John Grade

For this post I am choosing John Grade. After having the pleasure of meeting John Grade nearly a year ago, it was quite interesting to talk to him about his use of materials. I was specifically interested in his use of paper pulp in the piece Seeps of Winter. I had seen this piece a few years ago in Sculpture Magazine and was very intrigued, but actually did not recognize that the material used in the piece was pulp. At the time I was struggling with my own recipe for paper pulp and after sharing emails and much experimentation I was finally able to create ridged forms with the color and texture I wanted to achieve. I have a close relationship with Grades work and an appreciation for his love for nature and the aesthetic that nature provides him. Although I have not completed the piece that I began creating in paper pulp, I am excited and anxious to carve out the time to cast the multiple forms needed for my piece. After reading about John Grade’s piece and seeing the numerous amount of patterns I have a lot of respect for the scale of Seeps as Winter and the labor involved in completing it, not to mention the help needed to complete such a task.

Seeps of Winter was created during Grade’s time as resident artist at the Ballinglen Foundation in County Mayo in Ireland in 2005. The project was directly inspired by walks through the country’s peat bogs, as well as by the poems of Seamus Heaney, whose work has referenced the “bog people” preserved within the soil. Seeps of Winter invites viewers to imagine themselves as lying face-up below ground. Seeps of Winter, was shown at Suyama Space in Seattle.

Like many of his works, this piece was later moved to a different location to allow nature to take its coarse. This is perhaps one of the most intriguing and important aspects of John Grade’s work. Janet Koplos calls this “authentic experience” beyond his control. I have put much thought into this small quote and under stand the mindset that one must have for such a process to be so intriguing. The more I grow in age and in artistic practice I am gaining a new appreciation for nature and all that it has to offer the mind of an artist.

Writing more about his process Koplos writes: More than the typical sculpture, grade’s work has a deep back-story in its natural inspiration, its materials, and/or its placement. More than the typical installation, it has continuity, both literal and symbolic. More than the typical artwork, it accepts the fluidity of time and possibility of death and rebirth. An exhibited work may be accompanied by a list of projected sites, giving a sense of the uncertainty of its future and playing against the strong presence of the substances that Grade chooses and the forms he skillfully constructs.

Another interesting aspect of Grade’s work is his nomadic nature. In reading an article by Annie Buckley I made a few connections that I am beginning to relate to. Thanks to the thriving “post-studio” movement, artists now have free rein to move out of the studio and into their communities and the environment (whether virtual or natural). I have an equal appreciation between the virtual and the natural and I am interested in that coexistence, I recently studied this concept through a piece where I traveled out into nature installed an on site piece and documented the experience with video, later to re create the piece in my studio using analog and digital technologies via television sets and direct video feed I was able to convey the idea that nature can not be controlled only manipulated. Technology is different in that it can be controlled by the knowledge of the user. It is the small uncertainties that occur in both that create a relationship that I am interested in.

Beal, Suzanne. "Lived History in Sculpture." Sculpture Dec. 2008: 47-49. Print.

Buckley, Annie. "The New Naturalism." Wild Blue Yonder July 2009: 48. Web.

Koplos, Janet. "Anticipating And Letting Go." Sculpture Dec. 2010: 43-47. Print.