bruno Torfs Artist

Inferno savages sculptural landmark
Carolyn Webb
February 11, 2009
The Age Newspaper
THE Marysville fire decimated Bruno Torfs' life's work — the Bruno's Art and Sculpture Garden that had become a local landmark.

As he fled on Saturday afternoon, flames were enveloping his weatherboard studio with 200 paintings, and a hectare of rainforest containing 135 sculptures.
In 13 years at Marysville, he had created an outdoor menagerie of gnomes carved from logs to terracotta featuring mermaids, jungle boys, horses, wombats and life-like street children
He said his decision to wander out to check on his garden, just before the inferno hit after thick smoke had descended on the town, saved his life. After some hesitation, he grabbed eight paintings, his wallet, his guitar and saxophone, and his Jack Russell dog, Itchy.

Fire trucks arrived and firemen guarded about 18 townsfolk, who would huddle in the middle of the town football oval all night, with water hoses and trucks.
He later rushed briefly to his house to find the studio, including a grand piano, razed.

Another video


hope you enjoy the bush and art.

Thanks for the links. I got to check the first. Will be back for the rest.

terra cotta statues are neat. I like the look of the workmarks it allows. Looks like his sculptures made it through and from his site ,"The garden today" shows a lot of regeneration in such a short time.

Does the MArysville area get a tropical rainfall amount. It seems that the native trees have rebounded in a fashion that wouldnt occur around here.

I look forward to this, but I'm not really awake yet, so a bit later.

Rainfall around 1000/1200mm per year. umm... 39/40 inches? per year. It might be classified as temperate rainforest.
The native plants in the area would be well adapted to cope with fire. many of the trees will throw epicormic (small branches from the trunk) shoots.
Mountain Ash and messmate abound in the area.
The giant mountain Ash trees are generally killed by fire but the fire heat causes their seed to drop and the ash beds provide fertile seed beds.
Messmate has really thick bark that protects the cambian layer from fire It here the epicormic shoots form after a fire.
Many of the understory plants require fire to stimulate the germination of seed.

Many did make it through. There was a fibreglass horse and fairy rider completely destroyed. all that was left was a puddle.
Some of the terracotta sculptures were damaged or destroyed by falling trees and branches. The artist has been able to repair around 40 or so.

he had many more than 30 or 40?

Well, that was pretty damned entertaining. Thanks for those vids, DP.