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At left, P.Fred
Williams gazes
through one of his
spiritual creations.
Below, "Shape
without form,
shade without color
..." one of P. Fred's
'cement men'
Katie Haddox
jfeatures
A study in stone
Lauri Burdelski
Staff Writer
Art is the stuff of speculation. So when the
stout cement men appeared abruptly on the
lawn of Hege-Cox, those wandering past no
ticed and wondered, as should be expected.
First there was one - an almost life-size chunk
of manhood standing defiantly in front of a
sapling. Soon two more of similar size fol
lowed. Eventually, the three large and five
small figures with almost androgynous bod
ies and sculpted, muscular arms accumulated
on the lawn.
The larger ones stand in an extended triangle
with three similar, smaller figures inside form
ing another triangle widi the same delta. All
six figures direct their blank attention towards
a cement creature of differing yet congeneric
proportions that gazes out from the center. It
is short and has an elongated neck but not the
muscled arms of the others. All are feature
less and almost barren of ornamentation. One
of the larger, however, stands spattered with
bright orange paint, another is outlined in
black, and in the chest of each of the smaller
figures is lodged a molded piece of wood.
It's startling to see such figures strewn about
the lawn, and P. Fred Williams realizes this.
He enjoys it when passers-by gawk. Willi the
creation of these creatures, he capitalizes on
the nature of speculation. His point is not to
communicate one specific message, but that
viewers can extrapolate a variety of ideas from
his expression in concrete. "People ask me
what they mean," he explains. "I ask them
what they think." The responses have been
varied to say the least. "I was in Feminist The
ology last semester, and I said I wished men
Katie Haddox
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could bear children. Well, one of ihe women
from that class told me she felt that these fig
ures are the representation of my subconscious
desire to produce offspring. I thought that was
really interesting."
Another observable aspect of work such as
his is the manner in which others interact with
his creations. "I heard that late one night, a guy
who must have been drunk rammed right into
it, trying to knock it down. People have told
me that, while they were tripping, they've had
conversation with my men. Others say when
it's dark or cloudy, they'll get this sense that
they're being watched. It's my men, men with
out eyes, who arc watching them.
They evolved, he says, from an assignment.
"We had to create something spiritual," and he
thinks perhaps they evoke something of
Stonehenge. "They were these big grey solid
objects that just...appeared." The statues' spiri
tuality is further validated in the lines of a poem
which they bring to mind. "We are the hollow
men/we are the stuffed men," beginsT.S. Eliot's
poem "The Hollow Men." As the poem con
tinues, the cement men are "Shape without
form, shade without color/paralyzed face, ges
ture without motion."
P. Fred meant lhat the bodies be androgy
nous, yet he refers to them as "the cement men."
They arc not overtly male, hut their character
istics are indubitably less female. To some ex
tent. he thinks he is exploring himself through
his art. I lis favorite sculptor, Antony Gormlcy,
has done a lot of work in a similar medium,
and it is one that Fred finds compelling.
"Maybe it means I am still searching from
my self... when I've found exactly what that is
maybe I'll start drawing landscapes."
9