, I think, a Chinese or Taiwanese company. The pattern was sent all over the world and somehow this got washed up on a Byron Bay Beach and it ended up in this art work. It was a serious epiphany about...well, everything.”
As we listened to this, Ray Rixon suggested the epiphany reflected “everyone’s responsibility and how everything is connected to everything else.”
John replied: “And how a small object can have such a life. If it wasn’t in his art work it would still be floating around somewhere.”
Artist Terriutterworth added: “It came back to you.”
John replied: “It came back to me to give me a message.”
At this White Bluff collaborative session the conversation then went on to discuss how and why we were all here; why White Bluff.
John van der Kolk has had a long relationship with White Bluff, pre-dating even that plastic epiphany. John trained as an industrial designer and pattern maker in Sydney. He fell into sculpture when he moved to this area in late 80s early 90s. He has lived at White Bluff for 20 years.
“I surf and I fish around it, I dive there and I fly off it. It’s my stomping ground. It’s where I took the dog for a walk every day. But, the attachment to the area takes a while. The more I explored the area, the more I became aware of it and the more I became attached to it. I mean it's a magnificent place. It's a beautiful view but that's a fairly shallow attraction to it.
“It's not until you get into the nitty gritty and I'm crawling all over it picking out weeds and ticks and snakes. It took a while and the more time I spend there the more insights I’m getting into the space.”
The collaborative element of The White Bluff Project is also something John has experience with, having participated in collaborative art programs throughout his career. Working on The White Bluff project has, however, been an interesting and different process.
“This is a much longer process that ones I have been involved in previously. I mean from inception to concept to customer is going to be a few years. All up the range of people involved from scientists to poets to historians to film makers to painters and sculptors and ceramicists. It's like a liquorice all sorts of people. I mean we can't do a complete collaboration with everyone so we're forming sort of little subgroups and then working off each other's expertise. I'm more interested in seeing what everyone else is doing. It will be fun.”
“I usually do a couple of collaborations each year. The collaboration I’ve been doing the longest is about 17 years now. It’s an annual event and it's basically between 60 and 80 artists gathered together from all different genres from blacksmiths to glass artists to painters to sculptors. All art forms. We get together and we usually spend a week to 10 days making things. It’s chaotic and there is absolutely no agenda but the work that comes out of those sessions is just amazing. Just the input from other artists, that dynamic; the drive and motivation even though there’s all sorts of different mediums we're working in. It’s the hunger that’s there to make constantly.
“Collaboration on the White Bluff Project is a different beast. A broader range of skills. We have poets and scientists and completely different genres. Completely different skill sets. The first thing I notice is other people skills are always more mysterious than your own. It's just a delight to work and watch how these people navigate this. I think, how are the scientists going to collaborate and then I realise that scientists collaborate all the time. It’s their superpower. It's a very eye opening experience.”
With all these skills and genres mixing over such an extended period John is as curious as everyone else as to what will finally be on display in the White Bluff Project exhibition. So, if you want to see what the end result is going to be then from 31 October 2021 until 15 January 2022 the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery will be hosting the final White Bluff Project exhibition. At this stage, the exhibition includes plans for public programs and some on-site White Bluff activities. Stay tuned to our social media feed and this news page for updates. And check out our Gallery page for images of collaboration, works in progress and the site itself.