wood

Ritualised Tools of Passage /  by Justin Harrison

I'm sanding some reclaimed wood for a piece and I hesitate, the colours of the grain - the history of the wood are emerging subtle yet sweet; knots, creosote, grain and dirt, its like a book with an obscure narrative that I'm trying to follow - I'm slightly torn how much to sand, I love the glassy feel of super smooth lacquered wood but it feels like a crime to remove anymore of the paternation, like I’m erasing memories. I'm trying to engage with time in a disrupted way. Keeping the history yet making new.

I accidentally put Danish oil on first - I had planned to use varnish however I know that these mistakes often work for the better so I don't worry too much. Fine saw marks appear, as forgotten half healed scars as the oil soaks into the dry fibres of the wood. Then I put too many layers on and it changes the colouration I had been obsessing over, the oil takes the wood to more warm honey colours and some of the paternation disappears.

/// I lament for a moment///

However these sculptures are meant to be fast explorative pieces, all of which is research and informative. The more I make - the more I learn about the materials and my work.

As the oil is drying I cut a second piece of wood, it's thin and brittle and doesn't have the subtlety of shape that I want, so I take to carving at it in attempt to have a little more control. This works but ads time to the process. I'm able to manipulate and manifest the forms that I feel in my head.

At some point it also occurs to me that I can char the wood that I will get a nice contrast against the Holly pegs I've been making and plan to add. This changes the voice of the piece, more gravitas than the honeyed wood. I like it and putting the two together creates more dialogue that I enjoy. (I do wonder about how I animate this work more a feature of the other recent sculptures)

On reflection of the two sculptures placed together as a piece - I almost feel as tough I've happened upon something that I shouldn't have. Like opening a tomb.

The apertures agents, the pegs agents in conflict. Some sort of holy/unholy moment. The passage at crux. The threat of the outside coming in.

I'm not sure I quiet understand what I've made, I need time to absorb what is going on. A slow burn.

 

Cleansing /  by Justin Harrison

I had some time, so Iwent to the forest. I find it such a refreshing location to be in. Immersed in sea of tress and green. I find a place to be, to quiet myself.

I took my coffee pot - it’s a ritual. A place of prayer.

There is a clearing I favour, occupied by Oak and Holly. When I came upon it today it had litter and various bits of evidence human passage. It upset me, it felt very wrong. I cleared it as an act of cleansing and humility. Remembering that I make mess, literal and spiritual.

Some small works came…’little nothings’ - quick and unselfconscious. (More limited timed pieces). Playing with materials. Stripping. Stripping small branches of their bark The work seems overly simplistic, but then this is an exercise in me getting out of my own way, not censoring everything and realising what can come out of play. So much is serious and ‘oh so earnest’.

The drawing followed and I can’t decide which way it should go up, or where it should go. But I almost need to just get this stuff out of my head to make room for the following ideas. A cleansing. My head is full of stuff, it’s getting crowded.

Breathe.

I see the forest as a site of constant change and micro transformations. Growth and Decay. Transformation up and Transformation down.

 

Disrupted averages /  by Justin Harrison

Image: My own

Disrupted averages (Concept - Jonathan Kearney)

In the studio I have an hour or so.

Not long///

I have left items out on the desk from my last visit. I do it to provoke myself. It’s irritating and funny at the same time. Pieces of textured leather  - favourite tools. It all makes me want to make things immediately - the materials speak, not a language I entirely understand but it is language none the less.

I hang some large watercolour paper I have plans for - been day dreaming about making huge black ink drawings. Bold and sensitive, ink dispersing to granular clouds of vapour.

My phone is a pain in the arse and kepis turning off ###

Disrupt your averages/// 

I tried to make something in a hurry tonight. 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I decide I have to make something in the next hour, using what I have collected or hoarded around me. This means working fast, the opposite of what I normally do, usually I take long, considering, measuring, crafting experimenting. This has to go out the window.

