Joanne Hough
Geological Survey of South Australia, Department of State Development

Download this article as a PDF (904KB); cite as MESA Journal 81, pages 30–34

Figure 1 Locality map showing the Hills Sculpture Trail and dimension stone sources.

The Adelaide Hills International Sculpture Symposium Inc. (AHISS) is a community-based organisation that formed in 2011 to bring the arts to the Adelaide Hills by creating a Hills Sculpture Trail linking towns, art and beautiful scenery. Silvio Apponyi, internationally recognised sculptor, Adelaide Hills resident and artistic director, had a vision to ‘enrich the Hills with sculpture’.

Three biennial stone symposiums (Carving Dreams in Stone) held between 2012 and 2016, attracting internationally recognised sculptors from around the world, will culminate in 24 community-commissioned sculptures permanently located within the townships of the Adelaide Hills to form a sculpture trail (AHISS 2016).

The inaugural symposium was held 10–29 April 2012 and resulted in eight works (see article in MESA Journal 70:44–48). The second symposium was held 31 March to 21 April 2014 and the third on 4–6 April 2016. All symposiums were held at the ‘Cedars’, Hahndorf, the former home of Australian landscape artist Hans Heysen.

This article describes the 2014 sculptures and complements the earlier MESA Journal article (cited above) by Hough (2013).

The 2014 symposium sculptors originate from Finland, Georgia, Bulgaria, New Zealand, France, Australia and Turkey. A team of South Australian interns worked alongside these masters to help create the pieces.

The 2014 sculptures (sculptures 9–16) are located within the towns of Langhorne Creek, Mount Compass, Meadows, Stirling, Mount Barker, Little Hampton and Mount Torrens (Fig. 1).

The stones

Uniquely South Australian stones are the preferred choice for the sculptures. To date these have included pink and grey Paris Creek and Macclesfield marbles, white Angaston Marble, grey Kapunda Marble, mottled Sellicks Hill Marble, white Mount Torrens Marble and Black Granite (Black Hill Norite; Table 1; Fig. 1).

Stone used for the 2014 symposium was donated by Graham Arthy, Bert Davis, Barossa Quarries, Melocco Stone and Chesini House.

Sellicks Hill and Mount Torrens marbles are described below. For descriptions of the Paris Creek, Macclesfield, Angaston and Kapunda marbles and Black Hill Norite refer to Hough (2013).

Sellicks Hill Marble is referred to geologically as Fork Tree Limestone and is Early Cambrian in age. It is produced from Sellicks Hill Quarry (Private Mine 163), located about 50 km south of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The quarry commenced operations in the 1970s supplying aggregate to metropolitan Adelaide at around 1 Mtpa. The stone has also been utilised as rip rap and spalls, and for dimension stone for interior feature tiles for the hotel market. However, differential hardness between the carbonate and the mottled clay component created issues with polishing. The marble is predominantly black with an attractive gold mottling, and cream and tan in parts.

The historic Mount Torrens marble quarry was active in the early 1900s and reworked in the 1950s. Production was from an undifferentiated marble in the Early Cambrian Carrickalinga Head Formation. No production figures were recorded (Hiern 1957, 1959). The Mount Torrens Marble used for sculpture 16 was sourced from pond excavation works near the Mount Torrens quarry and adjacent to the Amy Gillett bikeway into Mount Torrens. The stone was acquired about 500 m before the end of the bikeway where it meets with Old Mount Road (off Oval Road). The marble is cream to white with buff and grey lenses and is similar in appearance to the Paris Creek and Macclesfield marbles.

Table 1 South Australian stones used for the Hills Sculpture Trail, 2012 and 2014 sculptures

11 Fossils

Sculptor: Petre Petrov, Bulgaria.

Stone: Paris Creek Marble completed in rough and smooth finishes.

Site: Meadows War Memorial Park, Meadows Road, Meadows.

Artist’s comment: ‘The sculpture gives the idea of the “life” in a piece of stone from which the planet’s history is stamped. The hard stone we see now was once full of life and we are still able to see fossils of different bizarre creatures that lived on this place millions of years ago’. (Photo 415058)