SHARING ART AND SOUL

Peter Adams has led a richly diverse life. But he would say his calling is only now finally being satisfied

He’s a graduate of Harvard, a former Korean Peace Corp volunteer, and he once dabbled in carpentry in Alaska. A plethors of rich threads are woven into his lifeline, but Peter Adams would say none is so satisfying as the higher learning he has followed since mentoring dozens of artists, writers, musicians and environmental and social activists at his sprawling pile on the Tasman Peninsula

Peter Adams stays out of sight most of the time, deep in nature, working on his art at the retreat he has created near Roaring Beach on the Tasman Peninsula. At the 50th anniversary celebration of his graduation from Harvard University, though, the sculptor emerged from his relative seclusion to speak to fellow alumni on a topic he knows a lot about. The road less travelled was the theme of the talk Adams gave at last year’s reunion event at the Ivy League university in Massachusetts. Now in his seventies, the path less trodden is the only one that seems to interest Adams.

The one-time history student, who went on to volunteer for the Peace Corps in Korea for two years, thence to learn carpentry in Alaska, was an established furniture designer and maker in North Carolina when he was headhunted by the University of Tasmania’s Centre for the Arts to lecture in design. That was in 1985 and he intended to stay one year. Instead, he stayed to carve out a life in Tasmania far from the madding crowd.

“Part of it was luck,” Adams says, as we walk the art and nature trails he has just opened to the public through Airbnb Experiences. I could have been married and it simply didn’t happen. You get pushed into certain ways of being in life and [that becomes] the road you travel. It just happened. I can’t say I ever thought about my path a year in advance.

“The key thing is to listen to that still small voice within you. And if you’re calm enough, you somehow know the direction you should go. For me, the question has always been ‘where is the learning going to happen?’

“When I was asked to come to Tasmania, I had a very successful furniture and art business in America, a wonderful bubble in the sense of creativity, excitement and love. But somebody said, come to Tassie. And I did. And I stayed, because I felt a deeper learning was more available for me here than back in America.”

At Windgrove, his 40-hectare property bordering Roaring Beach and overlooking Storm Bay in Tasmania’s south-east, Adams has created a rich learning environment for himself and others. And, speaking of paths less travelled, he takes guests on a mind-expanding pathway through the 9000 trees he has planted as part of his teaching.

Positioned in the landscape he has been transforming since he bought the property in 1991 are epic sculptures he has painstakingly carved in timber. Large and smaller, many of his works take months — and sometimes years — of studio time to make. Monolithic stone pieces are more of a logistic puzzle. Often he mixes the two materials.

His elegant, richly symbolic pieces are held in six museums internationally, including the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the St Louis Art Museum.

Moving onto the property in 1992, Adams left the security of tenured university life behind him, turning away from formal teaching in pursuit of higher learning of a more esoteric nature.

He lived for eight years in a converted bus while he built his home and began shaping the landscape with his abundant plantings.

“It was all pasture,” he says of the denuded block that is now a vibrant biodiverse ecosystem. “I decided on earth tithing, planting a tree for every day I lived here for the first 20 years.”

Adams created the Peace Garden at Windgrove, incorporating sculpture and landscape design elements, including a lake, in response to the Port Arthur mass shooting in 1996 that left 35 people dead and 23 wounded. The tragedy happened disturbingly close to home. Approaching the project, he asked himself “how can I represent the pain the community feels in a way that offers hope?”

One lake-edge sculpture is the three-tonne Split Rock, signifying a broken heart, and alluding to what might follow such emotional difficulty — a process of healing or one of closing off and shutting down. “There is a way out of tragedy that allows you to be a better person,” he says.

As we progress to the 1.2km Gaia Evolution Walk through forest and along cliff edge, Adams explains that the distance of each of our footsteps equates to half a million years. “In this walk, I am trying to embody time over 600 million years of evolution,” he says as we wander along, eons of evolution and arrival of species marked with carvings and drawings. Benches overlooking the Southern Ocean are places fore quiet reflection.

Though he spends much of his time alone, to think of Adams as some kind of hermit is to mistake him. Warm, peaceful and erudite in person, he loves good company as much as his periods of solitude. I remark how patient he must be to carve the same piece of timber for six hours every day over more than two years.

“Probably it helps to be a bit of an introvert,” he says. “You just step outside the crowd. But I also was a competitive swimmer, and there’s something about that repetition. You’re looking at the bottom of that pool, that line, up and down, year after year, until you finally get your first little medal. I think sport can be a great educator for children, to lead them into adult life.”

Since 2003, Adams has offered weeks-long residencies to dozens of visiting local and international visual artists, musicians, writers and environmental and social activists, with Adams mentoring the rising change-makers.

Sustainability educator and activist Sara Rickards, 33, is staying at Windgrove when I visit. The biomedical scientist and environmental engineer is the founder of the cheekily named F***giver climate action group (so-named because she gives a f***). Over lunch at Adams’ huge dining table in his open-plan home, Rickards says she was feeling depleted and dejected after intense activism in the lead-up to this year’s Federal Election. Desperate for a circuit-breaker, she contacted Adams on the advice of a former colleague.

“I was quite bummed after the election,” she says. “I came to Windgrove to take some time out to reflect, and do some writing around the way we can transition from being conformist and consumerist and move towards being custodians of the Earth.

“It has been so much more than what I expected it to be. It’s been completely nourishing, inspiring and humbling. What one human has been able to do here over 27 years as a true custodian, planting 9000 trees, all of which form their own beautiful artworks if viewed from above, is extraordinary.

“This is a learning refuge, but it is also a place of compassion and sanity in a somewhat insane world. For me, it has been a place that has allowed my nervous system to have a break.” Rickards, who lives in Sydney, knows she will return. Until now, opportunities for members of the public to visit Windgrove have been limited. Windgrove’s residency program and school excursions have been the mainstay, along with natural healing and art workshops. Now members of the public are able to book via Airbnb for a guided tour with Adams through the Peace Garden and Gaia Evolution Walk, finishing with afternoon tea and conversation at his handbuilt, sculpture-filled home.

“I hope they’re inspired,” he says of the afternoon groups that are starting to come through. “What I hope they experience is a sense that art is more than just an aesthetic, that it has the potential to be transformative.

“I like the notion that art moves beyond beauty and can inspire you to look at things differently; and then, that way, you might just be a little more courageous.”

Book for a Windgrove Art/Nature Walk Tour, $80 per person, at Airbnb.com.au/experience/418453