pointing machines barry x ball

[don dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>]

Bill, George, Bob, and . . .

Though I looked at the links and read the words that were written (most
of them, anyway), I was not moved to comment until George and Bob threw
their comments in.
George asks 'Why?' and as Bob asks about Pye's use of the concept (which
I am familiar with) of

' the craftsmanship of certainty vs the craftsmanship of risk?'

in relation to the pieces, I can't help but add that I consider the use
of indirectly-worked highly-variagated stone as a deliberate denial of
the nature of the material on the artist's part.

Ahh -- before you yell 'Foul!'  let me clarify what I mean when I say
'denial'  --
I mean a deliberate attempt to push the limits of our understanding of
how the material can be used successfully to express the concept of the
artist.
Uniformly pure white marble has traditionally been considered as the
'ideal' stone for revealing figurative representational form, and any
veining or mottling is considered detracting (to a greater or lessor
degree) from the sculptor's expression through the form. Of course,
though the physical limitations of carving the highly-variagated stones
such as portoro vary little from working pure white statuario, it is not
merely the physical limitations are not all what we are talking about,
are we?

We are considering the 'risk' of these two aspects (the form reduced to a
more-or-less mechanical development vs. the material choice of such
outrageously baroque and distracting stone) being used together.  When
taken in the context of the venerable and time-honored process of
traditional stonecarving, these seemingly deliberate denials of
(stonecarver's) common-sense twists to our understanding.

I (we?) love stone -- the material, the process, and all the tradition
that is associated with it.  I, myself (and most of us that consider
ourselves stone carver's) would probably never use stone in the way it
was used here, because it treats the stone and the process with a certain
amount of disrespect.  But I have been accused of disrespecting both the
stone and the process by others more conservative than myself, so perhaps
it is just a matter of degree . . . ;-)

In the end, it is not how the material is used, but what the use conveys
to the viewer.
I would hesitate to critique a work that obviously relies so heavily on
material distinctions without having actually experienced the real
3-dimensionality of the piece . . . and that I cannot do through the
medium of a computer screen.

What this topic really needs is a comfortable room with a large table, a
good supply of rich ale, and ready access to all the studios and
galleries for 'in-person' evaluations!
(Dream on, Don -- maybe in 2005 . . . !)

Good Carving to You and a Happy New Year All,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html