Completed Sculpture: 'This S(c)eptic Isle': 'Sentinel 2 (Premium Bulk Pack)'

'Sentinel 2 (Premium Bulk Pack)', Salvaged Cardboard Boxes, MDF, Acrylics, Paper Collage,
Adhesive Tape & French Polish, 129 cm X 60 cm X 60 cm, 2018

Here’s the second of my recently completed ‘Sentinel’ sculptures.  This one’s subtitled, ‘Premium Bulk Pack’, for reasons that should be fairly evident from the accompanying images.  The use of phrases, extracted from original printed box graphics, for the subtitles of these pieces, is one point I omitted to mention in my discussion of ‘Sentinel 1’ – but what I wrote there applies to ‘2’ in pretty much every other respect.  I’ll spare you any pointless repetition here.

I suppose there’s always a danger of disappearing up the fundament of self-reflexivity, with all this fancy word play.  Doubtless, it would have been more straightforward to further mine the fragments of my extended ‘Below The Line / Beneath Contempt’ text (which also adorn these sculptures), for their subtitles.  But doing it this way adds a pleasing reminder of the found nature of the raw materials.  In fact, the reality is probably even closer to the fact to say that, the printed phrases - whilst nominally functional or promotional in nature, take on a pleasing resonance of their own (in my mind) which just felt too tempting to ignore.

R.I.P. Aretha Franklin, 1942 -2018

Aretha Franklin.

I won’t pretend to have a shelf full of Aretha Franklin records.  In fact, I don’t think I currently own a single one in physical form (not that current methods of music consumption would preclude me playing her several times a day, if so inclined – obviously).  Nevertheless, I, and many others, would argue that, with her recent sad passing, we lost one of the great voices (some would say – the greatest) of the recording era.

Others will have already written loads about her life, her work, and (still painfully apposite, it seems) her relevance to the American Civil Rights movement.  Instead of trotting out any more of the usual clichés, I’ll just refer to my favourite performance of Aretha’s, and possibly even one of the greatest recordings of the human voice, in any context.

It speaks volumes about the persuasiveness of Franklin’s voice that ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ wasn’t even written for her.  Written by Bacharach and David, with a lyric referring obliquely to the Vietnam War - it was originally recorded for Dionne Warwick.  And yet who now remembers that version?  Incredibly, Aretha’s miraculous cover was recorded almost by accident, and only released as an intended B-side.  Nowadays, I still hear it several times a year, without even trying, and it just never wears out.

Aretha’s version of the song isn’t the most ambitious production you’ll ever hear, or the most histrionic piece of Soul singing – but is actually all the better for that.  It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece of control, and of emotion expressed with a perfect degree of nuance and instinctive judgment.  Aretha even lets the backing singers take do the lion’s share of the work in the chorus, meaning that when she releases the true soaring potential of her own voice in the song’s latter stages - it’s all the more memorable.  If I could only save one snippet of recorded music for posterity – the last minute and a half of ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ might just be it.

For what I assume are either copyright or compatibility reasons, YouTube makes the single version of 'I say A Little Prayer' unavailable to embed here.  Luckily, It's not exactly difficult to access from a variety of sources, should you need a reminder.  However, in passing,  I was able to borrow this live performance of Aretha singing the song.  It demonstrates the more spectacular potential of her voice, and whilst being more obviously showy - is still one of those genuine hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck moments.  Above all, it demonstrates how, even when 'giving it a bit more’, she could still make it all just seem so effortless.

Unlike Aretha, I don’t really have a religious bone in my body (in the accepted sense, at least).  However, without being able to necessarily define it, I do recognise something you might want to call ‘Soul’, when I hear it.  Aretha Franklin had it to burn.

Completed Sculpture: 'This S(c)eptic Isle': 'Sentinel 1 (Your Order From)'

All Images:  'Sentinel 1 (Your Order From)', Salvaged Cardboard Boxes & Tube, MDF,
Adhesive Tape, Paper Collage, Acrylics & French Polish, 145 cm X 65 cm X 60 cm, 2018

As mentioned in my last post, I've been completing sculptures at a fairly rapid rate, over the last three or four weeks.  This is, admittedly, after a much longer period of slog, prepping and painting broken toys, and building a seemingly endless procession of MDF carcasses to reinforce the cardboard cartons I’d collected.

