TENSION, CONFLICT AND STRUCTURE The sculptor and his crucifix. Carolyn McKay Creecy, 1998. Blake Prize Finalist Despite being a seemingly relaxed person, I love tension. I have found that it is out of tension that real transformations can take place. This all forms part of a chain of connection that takes place in my creative process. From conflict arises tension, from tension arises structure. Structure cannot take place without tension (the Right brothers will surely back me up on that one). Tension is also necessary for energy. Some have argued that the life force behind the Beatles was the conflict of personalities between Lennon and McCartney, similarly for Monty Python with John Cleese and Terry Jones. And yet we live in a culture that so often runs away from any sign of conflict, treating it like the plague. My appreciation for the creative potential of tension of opposites came 15 years ago, when I was commissioned to sculpt a crucifix. A friend s brother, who was an architect, approached me. He was concerned; he had just designed a very smart, stylish church for a parish and now they wanted to hang a dead man in the middle of it. I was working with the established Modernist sculptor, Tom Bass, at the time and under his mentoring had become most familiar and appreciative of the
abstract energy and inherent dynamic qualities required for successful sculpture. I understood exactly what the architect was alarmed at. What s more, when I eventually met with the parish priest the words real and dead were expressed most emphatically. I was also alarmed. However, the one thing I was not familiar with (in an emotional sense) or appreciative of, was the Crucifixion concept. Although I had been lovingly raised as a Catholic (even educated by the Jesuits!), I had never really forged an emotional connection with this subject. It s an easy thing to look away from and an extraordinarily difficult thing to embrace. There were two things that prompted me to take on the job. Firstly, how could something that appeared so vulgar and awful not only be representative of love, but have inspired great artists across time and across cultures to create (including my own great teacher). There was a gap in my understanding that needed to be filled. Secondly, and further to this, why had my forefathers, my ancestors prayed and seeked comfort in such a seemingly violent image. Why not choose the fat happy guy (with all due respect)? I didn t understand my cultural heritage; I wanted to identify with my Dreamtime. I found that we spend far too much time pitying the loss of identity in native or minority cultures, and yet rarely bother to come to terms with the darker elements of our own. The crucifix was perhaps the furthest thing away from my own image of God at the time and I wanted to find out why. Henry Moore once said that good sculpture should be able to speak for itself, across cultures and across time. I considered that if I actually made this Crucifix figure I would get a firsthand experience of what this image is and importantly what it does. My Modernist teacher would often say: Don t make it look the way it looks, but make it work the way it works. I wanted to find out what a Crucifix does. This was the surest way of seeing if it was authentic or a sham (told you I was a Postmodernist - one could say I was adopting Modernist techniques to Postmodern scepticism). So, from the very start I was handed a tension of opposites. Most practically it translated into the artistic challenge of depicting a lifeless, hanging form, which was still a dynamic and energetic piece of sculpture. Again to quote from Henry Moore: A sculpture must have its own life. Rather than give the impression of a smaller object carved out of a bigger block, it should make the observer feel that what he is seeing contains
within itself its own organic energy thrusting outwards if a work of sculpture has its own life and form, it will be alive and expansive, seeming larger than the stone or wood from which it is carved. It should always give the impression, whether carved or modelled, of having grown organically, created by pressure from within And against that thought rang the words, dead and real, over and over again. The poor architect almost had a break down. Construction of the armature This was difficult and seemed irreconcilable. I attempted to abandon the project several times and almost always lived with the fear that it would never end. Perhaps the most difficult task was the inner structure, the armature, the bones of the sculpture. At one point, after days of confusion and bewilderment I ran desperately to my teacher for help. How do you do it? I cried. His reply, with a nonchalant smile, You just do it. Oh endless agony. It was difficult, bewildering and even painful and yet, when I look back at the work produced from these experiences I see work of real substance. The cruciform structures of the tensions involved seem to be the very thing that held this artwork together. My personal experiences of struggle were to become the foundation for the passion instilled / revealed in the work. Years later, when I took my wife to view this sculpture (which I still felt a little ashamed of), she said she wanted to take the figure of Jesus down and hug him. This made me cry a little as I never thought I had achieved anything emotive. I say this because what was to give this work substance for me was the process rather than the outcome. It was the difficulties and tensions
involved in this process that revealed to me the great complexity and breadth of Christ s love. The function of this work was to present the tensions in the work and the story as powerfully as possible and to bring them together as a great and consoling paradox. That was something beautiful. So what I found contained in the form of the Crucifix was not only a symbol or representation of Jesus s ultimate sacrifice, but also an enactment of the crucifixion process through the tension of opposites operating within the work. The pain of this process is shared by the artist, as they struggle with the seemingly irreconcilable opposites and also with the viewer, who is left to make sense and interpret love from much of the same. It is the very process of dealing with this tension that provides the foundation for the passion revealed in this work. We can then use this foundation to feel compassion for Jesus s sacrifice and better appreciate this magnanimous gesture. Experiences, such as these, have helped me to identify who I am as an artist. For a long time I have felt out of touch as an artist (especially a Postmodern one). My voyage of self-discovery has often been a shared one. As a sculptor most of my work has been civic in nature, working to the commission process, more like an architect that an artist. The vision behind my work has often been the shared vision also of the client; the client sometimes being a committee. The old adage a camel is a horse designed by a committee is never far from home. The ideas expressed in my work have often, therefore, been linked more to community ideals rather than personal - a diluted artistic experience it seems. However, there is an important function I have, acting as a conduit between the many and varied creative visions of the community. My role is to provide creative solutions to the tension of opposites operating in the cultural life of the community. This is still difficult to digest, as it makes me feel more like an ambulance officer than an adventurous buccaneer of the Avant guard. But here again is one of those wonderful tensions of opposites.
Blocking in the clay My back!
References: most notably Romanesque sculpture and Donatello s David (gesture of completion)
Making the mould. Nick La Fontain my assistant. Removing the mould. The master lends a hand.
Cast bronze (cold cast bronze). In situ with cross made by Steve
Cast of the face
Armature later hung in the Blake Prize.
In loving memory of the man that made it all possible Tom Bass Yass Crucifix by Tom Bass