So I begin, I keep it simple. I take two pieces of wood  cut the other day. I had plans for them, but I can always cut more. (I have a generous supply of old fence panel wood stashed in the corner). Playing with the two pieces in different arrangements I decide I want to join them somehow, I consider plaster but know this will take too long, instead I cut a small piece of leather with the intention to make a cuff to join them.

I’m already breaking my own rules by not sharpening my head knife first - it should cut in one or two passes - it takes too many and leaves slight double edge. I cringe internally and move on.

Then get annoyed an go back and clean it up, but quickly. Next I soak the leather to wet form it. I run it under a tap - ideally I’d leave it in a clean bowl of warm water and watch the bubbles ecstatically escape the back of the leather but again this all takes time. The skin takes long to relax under the cold water. Like me it's cold.

As I fold the leather around the wood and clamp it - I realise that it’s too small compositionally, intuitively I want a larger cuff - to have more presence. I should have seen this before I started.

Then I have a some realisations as the hour comes to a close///

  1. I’m no way gonna finish in time.

  2. I failed and that’s fine.

  3. I will need to cut more leather and reform it and wait for it to dry.

    Thats annoying ### It’s annoying as its wasteful, and is gonna cost me time and finance. Then it occurs to me that this is an issue for me. Like a big issue. I don’t like to waste anything, because I can’t afford to. I realise that historically I have always worked very carefully and methodically and meticulously. I thought it was because I liked well made work. (I do - but that’s not the point) It’s mostly because I’m afraid to make mistakes. I’ve learnt to work this way to not spend money or make errors.

I think about the maxim - the rich stay rich while the poor get poorer. (This week it was announced that the worlds 10 richest men have doubled their wealth over the past two years whilst more people have fallen into poverty).

I wonder if rich culture increases and advances, because it can innovate far quicker, it doesn’t need to conserve its resources. It can afford to waste a few prototypes, raw materials, money and make mistakes. Where as poorer cultures work must work carefully and methodically with the precious few commodities or compromise instead, still creative and innovative, but advancing at a slower speed.

I also realise:

  1. All the work I've done is really useful and informative and it's ok to experiment and waste a little bit of leather. No time has been wasted but well spent exploring. It's informative.

So. interesting. I disrupted my average tonight and I saw something in myself, my practice and perhaps my culture.

IMAGES+++

My own

 

Hatters Wood /  by Justin Harrison

It took me a while to settle in the space - I needed to walk and talk.

Began collecting wood soon found I wanted bigger sticks. Size and scale is important. The scale matters - a lot. The central pole must be long 10 foot. it affects the presence of the work. The materials need to speak as much as I do.

I noticed a simple split in the wood as I worked it, striping it of it’s bark. Beautiful in its stark simplicity. It’s presence unashamed.

There was a suggestion to place the work against grass but no, it really feels wrong - it becomes a formal sculpture where as in the wood it’s some thing else - an intervention? No something more sympathetic and synchronistic.

This work is a collaboration with an artist and musician and friend. I am leading the sculptural part of the work in response to music written and performed by Jon.

I am making drawings and sculptures influenced by Jon’s music - somewhere in the work I trust will be a coalescence.

Working together was new and a little unsettling.

However it soon became something more comfortable. The ensuing dialogue is becoming more and more interesting although I still resist a little.

This work was test - how would the basic elements work in the space. But was by no means a finished piece more a physical sketch.

Seeing the poles felt good- creating the space. Intervening in the space -although it also felt very incomplete even if the other elements I’ve thought of and drawn were to be included; fire, copper, bone wre there - it would still be too simplistic.

Moving the leaves helped too, clearing the ground. But I do want something of me not just something modified but made. The core of the work, the substance of the piece. A point of focus.

Theres a lot for me to say having made this test piece:

More is needed - it feels interesting but very incomplete.
What’s missing?
What is needed?
The Copper - did it work?
Scale?
The core idea of the work.
Liminal themes
What am I saying…///

Jon’s Comments>>>

I like it. Something about it is transcendent.

Wow factor 

Element needs added- that’s only me.

Something from the earth

Something of reverence

Needs something to push it.