The Commonwealth Bank Commission:
A final example of a considerable creative project was my being commissioned by a major Australian bank to create a significant sculpture for their six star rated eco-friendly Sydney headquarters, from objects collected from the annual Clean Up Australia campaign in Sydney. I received an email asking if I would be interested in making a sculpture for one of the top four banks in Australia for their new six star rated ecologically sustainable headquarters, which was to open a few months after the commission was completed. The artwork was to be positioned in their foyer.
The commissioning body was the Commonwealth Bank, who used a Sydney marketing company to bring the whole project together. It was once again, a dream commission; with the bank having the money to ensure the commission would be significant enough for the space that in which it was to be placed. Not only that, but the creation of the work itself was also fully documented both by film and by photographic still shots.
This resulted in a comprehensive short movie, which the bank used for their own promotion with their involvement as the major sponsor for the Clean Up Australia day. The environmental organization Clean Up Australia, also used this video for their own promotion on their website and I too, was able to use the video on my website, which can be viewed on my home page. So it was a case of winners all round. The whole process of this commission was positive. Both the team at One Green Bean and the team at the Commonwealth Bank were pro-active, to the point that it became a seamless project from the beginning to the end.
From the planning stages, through to my visits to Sydney in the lead up to the project and to the final “Clean Up Australia” day collection of materials, which myself and the staff volunteers from the bank on the day, collected the assorted Styrofoam objects, which went on to form the basis of my sculpture, or as it turned out, series of sculptures which I called “White Foam Totems”. I created this work in the famed great hall of the Carriage Works centre in Sydney.
The resulting artwork now resides in the foyer of the six star standard recognised environmentally friendly building headquarters of the Commonwealth Bank in Sydney Australia.