Tom Joyce

Born: 1956, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tom Joyce is a blacksmith-turned-artist who has achieved a level of recognition most artists dream of but never reach. His work has been purchased at high prices by prestigious museums and for public display, as well as by collectors. In 2003 he was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the so-called “genius award” of $100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached.

Reared in Oklahoma, he moved at the age of 12 to New Mexico and learned blacksmithing at 14 in the rural town of El Rito. Coming across a grubbing hoe that had been patched seven times, he experienced a revelation that would set him on his career path. The painstaking repairs testified to the tool's past, he realized, and to the value it held for its owner.

When the Twin Towers fell tom Joyce made a piece one year later as a response. The piece was based off of the symbol known as the vesica piscis, a symbol that among other things represents the mystical Pythagorean union of the divine with the world of matter and creation. Its shape is made by the intersection of two circles of the same radius, joined so that the center of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. I had the privilege of meeting and working along side Tom Joyce in the spring of 2010 at Messalands Community College in Tucumcari New Mexico at their annual Iron Pour. Had I made as many connections to his work then as I have now, I would have wanted to have much more of a phylosphical discussion with him. Nonetheless, I think that this opportunity will present itself to me in the future.

The Vesica Piscis is a shape that appeared on the love locks I purchased in the village of Sabil Latvia, where I became engaged to my partner Alexandra Knox. Then not knowing or fully understanding the symbol’s history, we each had the symbol tattooed to our wrists, forever binding our love when our hands are locked together, a constant reminder of the love that is locked in Sabil, where we spent a portion of our summer creating a collaborative land art piece at Pedvale Sculpture Park. I find it outstanding that I learn the history of the symbol through my discovery of Tom Joyce’s use of it in a contemporary Iron piece. The symbol has shown up in my own work at the base of a self portrait in Iron, drawn in the sand at my feet, one of the sources of life given to Iron and represents my devotion to that material and the physical presence it holds within my own body. A piece that until now I did not fully understand.

It is through the excellent article on Tom Joyce by Kathleen Whitney, that I have been able to better articulate my thoughts for my passion of cast iron and its place within the contemporary art world. Holding true to Iron as a material Tom Joyce makes smart choices in the descriptions of his work to elude to his concepts. It is important to him that forged sculptures are solid; he feels that their weight can be sensed through proximity. He often denotes weight along with medium and dimensions on exhibition lists so that viewers don’t assume that the sculptures are made from clay.

Kathleen Whitney sets up an amazing comparison of Tom Joyce’s work to that of Baudelaire in that he asserted that sculpture is necessarily primitive and close to nature, incapable of becoming civilized. This is particularly true of iron sculpture, which is made form one of the planet’s most basic substances. She states that it’s hard to think of a sculptural material at a greater remove from the techno-heaven of the 21^st century. This is profoundly so and is a testament to some of the difficulties I have in creating contemporary works in Iron that are appreciated in the technological world that we live in. This is where I want to create work, somewhere between these two spaces, the mergence of technology in iron. She explains that Iron marks a particular phase in civilizations, a turning point in the relationship between humans and their environment. Even in the technological present, iron and ironworking remain dominant factors in the age-old arenas of extractive industries, manufacturing, and warfare. Though I am not particuallarly interested in Iron as a primary source of material used for warfare, it does help place iron within a current role in civilization.

Tom Joyce sates that: “His work is inspired by his view of iron as a vehicle moving swiftly forward in time bearing its multi-millenial freight of economic and social meanings.”

Whitney explains that contemporary art exists within fixed boundaries delineated by art school language and training. This language such as it is, offers a limited and highly codified vocabulary within which everything “refers,” “references,” or “contextualizes.” Personally feeling trapped within this context is stifling at times for me as an artist and has taken a great deal out of my heart and soul. Within this soul searching however, discoveries are made, and Whitney’s words following the above comments on language and training are in my personal opinion perhaps the most profound words written for those artists, such as myself, whom are looking for ways to talk about the mediums they so enjoy. Her final words on Joyce’s works are awe inspiring:

Joyce’s work is distinguished from much contemporary

sculpture because the craft necessary to make it is a major

presence that acts as an embodying force of meaning and

material. The residue of intense physical labor, what the

work is and what it says are inseparable. The meaning of

Joyce’s work is designed to extend its value and connotation

far outside the art world, offering an opportunity for passionate

response and a pretext for the exchange of information.

Barry Fields of localflavor magazine writes: He views iron as precious, never to be thrown away. “Forging things from recycled stock allows the material’s inherited lineage to continue, adding additional layers through which iron’s history can be interpreted.”

Though this is perhaps the longest blog that I will post on this research blog, it has been a crucial discovery for me and has cleared up a lot of issues I have had within myself and the feelings of abandonment I have had for a material that has spoke to me for so long. Though I am not currently working in Iron I know that it is inevitable that it will continue to have a strong presence within my life as an artist and will come back to me as a material; my recent journey involving the uses of technology and my new understanding of that as a material will perhaps one day find harmony with iron and convey a message of solidarity.

Berkovitch, Ellen. "Swords Into Plowshares." The New York Times [New York] 14 Aug. 2005, Arts sec.: 1-2. Web.

Fields, Barry. "A Portrait of the Artist as Blacksmith." Localflavor Magazine. 1 Feb. 2007. Web. 2 May 2011.

Whitney, Kathleen. "The Iron Iceberg." Sculpture Dec. 2008: 57-61. Print.