It's All About the Space Inside

One of those truly wondrous moments, this morning working on the white coiled cylinders series; the kind of revelation that is the magic of art, the magic of sculpture. To date, the cylinders have been about texture, light and shade, placing in formation/groupings, as per these images (taken following an experimental 'placing' session, hence the presence of other bits and pieces in the background):

This morning I was making another cylinder (the tallest one yet at 31cm):

when, about 10cm up, I became aware of a shift in my consciousness; from my initial focus on the clay coil itself, on texture, on the outer shape the coil was forming, the size of the cylinder and its presence when grouped with the others, to a very strong, overwhelming awareness of the space the coiling was enclosing.
It became all about the inner space. The coiling simply demarcating the boundary between the inner space of the cylinder and the outer space, the space above my workbench, the space inside the entire studio.
Interestingly, I feel that this cylinder is very different on the outside as a result. There is a harmony, a different kind of balance; it seems to relate differently to its surroundings, which I even perceive in the image above.
And below is a series of images aiming to illustrate the lure of this inner space. It draws you in, its presence engulfing you as your focal point descends, embracing you, holding you; emotions changing and intensifying the deeper you go:  

moving closer towards the inner space:

going deeper into the space:

This morning it became all about the inner space, but the white coiled cylinder series is and will be about both the inside and the outside.

Something Beautiful Happened This Morning

I spotted a long-standing acquaintance in town this morning and went across to tap him on the shoulder to say hello - I'd spoken to his wife a couple of weeks ago who told me he was going through 'a bit of a time' health-wise (oh that wonderful English use of the understatement!). He's having a rough time of it, yet he was and looked very positive. He remarked on the fact that I looked 'very well', 'yes, really well', and I replied that since my own - I'll call it 'significant life-event' here even though I do dislike that phrase so - over five years ago now I have felt increasingly good to the point where I now feel better and more positive about life than I have ever done. We then stood and mused a while at how an initially devastatingly negative experience turns out to have very positive outcomes.
A positive, inspirational and uplifting exchange for me, and for him, I think/hope. 
Which, on my way home, led me to thinking about my 'Fragility Spheres' (first posted on 28/9 and 17/8/2012) - hence the introductory narrative. They started out as a reflection on the fragility of life and have evolved into a meditation on positives emerging from devastation/desolation. 
I will go into this further in my next post. Here I simply want to log this very evocative song, perfectly befitting this theme and a nice preamble to the second phase in the Fragility Spheres project. I've been waiting for the right time to post this link; today's the day:

the lyrics pertinent and poignant;  
  

'The Opening' by Ane Brun and the Fleshquartet

"Ane Bruns Kommentar zu dem Titel:
'The Opening' is a song whose lyrics and melody were written by myself with the music and production handled by the Fleshquartet. I got the script for the very last Wallander film, and wrote these lyrics inspired by the main character. It's about trying to move forward when you find yourself at a standstill. It's an encouraging song about daring to take a step in any direction when you feel stuck. Sometimes it's just a small step or a short conversation - or sometimes just a single word - that can set off the necessary process of change. (soundcloud.com)"

the last Wallander series mesmerizing.  

The MET Presents

Edmund de Waal in conversation at the MET
(click link to view)

Extracts that resonate with me and my work; along the recording time-line, approximately:
- 11:50: 'a collection of pots in which nonetheless each container retains a very different and very distinct meaning'
- 12:45: 'pots are about making volume in space, pots aren't about profiles, ... they're about insides ... about volume, about space' 

- 35.45: 'repetition is very interesting, is fascinating if you make things, if you’re a musician … as soon as you put one thing next to another you’ve got a gap, you’ve got a caesura, you’ve got a pause … something that happens between them … if you keep going then you have to deal with time'

- 26.45: 'find the beauty in that seriality'

- 46.15: 'about identity … who are you, where do you come from'

and

- 46.40: 'how can you be true to who you are'

both in a very different (absolute inverted?) sense to ‘spirit of place’ in an earlier post. Also ‘importance of “object”’

- 50.00: 'a huge traffic in the world of objects, which is endless'

- 57.50: 'identity … that’s me'

- 1.00.45: last image of the Turner Contemporary installation, another example of ‘spirit of place’, an installation in tune with ‘spirit of place’

- 1.08.00: the wonder, the beauty in making ceramics is that you work with chance, have to deal with a loss of control

'accepting the humanity of the flaw, of a thing that goes wrong'

The Creation of Form in Sculpture - II

Another way to generate these concaves, convexes, planes and edges is through focussing on 'the line'. This is of course most manifest in drawing; less so in sculpture. By paring down your process conceptually right down to the essence and seeing the formation of form as a conformation of lines, you achieve a different way of constructing form.
I personally do this most explicitly in what I've come to refer to as my 'coil' pieces. e.g: 
from before:

 and more recently:

And here is an example of the limitless growth possibilities of line:

Gego. 'Line as object' at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

Gego, Reticulárea, 1969 - Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas - Courtesy Paolo Gasparini - Archivo Fundación Gego

Interested in the limitless growth possibilities of a line, Gego (1912-94) expanded it into planes, volumes and expansive nets, to reflect on the nature of perception.

