Robert Morrison

Robert Morrison’s work is an excellent resource for looking at the ability to hone skills in two different distinct areas and then pull it together in a beautiful way. His works look very minimal at a glance but there are a lot of layers conceptually. Both working sculpturally with objects and using sound as an added layer to his work, I am looking at Morrison to see how he introduces sound into his work.

A brilliant piece to me is a performance/sound piece that he did in Piper’s Opera House in nearby Virginia City. Four tape recorders sitting 15 or so feet apart from each other were arranged on the floor to form a square. Morrison threaded blank recording tape in a loop [through the machines, turned on both the microphones and speakers, and hit the start buttons. Critic William L. Fox, commenting on the sounds that emitted from the tape dragging up debris from the floor and playing through the recorders comments, “either they or the ears of the audience would have burst hadn’t Morrison switched off the machines”. I think that this is the strong point of the piece; the sounds that were emitted were simply a result of the machines and the reaction to their manipulation by the hand of the artist. No matter the result of the sound emitted from the players the tension that was created during the showing of this piece is said to be what inhabited Morrison’s work for years to come.

M. Hasard, Dressed to the Nines, 1992, is for me one of Morrison’s most successful pieces. I appreciate the use of traditional materials combined with the element of sound to create a voice for the piece. The piece consists of silhouettes of homburg hats cut out of steel and wires hidden beneath the steal shelves pick up cadences of sound every minute or so. It seems to me that Morrison’s use of sound is very reactant to the raw-ness of sound, the un noticed sounds that we choose to tune out or ignore on a daily bases amplified and placed within the context of an art piece that beckons you to have a conversation with it. This is quite an accomplishment and an inspiring one at that. Morrison is great example amongst many that fuels my ideas to incorporate sound into my work.

Fox, William L. "Anxious Austerity." Sculpture Mar. 2005: 20-21. Print.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

William Cordova

In looking for artists other artists that are working in a similar esthetic of my boom box piece entitled “Self Help” I found the work of William Cordova. I think it is crucial for me to examine his work because he is using dated materials and technologies to make contemporary work. In reading about his work I feel that what I’ve been trying to achieve lately and had not been able to quite articulate verbally, is well stated in Vitamin 3-D. William Cordova reclaims and re-contextualizes every day objects to create mixed-media installations, using an assortment of unwanted or outdated materials such as old books, vinyl records, discarded speakers and bootlegged VHS tapes as the foundation of his work. His unassuming sculptures and installations function on multiple planes, employing symbolic system of personal and cultural signifiers to impart historical significance to the work. Cordova reveals the histories of forgotten people and the memories of left-behind objects imbued with the reality of lived experience.

Though the work may mean something specific in terms of personal memory or association with objects in Cordova’s sculptures, his work speaks of the complexity of the transmission of ideas and offers a multiplicity of interpretations. Odd juxtapositions of materials and motifs create new meaning as each viewer brings his or her experience to the work.

I am also interested in Cordova’s video work, specifically “this one’s 4U (p’anosotros) 2007-8, which is a documentary on the murdered rapper Tupac Shakur dubbed with the soundtrack of a Spanish film about the 16^th-century Incan leader for whom he was named, Tupa Amaru. (For leading his people into rebellion, Amaru was executed by the Spanish). I find this an interesting connection into the historical context that is layered within current pop-culture. I think this is appealing and I’m sure a lot of connections could be made with many forms of current pop culture and historical references.

Adajania, Nancy, and Anne Ellegood. Vitamin 3-D: New Perspectives in Sculpture and Installation. London: Phaidon, 2009. Print.

King, Sarah S. "William Cordova." Art In America 23 Feb. 2010. Art In America. 23 Feb. 2010. Web.

