Ladle

[Kilkenny]

Evaldart - The Sandy Brown 'Dancers' are about 7 feet high.

Obseq - I do want to know about 'feeling' when I am appreciating art. I think you have to be a fully functioning human being, offering a high feeling content to make art at all. Even when there is a high intellectual or philosophical content in art (e.g. early abstraction in the 20th century) the art was always informed by feeling. The feeling bit, for me, is the individual faced with life - faced with making sense of life or seeing in the specifics of a lived life something worth creating a structure about (whether that is art or poetry or literature).

My problem with Evaldart's statements about 'Ladle' were, I think, resolved by what he went on to say. I work quite hard to offer someone a way into the work when they are puzzled. After all, it's a language problem. One person's way of seeing not being that of another, or the vocabulary not being there for communication to happen 'automatically' through the work itself.

Oh, and the Sandy Brown on the left (above) - a vulva, if I'm not mistaken. A very beautiful one, and example of art improving on life?

Thing is, quite apart from being a carver of the 'significant form' school, I'm also a thorough-going Darwinist, and in my more honest moments tend to see in art a rich field of study for the evolutionary psychologist. I'm more and more drawn to the position, as a carver, that what we make is not really within our control, and our own thoughts about our work are attempts to make sense of what we do, not unlike the sometimes baffled viewer's. Human consciousness is way to expansive to be contained within the meagre rationalisings of the individual, or even the plottings and machinations, of the artist him/herself. Art, then, is a bit like life. It's what happens when you were planning something else. So, yes, they are penisus!

[chris 71]

Originally Posted by Kilkenny

I'm more and more drawn to the position, as a carver, that what we make is not really within our control, and our own thoughts about our work are attempts to make sense of what we do, not unlike the sometimes baffled viewer's. Human consciousness is way to expansive to be contained within the meagre rationalisings of the individual, or even the plottings and machinations, of the artist him/herself.

i feel very much similar to this

[Nelson]

From a more basic view than E`s and K`s and some many others who have backgrounds to phylosophize over art, I attempt to express what I see and sense within. My view is there should be correspondance between the artist`s physical attempt and his reason, his cause to materialize nebulous as they may be, thoughts, feelings, ideas, concepts...So often in my ignorance I guess, I fail to sense effectively that relationship. Or is it that there`s actually no correspondance at all? Go figure. A sculpture don`t need to be understood necessarily, but there`s got to be that something, that subtle substance that tells you it got soul, because there are things that need no explanation, you simply feel them,or not. Do we have to run a poll to find out degree of efectiveness of the artifact ? Or will it suffise to accept whatever the artist assambled to express him/herself?
I agree with K`s on this view:
"If you are going to help me appreciate the work then you need to refer to its form, its materials and its dynamic. You need to refer to IT. You need to offer help within the perameters of the viewer looking at an art object - this abstract stuff is a fair distance from the work, and it's the work that interests me, not what's in your head at a theoretical level. I can do the theorising myself..."
From my first answering, and after considering both stands on Ladle, I feel, not that I stubbornly want to, that confussion, unefectiveness, and exploration are conspicuos traits to me. Fail to see inspiration and/or efectiveness to bring life, soul to this work. But, as an exploration attempt, this may be an important LINK of your chain of work, so in that sense any blemishes one tries hard or easily finds, are insignificant when confronted with the inmense possibilities of future works which shall validate the seemigly failed works. In all, this is the great beauty of your Ladle E, so being positive, and constructive, lol, I think it WILL be a great work!

[rika]

Originally Posted by Nelson

as an exploration attempt, this may be an important LINK of your chain of work, so in that sense any blemishes one tries hard or easily finds, are insignificant when confronted with the inmense possibilities of future works which shall validate the seemigly failed works.

I think there are individual pieces in an artist's body of work that nobody seem to "get" but the artist him/herself. Only the artist knows the real significance of it, and may even be a bit puzzled about others not responding at all to this "relic" as someone put it, the physical evidence of the giant leap it took to address a progressive idea that the artifact perhaps cannot physically follow YET. Nelson is right about future artifacts need to do the catch-up, the gap between idea and artifact. No doubt these works are our purest creative efforts - not mis-steps - that we grow from, both as artists and individuals.

