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.