burned sculpture
Part of yesterday's long post on the scupltural object created on Pomona Strand read,
on Saturday 6 August I was on Pomona Strand in the late afternoon and went to check up on the state of decay of the two sculptural pieces I'd left there.
The third object had collapsed more or less as you'd expect after a few heavy showers - sagging forward, the cardboard and can dropping down and to the side.
More interestingly it initially seemed that the sixth object - under construction, and completed - was no longer there. This object was a grave-mound shaped arrangement of brick fragments completely covered with sticks.
Then I realised that something even more exciting had happened - the object had been used as the basis of a fire or barbeque.
The sculpture was originally created as part of the tamlyn 11 project. The piece was intended to resemble a barrow or burial-mound, partly as a personal interpretation of the ballad Tam Lyn on which the art project was based.
Since I was a small child the early part of the song made me visualise Tam Lyn waiting under a hedge with a barrow rising beyond it.
Another influence was that part of the emphasis of tamlyn 11 at the stage when the object was created was on death.
So it was an object created with specific intentions, and then deliberately left to decay. That someone should come along and make use of the sculpture in a practical way feels quite special.
For me it adds value to the piece. Not in the sense of adding utility to something otherwise decorative or useless - but in the sense of someone finding their own meaning and value in it.
A friend recently said of the piece documented yesterday that like a lot of my current work it's a piece that resembles ritual folk art but without context. That absence of context wasn't something I'd thought about but I'd say is pretty accurate. It's also part of how I'd like the work to be experienced - without explanation.
Which is why I was so delighted to see the work burned.
A short film of the remains below.
I feel that broken traces of a piece - and the process of it collapsing andA further post on this was promised. This is that post.
being dispersed - are as interesting as the work itself. So too are the ways in
which pieces are perceived and the uses to which they're put.
on Saturday 6 August I was on Pomona Strand in the late afternoon and went to check up on the state of decay of the two sculptural pieces I'd left there.
The third object had collapsed more or less as you'd expect after a few heavy showers - sagging forward, the cardboard and can dropping down and to the side.
More interestingly it initially seemed that the sixth object - under construction, and completed - was no longer there. This object was a grave-mound shaped arrangement of brick fragments completely covered with sticks.
Then I realised that something even more exciting had happened - the object had been used as the basis of a fire or barbeque.
The sculpture was originally created as part of the tamlyn 11 project. The piece was intended to resemble a barrow or burial-mound, partly as a personal interpretation of the ballad Tam Lyn on which the art project was based.
Since I was a small child the early part of the song made me visualise Tam Lyn waiting under a hedge with a barrow rising beyond it.
Another influence was that part of the emphasis of tamlyn 11 at the stage when the object was created was on death.
So it was an object created with specific intentions, and then deliberately left to decay. That someone should come along and make use of the sculpture in a practical way feels quite special.
For me it adds value to the piece. Not in the sense of adding utility to something otherwise decorative or useless - but in the sense of someone finding their own meaning and value in it.
A friend recently said of the piece documented yesterday that like a lot of my current work it's a piece that resembles ritual folk art but without context. That absence of context wasn't something I'd thought about but I'd say is pretty accurate. It's also part of how I'd like the work to be experienced - without explanation.
Which is why I was so delighted to see the work burned.
A short film of the remains below.
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