Wendy Whiteley believes that “Our lives are shaped by the places we live.”

In 1969 Wendy and Brett Whiteley visited a friend in a run-down house in Lavender Bay, Sydney. Lavender Bay, for those that don’t know, is on the Sydney Harbour, which back then was an industrial site and a bit of a dump.  Neha Kale quotes Whiteley: “Nobody wanted to live near the harbour… they used to empty everything into it and it stank!” The Whiteleys were drawn to the “shimmering views of the harbour”. To them it was magical and they moved in with their friend and later bought the property.

Soon a “community of artists” was born.  During the 1970s and 80s, Peter Kingston’s, Tim Storrier’s, Garry Shead’s and Philip Cox’s lives “converged on Lavender Bay”.

The architect Philip Cox describes Lavender Bay as “’a natural amphitheatre’”, owing its “curious power to its striking geography”.  As Kale writes, “For Whiteley, the landscape lent itself to an easy intimacy between a revolving circle of neighbours and friends.”

Landscapes are inspirational, life-giving and the setting of great life stories.

What is your Lavender Bay?  And how has it shaped your life?

[Source: Kale, N. (2018) ‘Lavender days’, The Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 August, p.6.]