Love and Hate(brief)
I have noticed in my idle moments that a plain untouched piece of the world is something that to some basic degree I loathe. Loathe may not be the proper emotion, however there is a certain need to change whatever is around me. I could call this being figety, or some other anxiety based dillema but it appears to go much deeper. If there is empty space I wish to fll it, if there is something untouched I wish to reanrange and tamper with it. If I just allow myself to do what I would naturally, I will tear, cut, scratch, draw, scribble, but never just sit and appreciate. In a quite literal way I naturally have a need to leave my mark.
In down times in conversation, say at a diner, I will shread a napkin, or mangle a piece of left over food, all very diliberatly, albeit to reach no certain goal. This is something I simply cannot help. In such times I get nothing out of it, just a fix to something much more pressing. In a sculpture, I start with a peice of wood that to me is nothing more that a medium to change something. It needs to be changed, so I start shaping it with a number or roughing tools I have including a large lathe and a band saw. Now I have changed this piece of wood. It is in this time period where my real hate for this piece starts to bubble up. I started with a plain peice of wood, pretty in a natural way, but now it is crude, poorly worked and changed into something ugly. I hate the work at this point.
I start working many hours at this point, without many pauses, like an adict, trying to escape from life, while planning on getting somewhere better. I hate and hate and hate, digging and grinding, until I find something that I love. I see a certain curve or a small hollow, and interaction of a few shapes and my whole process changes. I am no longer trying to fix something that is broken, I am nuturing something that I find beautiful. In these times when I stop working, I have trouble putting it down, it is like my child, and it is hard parting with it. I often, before I leave the workshop at my Dad's for the night, walk back down with my piece just for one last look, hold that image of beauty and look forward to working on it again the next day. The nuturing process talks a long time, often with hours upon hours of fine sanding, a lover's embrace, and I begin to understand these works of love. I think Alexis is safe knowing my only mistress next to her that I will ever have is art.
In down times in conversation, say at a diner, I will shread a napkin, or mangle a piece of left over food, all very diliberatly, albeit to reach no certain goal. This is something I simply cannot help. In such times I get nothing out of it, just a fix to something much more pressing. In a sculpture, I start with a peice of wood that to me is nothing more that a medium to change something. It needs to be changed, so I start shaping it with a number or roughing tools I have including a large lathe and a band saw. Now I have changed this piece of wood. It is in this time period where my real hate for this piece starts to bubble up. I started with a plain peice of wood, pretty in a natural way, but now it is crude, poorly worked and changed into something ugly. I hate the work at this point.
I start working many hours at this point, without many pauses, like an adict, trying to escape from life, while planning on getting somewhere better. I hate and hate and hate, digging and grinding, until I find something that I love. I see a certain curve or a small hollow, and interaction of a few shapes and my whole process changes. I am no longer trying to fix something that is broken, I am nuturing something that I find beautiful. In these times when I stop working, I have trouble putting it down, it is like my child, and it is hard parting with it. I often, before I leave the workshop at my Dad's for the night, walk back down with my piece just for one last look, hold that image of beauty and look forward to working on it again the next day. The nuturing process talks a long time, often with hours upon hours of fine sanding, a lover's embrace, and I begin to understand these works of love. I think Alexis is safe knowing my only mistress next to her that I will ever have is art.