It’s lovely to reach that stage where it’s all about assembling and finishing - and another piece seems to reach completion every few days.  With painting, I’ve always noted how the most enjoyable part of the whole process comes about two thirds or three quarters of the way through - when the thing’s still up for grabs, but most of the problematic bridges have been crossed.  At that stage, you often have a pretty clear sense of whether or not a piece will be successful on its own terms - and it’s possible to take pleasure in bringing it to some form of conclusion.  Although it's been a slightly more methodical process, I currently seem to be enjoying the sculptural equivalent of that situation.  Ironically, the actual completion can often feel a bit anti-climactic in comparison – but just now, that feeling is offset by the focus a deadline brings - and the by fact that, as each piece is finished, there’s another waiting in the queue, immediately behind.

Anyway, alongside the ‘Childish Things’ series of abandoned toy sculptures, I’ve also been working on a parallel series of what I’ve chosen to entitle ‘Sentinels’ - of which this is the first.  Whereas cardboard boxes form an important, if subsidiary element of the ‘Childish Things’, here they are the main event.  The boxes clearly relate to another common feature of the fly-tipped garbage that continues to spill across the pavements of my local neighbourhood, and form one of the oft-mentioned recurring ‘key motifs’ of my ‘This S(c)eptic Isle’ project.  It’s not too great an imaginative stretch to associate them with the on-demand, consumer lifestyles we all now lead.  Even in a fairly low-rent area like ours, most days see a fairly constant parade of white courier vans, unloading the latest online purchases.  The cardboard packaging normally re-emerges, to reside beside front doors, or amongst the bins, not long afterwards.

My alighting upon the monolithic, columnar form of ‘Sentinel 1 (Your Order From)’ was one of those fairly organic, intuitive things that just felt right almost as soon as I started playing with the boxes.  I’d originally thought in terms of more random accumulations, but it seems that the vertical format was pretty close to the surface of my subconscious and felt like an itch I just needed to scratch.  There’s also a direct link with the discarded refrigerators, which certainly rival cardboard cartons for the title of most prolific street trash item on a good week.  Indeed, the idea of sentinels probably occurred in my mind in connection with the fridges, even before I started stacking boxes.  However, I’d already paid heed to them in my pre-existing fridge door wall pieces, and so the boxes won out this time round.

It’s perhaps worth pointing out, at this point – that these particular boxes are somewhat removed from their raw state.  Just as with the toy sculptures, the intention here was to create a sculptural artifact - rather than a pure Readymade.  Not only does each of the boxes contain a rigid inner structure - the surfaces have also been extensively modulated and ‘tidied up’ through the application of acrylic paint, French polish, packing tape and numerous litres of PVA. 

Naturally, as the title suggests, it’s pretty difficult to imagine a simple monolith form, particularly at this kind of scale - without perceiving in it, the human figure.  That’s one of the archetypes of sculpture, from prehistory to the present day, of course, and speaks of our inbuilt tendency towards an anthropomorphic gestalt - regardless of the degree of apparent abstraction at play.  I’ve rarely thought of the figure as my subject, and it certainly wasn’t my first intention when I began the ’TSI’ work, last year.  Nevertheless, there’s no point pretending it isn’t an undeniable association in these ‘Sentinel’ pieces, and I guess there is something pleasing about the idea of figures (or lives) constructed solely from the containers of consumable product.

The other important inescapable feature of this sculpture is its function as a carrier of text.  As with the textual content in the associated ‘Fridge’ series, the phrases stenciled onto ‘Sentinel 1’ are excerpts from my long-form piece, ‘BelowThe Line / Beneath Contempt’.  Although that is an extended text, with the conceit of a five-act structure, any narrative arc(s) it may hint at, is really little more than a happy accident - brought about by the juxtaposition of numerous Brexit-related, ‘Below the Line’ comments.  In fact, it’s really just an exercise in collaging, and thereby recontextualising found material.  This repeated recycling of and calling-back to, of both texts and motifs, seems to have become an increasing feature of my work in recent years.

