A nice thing about A&P is that one can violate a cardinal rule and show unfinished work. And this is certainly the season for such.
There is a benefit to all the wind and snow in that it forces me indoors with its limited space and ventilation where I am obliged to work in a more preliminary mode. This time around it’s combinations of sticks as I try to stay on topic with the linkage theme.
As a follow up to the Christmas lights that I posted, I kept putting scissor jack units together, seeking to create a spiral effect that might either sit or hang. As matters sit it is hanging – for now.
The spiral piece is an example of unexpected outcomes arising from dogged repetition. To my surprise, it turns out that the scissor jack units can be variously opened up, leading to an unanticipated sense of compression and release in the spirals.
My preoccupation with the perspective function in “crop” is again evident in this image. Not knowing when to quit, I strung an utterly unwieldy succession of jacks together that neither wanted to be hung nor photographed. This attempt to compensate is a poor representation of the piece, but something in its distortions may show up elsewhere.
Unlike the aforementioned sprawl of wooden kudzu, this object is hibernating. It, too, can be expanded quite far, but somehow I prefer it in its seasonally adjusted and huddled form with its sense of potential.
As so often can happen, this series showed up while I was looking for other things. The scissor jack motif was simply another item to get off a to-do list associated with the general linkage theme. Now I can’t see an end to it. There’s something so primitive about it and so wanting to become.
Is your work ever in reaction to such a mandate? Does the horse, the nude, the tree stamp a respective appendage and insist?
Jay,
I have come to love your sticks. The more I look at them, the more they grow on me – playfulness. The colors and patterns on the boards in the last image appeal to me.
You have inspired me to use the perspective function in “crop” on my landscapes, pretending to be Cezanne.
Birgit:
Thanks. Playfulness combined with a good New England probity is my goal. The boards in the last image stem from an earlier attempt to create some sort of colored fencing. The various hues of autumn leafs in Vermont is tangled up with the fencing issue – not that you would know it in this instance.
I don’t know if Cezanne used “crop” in his painting. Van Gogh was more likely to do so with his corn fields and all. But if they did I wouldn’t be surprised.
I meant ‘cropping with perspective distortions’ in the sense that Cezanne distorted the perspective of what he painted.
Birgit,
I too learned of the crop/perspective function from Jay. He’s corrupting the bunch of us. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it’s hard to tell on the images of my paintings that I’ve had to use the perspective tool.
Jay, the idea of compression and release seems universally important to me. That is, it’s one of the concepts that I live my life by but that I think is true of a lot of people. After all, what is birth but compression and release. And death too, for that matter, in the same order. Your scissor jacks make me want to play with them, like slinkys.
June:
Keep your mitts off my scissor jacks, slinky as they may be, unless you really mean it.
The scissor jack concept is embodied in a line of “battlin'” toys. There’s a fighting Amishman, nun and maybe a Ghandi. Squeeze a trigger under the garb and Amos Miller scissors out a punch. Google Archie McPhee for examples. If you can afford that posh outfit that you were wearing at the Refuge, then a Battling Ghandi should be within your means.
Also, I have to say that it is a signal honor to corrupt this motley crew.
A most vivid example of compression and release for me is opening a bottle of carbonated water. Such effervescent out gassing!
At this point I tend to see these scissor jacks as static, considering the short service lives of most examples of kinetic art. But they do present quite differently as they are pulled in and out. How about I get some boxing gloves and put on a battle between units. Finally I avoid submarines as I hope that my death will involve more release than compression.