It also occured to me that artists always seem to identify NOT their most celebrated works as favourites but others that bear significance to them for other reasons, works that are milestones of new directions, new discoveries, new beginnings. Growth.

[Nelson]

Entirely agree with you Erika.
You`ve used a key word: gap, yes that pretty much condenses my view here, and the gap filling the void "efectively" has to be physical, not intentions, concepts, feelings. Won`t go deeper and find myself trapped in a world of subjectivety and mistery... lol, conceptual artists probably think otherwise. Those of us less proficient in the art of wording, relie on simpler imagery I guess. The concept of striving and competition of forces and masses as E says, I visualized them as a skiier figure trying to maintain control, equilibrium with competing forces...just trying to find some parallelism. The concept is there, but in my view too much clutter and the arrangement "feels " misleading.
One can easily underestimate the true value and meaning of an artist work, no doubt, and could even be the case now. No diminishing intentions though, ok E.

[evaldart]

We are not here to simply be well-received and applauded (even if it remains a guilty pleasure). And I am never surprised or miffed when reactions to these things that I plop out in the world are not even remotely aligned with MY experience of them. So I will never take sour to those things that may seem "negative" (even if my tone becomes challenging). Maybe when I was younger.

But Erika is right, the things that might get somewhat embraced by others may not at all be the things that enabled the greatest amount of progress. And the BIG things might not have as much impact as some small thing. Because the creative will is not a bean-counter; it cannot be quantified by size or weight, or budget or how many days/hours/or years (or minutes) wrapped around an given idea. BUT! It will always be known inside your own mind about the nature of the intensity expended and whether or not you PUSHED hard enough and whether or not you were acting and REacting in a thresholded original manner. You cant fool yourself.

So I freeze my ideas, after enough labor of course, into things...like everyone else here. Those things lead us to talk about process or philosophy...or about what we bought for the studio when we sold the damned bauble.

some detail pics:

[suburbanartists]

Yes Pictures are emasculating this beast.

[Ries]

you need to buy a real camera, dude.
I cant see the thing at all in these- are they phone pics?
lots of shadows, no depth of field, and details are impossible to make out.

Cant tell if I am impressed or not, need to see the thing in real life, and walk around it.

Good photos can convey much more of the spirit of a work than bad ones, though. And these are really crummy photos, in terms of conveying much.

In the end, though, photos fail us. Reality is much more satisfying.

In terms of Evalds' philosophic spewings, I have come to think of it as performance art. That is, what he writes here is an entirely different aspect of his creative output than his sculpture, or his paintings, or his sketches, and pretty much entirely unrelated to it.
I can look at his work, and relate to most of it, have some I like and some I am not so crazy about- and I can think about it in terms of how I think about all manmade objects.

Then, I read his writings, and, in my feeble brain anyway, I see pretty much nothing that relates much to how I think about art or sculpture, or that tells me much of anything about the work except that he achieves some kind of trance like state of heavy metal satori while making it.

The writing is more a William Burroughs or Hunter Thompson type of art- enjoyable for what it is, as long as you realize it doesnt correlate point to point to any physical reality.

I want to see the Evald comic book, or animated movie, with the mighty EVALD chugging beer, gulping burgers, and in an Tasmanian Devil like cloud of sparks and grinding dust, producing Klein Bottle like shapes that cant even be drawn, much less actually built, all with a voiceover of his fevered theories- now THAT would be art.

[evaldart]

I have always only ever expressed disdain-for and distrust-of words and word-smithing (preferring BLACKsmithing). And I quite realize that none of what we say here, any of us, can manage to covey anything more than a smidgen, by our typed trades and tirades, of what is available in our chosen medium(s). But, exchange ideas we seem to be determined to do; THAT is in our DNA. So whether we do it here or elsewhere, it does get done somehow, somewhere for all of us.

Yes, the photos are tough...I have begun a relationship with a real photographer who will barter. He shot my carvings on the other thread...quality job. There will be more of that showing up soon enough. I use the i-phone for all day-to-day documentation these days...and it serves its purpose. But we all know, as Ries mentioned, that there can be no substitute for standing with the object (or passing it by if it is deserving of dismissal).


Besides, every human has it within the to be an aesthetician; and it neednt at all be mashed into words; actually, every OTHER medium probably says it better.