Newspapers / Penland Line (Penland, N.C.) / March 1, 1996, edition 1 / Page 3
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Penland LineCT J FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING What Follows is a conversation that never happened. I talked to several artists and an art historian while gathering ideas for what I hoped would be a thoughtful essay about the use of fig urative imagery in craft. As I asked different people the same questions and compiled the answers I decided to forget the essay and defer to my sources. 1 have grouped their comments by topic and present them as a version of the imaginary conversa tion that began to rattle around in my head. —Robin Drejer Cast of Characters Four are third session instructors: Bob Trotman is a wood worker and sculptor (see photo page I). Nick Cave is a perfor mance artist and the creator of fantastic garments (see photo page I). Paige Davis is a jeweler and blacksmith. Peter Gourfain makes highly carved narrative sculptures in wood and clay. Penland Assistant Director Dana Moore is an artist who paints on photographs. Jan Schall is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Florida. Why do you use the figure as part of your work? Bob Trotman: My work has evolved into figurative sculp ture which has furniture references—drawers, boxes, flat sur faces. I see this as a way of teasing out the relationship between people and objects, between using and being used. We have a complex relationship with objects; we think of ourselves as separate from them, yet we often treat each other like objects. I found that combining the figure with furniture elements was a way of making this point. Dana Moore, Inappropriate Behavior, oil on b S.w' photo Paige Davis: I came to figurative work at a time when I was going through some emotional upheaval. I started doing more drawing and then I did a series of sculptures called the Weather Women—they were weathering the storms. I was trying to sec if I could express physically what was happening to me emo tionally. Peter Gourfain: I’m looking for reasons to continue doing work that matters. I once took a group of students to sec an exhibition of pre-Columbian pottery, and what I tried to explain to them was that these people had a very strong rea son for doing what they did. They were part of a 1,000 year tradition. I am looking for a motivation that’s as good as a cul tural tradition. For me that’s stories. I like to make beautiful things, but I need a reason to make them, Dana Moore: It never occurred to me to do any other kind of work. These are the images that move me, that I am attracted to. How often do we have dreams without people in them? We personify everything; it’s part of the way we understand the world. Even in the landscape there’s an implied figure-us, the viewer. Nick Cave: Objects that are worn on the body or used in some sort of ritual have always intrigued me, as objects as well as the function they serve. What I’m interested in is cre ating garments as points of departure. I use my body as a tool to work off of, or as an armature. But it’s important to me that the work has a broader arena and can stand on its own without the body being present. before is inevitable, but it’s also part of the dialogue. If they are responding to genuine, heartfelt issues, originality need not be a concern; it will take care of itself. Is there a resurgence of figurative work today? Jan Schall: Our modern era is fairly unique in its interest in abstraction. But it’s so incredibly pluralistic right now that to try to discern directions like that might be contrived. I really think the boundary between abstraction and figurative work was crossed in the ’70s. Performance work contributed to that because it was so body centered....You hear artists of that period talking about how terrified they were to insert the figure into their work. It seemed as if it had been done and didn’t need to be done again. But it doesn’t go away; we still live in our bodies. Bob Trotman: What’s clear is that the monolithic drive towards abstraction has ended. There may be a relative lack of direction, but the big things-thc figure, landscape, abstrac tion-all need to be revisited from time to time. Dana Moore: I think it’s more than just some shift of focus in the art world. Figurative work is a way of reclaiming some thing human in an age of technology and electronic media. All of these things that attach us by brain separate us by body. There’s always been figurative work, but it may have a difi'er- ent urgency now. Important subjects renew themselves in each new context. Nick Cave: Figurative work has always been around, but I’d like to see more work that’s really pushing the boundaries. The figure is pretty literal so it’s an access point for people to enter the work, but what I’m interested in is what it stands for beyond its literal format. Materials can provide an incredible amount of lan guage, but what’s often lacking is the ability to take it a step further. What’s needed is work that deals with truth. Paige Davis: I think folk art has inspired a lot of new figurative work. In its crude ness it has made people less intimidated about working with the figure. Dana Moore: We have a visceral response to that work. It speaks to us on its own without entering the art realm. Bob Trotman: Folk art has surely loos ened people up. But it’s worth remem bering that the real stuff was not made by people who were conscious of themselves as folk artists. There were doing the best they knew how. We need to do that, too. Peter Goufain, detail of Urn; Ohio Scries, carved terra cotta Paige Davis, Weather or Not, Steel, forged, welded Does all the history attached to the figure make it intimi dating to work with? Bob Trotman: If one is too reverential and intimidated, one can’t do anything. I want to do it because it gives me joy to grapple with the big stuff. But we don’t have to compete with the past. What we need to do is make our own imperfect truth resonate as perfectly as possible. Dana Moore: Artists who intentionally strive for originality are missing something. The comparison with what’s come What do you see as the value of a session like this in a craft school? Paige Davis: It opens up many possibilities at Penland because there’s so much exposure to other media. Also there will be a lot of students who don’t have formal training and some pretty interesting work may come out of that. Bob Trotman: It’s a way of putting our manual skills at the service of ideas. People who are receiving craft instruction are mostly studying technique and materials, but if you don’t address questions of art and design in a craft context you get work that may be good craft but bad art. Too often we get distracted by virtuosity. It becomes an elaborate sleight of hand that disguises the fact that the art is cliched or the design is poor. People think that their hands will do it all for them, but they also need to use their eye and their mind. Working with the figure has helped me quit thinking first about what my tools and materials could do and instead think of what I want to make and then find a way to get the tools and materials to do that. Nick Cave: The value of it is diversity, by which 1 mean indi viduals coming together from different backgrounds, different experiences, yet having this one element that is translated through everyone’s work. We as humans are figurative so a collaborative foundation for this work is set up when we are in contact with each other. Why is the figure so enduring, so universal? Jan Schall: Because we’re human. We’re human beings and we feel lots of things and we experience them in our bodies. We have this capacity to reason and experience abstractly and that can be a transcendent or symbolic realm, but the realm of the figural is the comforting and enriching and infinitely inter esting world in which we live. Peter Gourfain: The figure is us. That’s the answer. Every time you look in the mirror, every time you look at your friends. That’s the reason, that’s life. Then there’s the oppo site question: How could the figure be eliminated from visual art and that art have any relevance to the planet or the species? Dana Moore: Everything we experience is filtered through our bodies. We’re never loose from them. They define our space and even shape the qualities attributed to us. The stories of our lives can be told across our bodies. We read expres sions and gestures that are infinitesimal. The body is a lan guage and a map that we understand more thoroughly than • 0 anything else we encounter.j^*
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