FIRE, DESTRUCTION and REBIRTH

THE BLACK COCKATOO ARTHOUSE BUILDING 

October 2007 - September 2013

ARTHOUSE FIRE

 FUNDRAISER & WAKE !

THE BARONS OF TANG 

will still be playing down here as an Arthouse Benefit show at ROSEMOUNT ESTATE WINERY 114 Chaffeys Rd, McLaren Vale on Friday 20th September, doors at 7.30pm Tickets $20 and can be pre-purchased below or at the door. Supported by HIGH TIME, TIN CAN ALLEY and DJ MUSICAL SHERPA! Come along and celebrate what the Arthouse was and will continue to be!!

Tickets can be booked by clicking HERE

  Pre-fire & post fire

 

If you would like to make a financial contribution you can do so via direct credit transfer from your  bank account or by cash deposit by popping into any BENDIGO BANK branch.

Details are
Bendigo Bank 
BSB - 633 000
Account - 150271591
Account Name - Black Cockatoo Donations



Dear Friends,


Well here we are, the day after and it all seems like a blur. Yesterday was extremely hard however the outpouring of love and support was just so, so incredible and has helped carry us through the first 24 hours of this all.

We want to thank you all so much for your kind words. The loss of the Arthouse building was not just a loss to us personally but to all of us who loved and cherished this beautiful space we created.

They say ideas are bulletproof, well in this case they're fireproof. The Black Cockatoo Arthouse is much, much more than a building, it is an idea, a dream that can be recreated in a new form and as many of you said, like a phoenix it can rise from the ashes, which it shall in the fullness of time.

Right now we are recovering from the shock of it all. Not only did we lose everything, I (Greg) lost all my photographs, my entire record collection full of rare and irreplaceable gems, all my DJ equipment and many other personal items I had stored in my 'man cave'.

There were other losses too, artists Susan Brame and Anna Taylor's artworks, Bert Oxygen Cycles drum kit & bass amp, Nat Le Pages PA system and all those irreplacable vintage treasures that made our Arthouse so ambient comfy and wonderful....

Regretfully, we weren't insured and for anyone who had been to the Arthouse, you'd understand - it felt like nothing bad could ever happen there and the costs were out of our reach.

There's going to need to be some serious fundraising to replace all these items and to get us set up so that we can transform our cinema into a POP UP event that we can take all over the region! We intend to do this with the upcoming Manhattan Short Film Festival (5th Oct) and the Adelaide Film Festival (Oct 12th) - venues to be confirmed!! We'll also be hosting the touring bands we had lined up in other venues - The show must go on!!

In the coming weeks there will be information of some crowd funding campaigns that we'll be needing support with,so pleased stay tuned.

We were overwhelmed with your offers of generous help and help with the clean up. The building has been absolutely gutted - what we salvaged fits into a shopping bag and was a great risk to the sympathetic engineers to remove for us.
 
 We really want to thank the local CFS crews who worked relentlessly hard to contain the fire and saved it from becoming a further tragedy and we gratefully acknowledge whoever alerted them to the blaze. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

We don't officially know the cause, but we were told that it wasn't deliberate -  it was just a very, very unfortunate thing that occurred and a mercy that it took place when no-one was in the building. For this we are very thankful.

As you can all imagine, we're pretty weary at the moment, still in shock and digesting the reality of it all. 

We really feel like we need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep up the creative energies which feed us so much and will help us through all this. For this reason we will be going ahead with our market roles as planned and will endeavor to have a great day out. We would love to have as many of you as possible come up and join us - we need lots of hugs right now and you do too, its been a huge loss for all of us.

We've met so many of you and enjoyed your company immensely through the events at the Arthouse. You're all like family to us and to each other, we want so much to keep that energy up and maintain it through this hard time.

Here's to all that the Black Cockatoo Arthouse was and will continue to be...


Thank you,Thank you, Thank you....

xx Greg & Sarah & Ashara Wood 


Here is a poem we'd love to share with you from our dear friend, Gael Rudwick:

Beautiful and Dear Sarah, Greg and Ashara.

You created an Icon with its very own mythology.

Our Icon for warmth, freedom, humour, anticipation, fulfilment.

An incarnation of bohemia, San Francisco, Berlin, Manhattan.

A source of ultimate joy and wonder

for so many of us.

Your elegance and generosity knew no bounds

as you channelled your energy through the beloved

Black Cockatoo Arthouse.

An ever changing, charismatic conduit for love

inspiration, creativity, glamour. community, friendship

A haven from ordinary social exchange

where, instead, there was trust and ease, simplicity,

unspoken camaraderie

as we sorted and settled and snuggled into our place in the rhythm

of the dance that you offered.

It was a precious setting through which you brought us

your astute selection  of morsels of excellence from the planet at large.

Thankyou sweet Treasures, Greg and Sarah and Ashara

for your Gift in its physical reality and now

for our precious memories of our Arthouse where we taken by you to places of childlike safety and delight.

May we all be still and peaceful

in our acceptance of the Laws of the Natural World.