Steven Claydon

Continually thinking of my love for science fiction and how that can be translated into contemporary ideas for work, I was please to find artist Steven Claydon. A review of one of his exhibitions in the UK reminded me of Arthur Ganson’s responses to my work in saying they look like relics from a future culture or a culture from the future that had a hidden past. In Frieze magazine a review of his show ‘Fear of a Planet’ states that, his pieces were installed in a semi-darkened space, creating the impression that they might be precious relics of an unknown civilization. This is interesting considering I have only ever shown my work in a more traditional lighting. I think it would be interesting to take in effect the space my work is show in more, and what the effects of darkness, or colored bulbs, or low lighting would have on my own work. I like that Claydon’s work does not make reference to a specific ethnographic region. His works are other worldly and at the same time hint to current or familiar sources by use of renditions of existing logos.

Contributors to Vitamin-3D in commenting on Claydon’s works talk about his use of materials and how it sets up an incongruity that emphasizes how artifacts and monuments can easily be fabricated to manipulate memory. This fictionalization of the past through false evidence dislocates reality, reconstituting history, which Claydon defines as a lateral mesh of causal events and absorbed protocol that informs our nature and forms our cultural conditioning. I think working in this way opens up a great opportunity for narrative. Narrative in my work is something that I think could easily take place the more I delve into my love for the science fiction and engage myself with the materials that represent that interest.

Adajania, Nancy, and Anne Ellegood. Vitamin 3-D: New Perspectives in Sculpture and Installation. London: Phaidon, 2009. Print.

Wood, Catherine. "Steve Claydon." Frieze Sept. 2005. Frieze. Sept. 2005. Web.

David Ireland

What I like about David Ireland first hand is his consistent interest in restoring a voice to objects, materials, and environments that have been neglected or overlooked. Much like artist John Grade, Ireland embraces a Buddhist-based non-duality between art and life and the belief that all things are of equal value. It is said that because of this he is able to create works out of every day materials that have a surface that can evoke a psychological response.

A project that I especially enjoy of David Irelands, and was the cause for me to investigate his work, is his “Dumbballs,” which are hand sized spheres that he creates by tossing a lump of wet concrete back and forth until it dries into a ball-shaped form. I think this project is extremely smart and simple in its approach but is a very honest way to create work with an honest material. Terri Cohn says that the project is yet more proof of Irelands “Zen” way of life and his belief in equality of materials and forms.

Exploration of materials is evident also in Irelands work, something that I feel needs to become even more ingrained in my own practice. His work’s materials range from dirt, talcum, crayon, and cement on paper. This is not to mention his ongoing play with scale, function, and intent. Three things that I am continually trying to improve for myself and it is re-assuring to know that artist of every caliber continue to struggle through and investigate these ideas.

Cohn, Terri. "David Ireland: Art Meets Life, Again." Sculpture Mar. 2005: 20-21. Print.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

Martin Puryear

In thinking about artists that are held in respect amongst their contemporaries despite their use of traditional materials I think of Martin Puryear. I respect Puryear’s need to preserve inherited sculptural traditions and techniques, and transmit these into the present. I feel with artists like Tom Joyce this thought is present also and is an idea that I constantly think about in terms of my earlier work in iron and my hopes to revisit that material again.

I enjoy hearing Mathew Kangas’ words on Puryear. He talks about Puryear’s work not just being silent shapes: they affirm humanity’s encounter with materials and the very origins of art in the handmade. I just find it refreshing when I see a sculptor who has mastered his craft and sticks to his material and plows their own way.

So what we are talking about here is my appreciation for material, something that will always be apart of my practice, and something that I cannot and will not be removed from. Other critics talk of Puryear’s love for material, such as Castro is Sculpture magazine whom talks about Martin in the magic of his art, honoring the skill and dignity of other makers who know and feel with their hands and hearts what lies in the soul– their soul– and the material at hands soul. I think this is a really clear way of describing the presence that is felt when investing time into a material. I have often tried to portray the “soul” of my material with my castings, titling them with titles that would refer to a human emotion or condition. It is nice to be able to put some Contemporary light on that subject.

Castro, Jan G. "Spirit, Personhood and History." Sculpture Jan.-Feb. 2008: 54-57. Print.

Collins, Judith. Sculpture Today. London: Phaidon, 2007. Print.

Harper, Glenn, and Twylene Moyer. A Sculpture Reader: Contemporary Sculpture since 1980. Hamilton, NJ: ISC, 2006. Print.

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.

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.