There are two types of people in Mark Anstey's world. The people who fill rubbish skips, and the people who sort through them. Anstey believes building and construction contributes far too much to the waste stream in Australian cities, so his endeavours are rooted in firm philosophical convictions. But add to this the joy of discovery. Of treasures unearthed. And disbelief that building sites could throw away such valuable materials.

For years Anstey has gathered building materials and seasoned timbers, and made regular trips to his Castlemaine block. Lot 19 is an industrial block with a bush aspect. Juvenile plantings of long-leaf peppermint and red stringybark mirror the existing stands on the 3-acre site and mask its industrial aspect.

A boat-builder and furniture maker, Mark Anstey worked with the well-remembered Waterside Woodworks collective on Williamstown's waterfront. This was, for a short time, a venue that allowed individual makers to work at low rents and find ready access to urban markets and retail networks. Such opportunities can be fleeting and often vanish leaving individual makers adrift. Consequently, many woodworkers have sought financial security in the building industry or are pushed to the urban margins.

Anstey found his own niche rather than be pushed. Intent on studio space for himself, he moved to Castlemaine and built. To finance his projects at low-cost, he took on local furniture commissions - often undertaking kitchen, bar and restaurant fit-outs in both Castlemaine and Melbourne.
 

Lot 19 incorporates studio space for artists, an outdoor events stage with sound and lighting box, a restored cottage, and a new gallery nearing completion. This is the accomplishment of a hardworking and focused craftsman with a feel for modernism, an understanding of building and raw space, and a sympathy with recycled materials. The style is neither minimalist nor baroque. Much of the material brings with it a strong memory of decorative style, but it is applied in the same way Dali used timepieces on canvas. They merge and flow, often incongruently, with the raw fabric of building. The walls of the buildings are improvised planes, but appear as a progressive composition.
 

The cottage particularly so. It is a result of episodic intent by Anstey, and thus it grows Nautilus-like. A new compartment emerges under the old roof as living needs suggest themselves. "I originally had no desire for a house" admits Anstey. "But the shell was there, and the materials available. The living room and kitchen came first. Then I added a bathroom, a study, a bedroom and a sleeping loft. With each stage I imagined myself finished. But apparently not .." Walls seem imperfectly weatherproof, but a four-sided verandah solves most issues arising from this. It also gives solar protection and increases the rainwater harvest. If it appears to collect in a corner iron tank, this is an illusion. The tank softens the abruptness of a right-angled corner of Anstey's study. It houses a personal computer and portholes intended for idle surveys of his realm.
 

The gallery is pole-framed with roof trusses sourced cheaply from a demolition yard. Unlike plastered walls elsewhere in the complex, these are finished up to the roughsawn pole surfaces. The outer walls are of corrugated iron. A single wall is a tableau devoted to the history of iron sheeting in Australia - displaying brand stencils from one hundred years of production. It is a nod to the importance of iron in rural settlement. Its value can be surmised from Eric Rolls' observation in A Million Wild Acres - that settlers of 100 years ago would abandon homesteads in western NSW, due to drought or hard circumstances, but always took with them the sheets of roofing iron.
 

There is little that is white or box-like about Anstey's designs, but I am reminded of Bauhaus ideology when I walk through his grounds. The use of low-cost materials, the waste ideal and the cautionary theme of utility and simple needs. Walter Gropius believed that architecture was mired in the sins of capitalism, excess and elites; that it was inaccessible to the people; that it strove to accentuate elites. The Bauhaus saw architecture and building as a craft - unrelated to the arts, and they denied the requirement for decorative form.

There isn't much that is very L'Ecole des Beaux Artes about Mark Anstey either. He is, in truth, one of Gropius' Journeymen. Or perhaps a Master-in-training. His furniture is functionalist with clean lines and fine balance. His building is similarly functional - lowbrow in inclination with insolent references to classical periods of architecture.

These buildings function as soon as they are ready. They are always ready before completion. Evoking silent screams from everyone who likes things tickety-boo. Core tasking, blokes call it. Go straight to the task and get it done. Once it's done, minus the last licks, it's a done thing. Bit of flashing, plugging, cleaning, painting to go .. that runs into the maintenance program. The building program? Done and dusted, cobber! Likewise, Anstey's enduring snub to middle class sensibilities is never to tidy his sites. Discarded and unused building materials lie under eaves and lean against walls, leaving you wondering were they rejected as unsuitable or are they merely queuing for the next endeavour.
 

 

 

Mark Anstey can be contacted for furniture commissions in Castlemaine and region on Ph: 0427 724 149

  

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