Amanda Gibson’s house in Cottles Bridge was about two kilometres from the fire when a wind change proved a saviour for her on Black Saturday, February 7, 2009.
Her house was saved, but the bushfire consumed 450,000 hectares in Melbourne’s north, killing 173 people.
Seven days after the devastating bushfires, members of an online blacksmiths’ forum – including Ms Gibson, a graphic designer and hobbyist blacksmith – discussed how they could show their support for victims.
Through the online forum, the ‘smithies’ decided to build a blacksmith’s tree, a eucalypt made from copper and steel leaves.
Ms Gibson offered to co-ordinate the project and sought help from the Victorian arm of the Australian Blacksmiths Association, which immediately gave their idea an online presence, and sent emails to partner blacksmith associations around the world. Very quickly the idea for the tree took shape with help from the Ukrainian Union of Artist Blacksmiths, the Californian Blacksmith Association and the British Artist Blacksmith Association. Their first leaf was forged from steel less than a week after the blaze was put out. Blacksmiths from Uzbekistan, Russia, Canada and 17 other nations donated almost half the tree’s leaves.
Four years later, The Tree Project, as it has become know, will finally be officially unveiled at the Whittlesea Showgrounds on November 30, at some point between 1 and 4pm.
“We were hoping to get 200-to-300 leaves and we got 3500,” Ms Gibson says. “It was also supposed to be a six- month project,” she adds with a laugh.
The Tree Project was initially intended as a gift to fire-affected communities from the international community of blacksmiths, but it quickly become a memorial to the 173 lives lost. The project has been an important part of the healing process, especially those who lost family and friends,” Ms Gibson says.
“It has given people a chance to focus on something uplifting, beyond rebuilding and surviving. As one person put it, referring to the fact the metal leaves are forged from fire, the tree shows that fire is not just about destruction, it’s about creation, too.”
