From:
Don Dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>
Date:
Wed, 25 Feb 2004 00:49:37 -0500
Subject:
carving ethics
Norman,
Quoted text begins.RE: "carving style ethics"
End of quote.
Firstly, I think stonecarvers tend to be conservative becasue of the nature
of the material they work . . .
I have known carvers who look down their nose at you if it isn't done in the
tradition of Michelangelo -- all hand tools like they used 500 years ago.
If I lived 500 years ago I would probably agree.
Though he did deliberately stop using the drill in his carving, I personally
think Michelangelo would have used powertools to carve if he had the choice.
But that is opinion, and neither here-nor-there since he didn't have the
option and we don't have a time machine.
The only ethic is that your sculpture's gotta work. To paraphrase someone I
admire, "there are only two rules to making art: 1). Artists make art and
2). There are no rules."
How you get there is your business (your life experience) and unless the
exhibition or symposia you happen to be in limits your approach while you
work, it is your call as to what is "true to the material." (perhaps just a
catchphrase that means whatever the critic tells you it means?)
Personally (as a self-taught carver) I think whatever works is OK. YES,
there is much merit in learning the traditional ways of working the
material. It works for a reason, right? But mankind is an adaptive
creature, and it would deny our humanity to deny our adaptiveness.
Saying that, I will have to add that the rotary tool cannot give the same
effect that the chisel can give. To quote Brancusi (a carver of some merit
. . . !) , "Besides . . . you cannot make what you want to make, but what
the material permits you to make. You cannot make out of marble what you
would make out of wood, or out of wood what you would make out of stone"
That same underlying property applies to the tools you choose to use.
Perhaps Eva Hess said something similar in a way that is more contemporary:
"I'm not conscious of materials as a beautiful essence. . .I am interested
in finding out through working on the piece some of the potential and not
the preconceived . . . I want to allow myself to get involved in what is
happening and what can happen and be completely free to let that go and
change."
Personally, in my own work I am guided towards content by process. By
discovering how the material is affected by the tools, I also discover what
the material can express of its own nature. Through the relationship of
nature and form, the material can be used to give meaning to the work. The
physical nature of the material and how it can be manipulated, directly
affects conception of the work.
Ok, so now I have pontificated enough. 2-cents worth, anyway. It is my
life. You figure out what yours is about.
Good Carving to You;
Don
http://www.dondougan.com
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