Gego was born Gertrud Goldschmidt in Hamburg, 1912, and emigrated to Caracas in 1939 immediately after finishing her architectural studies in Stuttgart. She began working as an artist in the 50s in Venezuela and eventually became a Venezuelan citizen in 1952.

The Henry Moore Institute now exhibits Gego’s work a faithful exploration of the possibilities of line as object.

Gego. Line as Object investigates the artist's unrivalled engagement with the problems of form and space, using light, shadow, scale and gravity, in a constant process of discovery. This first UK solo presentation of Gego underlines her visionary approach to sculpture, a terminology that she refused to use for her own work. In one of her notebooks she exclaimed: 'Sculpture, three-dimensional forms of solid material. Never what I do!' Sculpture is concerned with weight, scale, gravity, light, space and encounter: terms embodied by Gego's study of the line as object.

Gego, Sin título, 1987 - Courtesy Claudia Garcés - Archivo Fundación Gego

In Gego. Line as Object, the selection of works in span a thirty-four year period. It begins in 1957, when Gego explicitly began to address sculptural thinking with the work 'Vibration in Black'. This torso-sized continuous form of painted black aluminium hangs from the ceiling, gently responding to air movement and spreading its volume through shadows. 

The latest works are from 1991, when Gego concentrated on her 'Tedejuras': interlaced paper strips that combined reproductions of her own works with pages from magazines and gold cigarette wrappings. Between these two dates Gego made large-scale nets, columns and spheres that filled gallery spaces; watercolours, ink drawings, prints and lithographs, exploring line in space – producing hand-sized sculptures made from material found in her studio as well as sculptures stretching between buildings in her home city of Caracas.

The Gego Foundation in Caracas, where research for this exhibition was conducted, holds the artist's book collection that includes an annotated copy of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form (1917), a book that has lodged itself within the consciousness of twentieth-century sculpture and that is the subject of a concurrent Gallery 4 exhibition.

Gego, Bichito 89 29, 1989 - Courtesy Claudia Garcés - Archivo Fundación Gego

Gego. Line as Object is a collaboration between the Henry Moore Institute, Hamburger Kunsthalle and Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Research in Caracas has been assisted by Fundación Cisneros.

The presentation at the Henry Moore Institute is supported by the artEDU Foundation.

The Creation of Form in Sculpture

A reflection - by way of a reminder - of how form is created in sculpture.
A sculpture, i.e. a three-dimensional form is a conformation of convexes, concaves, planes and edges, the latter coming about in the course of the process. 
For the purpose of this post - because I want to include/archive the paragraph below in this blog - I want to focus on the convex, and simultaneously the concave since the same process applies:
the convex is formed through forces from within and with-out, as is a concave. In other words, a plane becomes a convex by what happens (the forces) to make that plane 'bulge'. These forces work from the inside outwards and from the outside outwards. When, as a sculptor, I achieve the appropriate balance between the force from within and the force from without I achieve a convex that 'feels right', i.e. that has a balanced form. And if I want to manipulate that phenomenon to communicate an exaggerated or distorted expression, I accentuate either the force from within or the force from without; this produces an 'unbalanced' convex. 

An example of a process that focuses and explores/examines this phenomenon:

Peter Randall-Page

Upside Down and Inside Out

5th September - 4th October 2014

Once again Peter Randall-Page presents an exciting new body of work, which pushes traditional boundaries of making in Upside Down & Inside Out. The gallery will house three new monumental bronzes. In the creation of these, Randall-Page carved directly into the sand moulds taken from naturally eroded granite boulders, working from the inside out. In Randall-Page’s unique process, the carved indentations in the interior of the moulds become convex bulges. The uniform man-made tool used to create the indentations contrasts with the natural form of the original boulders, which is reminiscent of his earlier Theme and Variationseries. Peter Randall-Page explains that he hopes his new works “are ambiguous and allude, by their form, to both erosion and growth.”

The Power of the Object - II

Another example of the power of the object: via @BBCNewsMagazine

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28621411

"... although ... these tiny statues will disappear, memories and thoughts ... will never fade away."

Also an example of how art brings a connection between people.