In the light of that, extracting, and further reframing certain of its components for inclusion in the ‘Fridges’ and ‘Sentinels’, feels perfectly appropriate.  In fact, if these cardboard columns are to be read as figures - then perhaps the application of text onto them feels like an exercise in giving them a voice.  Sadly, as recent British history demonstrates, when a poorly educated populace of alienated consumers is presented with a stark, binary choice - and encouraged to express an uninformed (or misinformed) opinion, ‘the voice of the people’ may not be what one would hope to hear at all.  Democracy, eh?  What a palaver!

In this case, the two chosen phrases, ‘Bizzarre logic’ and ‘You’ve been given plenty- don’t pretend’, come from entirely separate sections of both the compiled ‘BTL/BC’ text, and the original debate that seeded it.  As ever, a cut and paste approach opens up the potential for further interpretation, or indeed – a whole new argument.  And, whilst I do know the correct spelling of 'Bizarre' - the combative on-line contributor, sadly, did not.

Completed Sculpture: 'This S(c)eptic Isle': 'Childish Things 3 (Misdirected)

All Images: 'Childish Things 3 (Misdirected)', Salvaged Sit-On Toy, Salvaged Cardboard Box,
MDF, Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape, Junk Mail & Discarded Gas Capsules,
 130 cm X 98 cm X 57 cm, 2018

Posts have been pretty sparse on here of late (for which apologies), as the hours devoted to my current body of ‘This S(c)eptic Isle’ work, grow ever longer.  I’m not really complaining though.  The blessed school holidays, and long days of what has turned in to a truly epic British Summer, have allowed me to get out in the yard and complete most of my proposed sculptures already.  This can only be a good thing - not least because it’s all destined for exhibition at Nottingham’s Surface Gallery, along with the work of Shaun Morris and Andrew Smith, in mid September.  That show will be entitled ‘Visions of a Free-Floating Island’, and I will, of course, relay the specific details as our preparations progress.

Anyway, here’s the third of the ‘Childish Things’ pieces, based on abandoned toys - titled, ‘Childish Things 3 (Misdirected)’.  Technically, this one follows the same pattern as its two predecessors, which you can read about here, and here.  It comprises the same combination of salvaged toy, cardboard box (with internal MDF carcass), paper collage, junk mail and gas capsules, and I’m sure you can pretty well deduce the construction methods just by viewing the pictures.

The red trike is perhaps the most pleasing toy so far, being essentially complete.  In fact, a first glance might lead you to ask why this one was discarded on the pavement at all (back axle issues - for what it’s worth).  You might also question to what degree I have actually intervened to further compromise its functionality - until you look again at the steering set up.  Just as with the other vehicles in the series – this trike is going nowhere fast (other than in futile circles).  The socio-political implications of that are for the viewer to decide, but I don’t think we’re in the subtlest realms of satire here really – are we?  Other questions which could arise in this case, might include…

• Given the trike’s inability to progress in a straight line, is it more likely to turn to the left or right?  If the only real possible course is in fact a circular one, does it really matter?  Under these circumstances, might not the outcome be ultimately the same - whichever way it turns?

• And given the impossibility of meaningful progress, what purpose does that push-handle serve.  It suggests some form of pressure might still be exerted from above.  If so - by who, and to what ends?  Is theirs a guiding hand or a driving force?

• Children expect to be impelled by their parents, but where exactly are they being directed?  Do the old really know the best way forward, and whose interests do they really have at heart?

• We’re all familiar with those glistening capsules of spent giggles, glistening in the gutters - but from whence do they originate?  Are they purchased legitimately, or do they exit premises through back doors and under counters?   Do they fall from the backs of vehicles, or become diverted in transit?  Who delivers them?  Is laughter really the best medicine?

• What wider narratives might be constructed from the endless slew of unsolicited mail injected into my home each day?  What clues does it offer about our collective hopes and dreams, and is there anything to be gained by pausing to actually read any of it on the short walk to the recycling bin?

• Seemingly, most of the correspondents just want to satisfy my imagined hunger for pizza and chicken, or coax me onto their exercise bikes, to undo the damaged thus caused.  But a few seem more concerned for my spiritual wellbeing, or eager to ignite my sense of injustice, or short-circuit my alienation politically?  Should I be grateful that they’ve reached out to me? - or even more fearful of their motives, than I am of those of the pizza chefs?  Should I worry that some even know where I live? - or that others covet my very home (and others like it in the area)?