THE FOUNDATIONAL VISION

 “There is a quiet glory in merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations.”

Elizabeth Gilbert

A FOUNDING VISION

In 1941 Winifred West founded Sturt on a hill in Mittagong blackened by the "1939 bushfires" that had also burned part of her beloved Frensham School to the ground. Generally Mittagong and surrounding land was also devastated and along with WW2 these events lingered in peoples memories and tended to shape Mittagong's and Winifred's sense of 'place'. Clearly she knew that people belong to places and Sturt was/is a manifestation of that.

It is more than interesting that in 1941 WW2 was still raging [1] - [1b] yet almost against the odds Winifred rallied friends around her next bold vision of hope for the future, in appreciation of beauty and craftsmanship, head and hand of connectedness, and the 'making' of things in tune with a sense of place. 

Winifred said in October 1941, “I do not know what it will turn into… It might become a colony of artists and craftsmen, potters and printers…or, of course it may just go phut! But for now it must be free to experiment.” 

And experiment it did and it went on. Starting with one small building with spinning, weaving and carpentry, Winifred's nurturing encouragement saw a cluster of workshops with potters, jewellers, and woodworkers flourishing amidst a garden of her own making. Winifred to those who got to know her will speak of her as a dignified person. That is until she was 'visionary on a mission'. Then it is said that she was formidable, audacious and unflinching.

Somehow inherently, Winifred understood the value of connecting hand and mind, and developing an individual's talents by bringing them together with skilled makers, pioneering artists, photographers, musicians and cultural thinkers who were all invited to visit and teach at the ever evolving place that was once laid bare by the ravages of fire – renewed like Phoenix rising from the ashes. 

Indeed, most of all Winifred understood 'making' and for her own part she was a quintessential 'placemaker' and gardener who had a deep understanding of cultural landscapes.

It needs to be understood that Winifred West did not do her thinking in a vacuum. Like young artist of her time, and that she was, she was very aware of the Arts and Crafts Movement [2] in the UK. For instance, the Guild of Handicraft [3] was founded in 1888 by Charles Ashbee, the British architect and designer, a pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement and devotee of William Morris if not directly then it subliminally informed Winifred's cultural sensibilities. Winifred, was an intelligent and very well informed woman of her time.

Importantly, Sturt was never a transplant from elsewhere, it was it's own thing in its own place, with its own placedness. It was pioneering and audacious and in his own way, Ashbee had done something similar in the English Cotswolds [4] that lingers still. It is of some small interest that Ashbee died in May 1942.

Winifred fostered creative collaboration enabling Sturt makers to travel to the UK, Japan and elsewhere.  She invited master weavers from war torn Germany to come to Sturt to generously share their skills and traditions with others in a new place. 

Since then countless innovative 'makers' have made the move to live, to work and to teach at Sturt. Along the way they too have inspired countless others in the process of cultural landscaping through their 'making'. 

Many Sturt makers have gone on to contribute a lifetime of research and innovation within their chosen specialist field. Likewise, myriads of visitors have come away from Sturt with a renewed appreciation of the handmade, of the makers' skills, of their understandings of materiality, all generously passed down through, by now, generations of mindful creating in tune with one's placedness, and their cultural realities. 

Sturt became a much cared for home for making and as a place where makers came together. It is a kind of beacon of creativity and hope for the future that still upholds those values that Winifred championed from the start albeit expressed in various ways informed by deep histories and new understandings.

Until now, February 2024, at Sturt, the making, the celebration of making, the passing on of treasured skills and stories, the opening up of opportunities to what is now an enormous multifaceted community of ownership and interest that persists. Within this 'Sturt community' there is layer upon layer of 'investment' in Sturt's placedness. That is, the Sturt community is in fact a larder of diverse skills and expertise, a knowledge base and more still. It is quite simply a network of networks.

All this until the first week in February when  the 'governors' [5] ,with whom Winifred had entrusted her vision, and by extension her legacy, they have dealt this 'STURT VISION' a devastating blow. Why? Apparently because the Sturt operation is being envisage, 'corporately', as a 'cost centre'.rather than a 'value centre'.

Winifred is known by many for her speaking to them when things looked bleak ... "you know that while we may not be able to make miracles happen, we can always pave their way". And the experimentation, the action research, the pioneering, might well go on towards that end. Also, knowing that Winfred looked to Francis of Assisi, mystic, poet, and friar, throughout her life, it makes perfect sense that his advice "start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." found resonance when she mused on miracles and it might well be salient advice right now.

Yet, the real miracles are the thousands of people who have somehow come to know exactly what they are doing and why. If you look for inspiration on high, like to some deity, the less space there is in which you might stand. The place and time for miracles is dependent on our unchangeable will, not in a future in which things seem to be ordered, 'ordained', as if already they are deemed to be achievable.

Currently, with 'the media' delivering images of war, societies breaking down, political dystopia, corporate greed, way too many people suffering housing stress, the burgeoning death tolls of war, the deaths of innocent people and way to many children among them, with the world is plunging ever more deeply into darkness and chaos, there is a need to pave the way for miracles. As Leonard Cohen [6] told the world, as poets tend to do .. "there is a crack in everything that's how the light gets in"!

...............

[1] February 1941 The Germans send the Afrika Korps to North Africa to reinforce the faltering Italians. March 1, 1941 Bulgaria joins the Axis. April 6, 1941–June 1941 Germany, Italy, and Hungary invade Yugoslavia and, together with Bulgaria, dismember it. Yugoslavia surrenders on April 17.

[1b] On December 7, 1941, the Japanese military launched a surprise attack on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Since early 1941 the U.S. had been supplying Great Britain in its fight against the Nazis. It had also been pressuring Japan to halt its military expansion in Asia and the Pacific. With the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. could no longer avoid an active fight. On December 8, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress for and received a declaration of war against Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy, allied with Japan, declared war on the U.S. The United States had entered World War II.

[2] https://www.cotswoldcharm.com/chipping-campden-arts-and-crafts

[3] https://hartsilversmiths.co.uk/about-campden-and-the-guild/

[4] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Guild_and_School_of_Handicraft

[6] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Leonard_Cohen

[5] Governance 2024
Board of Governors of Frensham Schools
Mrs Clementine Allan
Ms Elizabeth Charles
Mr Stuart Fox – Frensham Nominee
Mr Paul Hunter
Ms Kirsty McIvor – Sturt Nominee
Mr Richard Melki
Mr Edward Studdy – Chair
Mr David Wright – Gib Gate Nominee
Ms Jane Worner

Email Frensham School Governors frensham@frensham.nsw.edu.au