Not much slips past the eagle eyes of Bindoon locals — but even the most unobservant would have struggled to miss the sudden appearance of emus, kangaroos, a squid, and a giant dragon sprouting from a property on Gray Road – the new home of Martin Jaine Sculptures.
Martin Jaine Sculptures began in 2011, after Martin purchased a barbed-wire emu sculpture for his wife Jane. “I thought, ‘That’s quite a lot of money — I think I could make that’,” he said.
“And that’s where it started — I just made a few bits and put them around our old home.”
Martin and Jane’s old home was Earlsferry House, a heritage-listed mansion in Bassendean, that they ran as a bed and breakfast. After friends commented on the pieces displayed in the garden, Martin tested the waters with a stall at the Kalamunda Markets. “I sold everything. I went, okay, there is something in this.”
The business then grew rapidly from a backyard hobby to a fully-fledged operation, employing a small team to meet demand. Martin’s career path of farmer to builder to sculptor is one he himself finds baffling.
“If you had said to me 15 years ago that I was going to be running a bed and breakfast and making sculptures, I would have burst out laughing. I was a roughy, toughy builder, you know? I can’t explain it. It just happened.”
Martin is reluctant to call himself an artist. “My mum’s a painter, my brother makes jewellery, and my sister is creative,” he says. “I used to tell Mum, ‘I don’t know what happened to me—I didn’t get an artistic bone in my body.’” And it may be this perspective that has played a part in his success.
While the ‘starving artist’ trope is all too real for many — creative pursuits remaining a hobby or side hustle to a ‘real job’— Martin has approached sculpture with a business mindset from the beginning.
“I don’t get tied up in the nicky-picky aspects of a piece,” he explains. “You have your budget for a piece, you work within that time frame, and fill it in accordingly. It is a business.”
Another factor in his success is the niche medium and broad appeal of his work, which spans the decorative and the practical. “When we first started, we thought our clientele was going to come from the western suburbs. Then as we started, we were finding a lot of our clients were little old ladies in the Hills!
“We’ve got people that buy stuff on layby because they love it, but need to budget for it. And then we’ve got multi-millionaires that just say, I’ll have one of these, one of those, and one of those.
“People love the practical things, like fire pits, benches, tables, etc. I’ve tried to keep it affordable and accessible.”
Martin’s sculptures range from roosters to robots, rhinos to rams — and just about everything in between. Most of his animal creations are modelled on plastic toys. “If you don’t follow the guidelines of that, you can get out of whack real quick!” he laughs. His geometric pieces, with their sharp lines and gentle curves, require a different kind of precision. “You’ve got to have an eye to just mingle it in — it’s kind of weird, but you can just tell when it’s wrong,” he says, sounding suspiciously like an artist.
Big, bold, and impactful from a distance, and intricately-detailed up close, Martin’s sculptures are primarily made from recycled materials, in particular farm machinery, fixtures, and fittings.
“A lot of the farmers won’t give it up — they love their pile of rusty crap in the corner,” laughs Martin. But the old farm stuff is the best to work with, I find — it’s harder to work with because it is weathered, but it’s got more character.”
Martin and Jane began the process of moving to Bindoon in November 2024 — a task that included relocating hundreds of sculptures. “I did 54 loads in three weeks in my little truck,” said Martin.
Now settled on the block, the sculptures have drawn the eye of many passers-by. “Everybody’s been pretty inquisitive,” Martin says, even pausing mid-interview to greet a couple from South Australia who had wandered in for a closer look.
They’re fully embracing their tree change. “It’s a great spot, and the community is great,” Martin said. While they hope to slow down a little, the fresh audience in the Northern Valleys might make that easier said than done!
You can view Martin’s work via his website martinjaine.com.au, and keep up to date with them on social media @MartinJaineSculptures.
