Ironic bananas

A valuable lesson taught by a dear friend....

The world is full of sadness and evil. There's war and crime and death all around us, made all the worse as most of it is thrust upon us by all forms of media, without thought as to the impact or consequences of continually force feeding bad news into a delicately balanced society.

This perpetual extortion of bad news, often without true fact and deliberately exaggerated to create greater impact as news moguls compete for our absolute attention, silently sends us into a miserable solemn semi-pensive state, wondering where it will all end.

So in view of this, it's vital to find fun wherever and whenever one can...a wry private smile is a wonderful tool to surviving life. How you do it is up to you, I try and have fun with sculptures when I can, but there are there also simpler ways....so.......here are some ironic bananas...

..we had snow...does it add to the slip hazard?!

..couldn't resist..

....to be continued.....as smiles on a miserable day always should...

(feel free to add your own)

Simple Symbolism

It's an intriguing aspect how we as human beings find different symbolism in different things. Whether it's due to a sub-conscious link to past fond or fearful memories, or a more transparent and immediate effect on the brain in the here and now I've never quite worked out, either way, symbolism has vastly different effects from one person to another.

Take this belt for example. This is all about personal symbolism, and to the rest of the world will either be a likeable or ugly addition to an ensemble. 

It's a simple section of stainless steel cycle chain infused into a quite ordinary leather belt which I had made for my recent wedding. The leather element was hand made by Isaacs Saddlery, and is beautiful and simply crafted and combined with the chain element really makes a wonderful accessory. For me, it symbolises the joining of two people, as the chain joins the two halves of the belt, made all the more relevant by my own surname – Steel.

The chain is strong yet flexible, it moulds itself around the waist so freely it's almost unnoticeable, and, crucially, does not take over the function of the belt (which still has a normal buckle) but merely adds to it – having much the same impact as a marriage should to an existing relationship.

Another simple, yet beautiful, example are these flower nails by Masaharu Ono. I absolutely love these, they are a very imaginative symbiosis of the hard and strong and the soft and delicate, all in a very simple form – really very clever.

Sometimes as artists do we focus too heavily on art history and techniques? On the works of our famous predecessors? Is there a human element often forgotten, that being the psychological impact that, to me at least, is a fascinating aspect that can just be explored and explored....cracking the symbolism “nut” and understanding the effect of art on the people around us is surely the key to art that truly works.

The most powerful weapon?

This is what we imagine when we hear the fateful letters WMD...

...images appear of missiles built in deathly secret, fired from afar, causing carnage to countless thousands of unknowing victims at the target destination. There are countries around the world suspected, rightly or wrongly, of formulating evil Weapons of Mass Destruction in dark, deeply scientific laboratories with intentions of power and destruction of catastrophic scale...and we, the righteous innocent ones watch in fear and angst, powerless to stop the weak becoming more powerful than we, ironically forgetting of course that we probably invented the technology and sold it out in the first place.

Yet there is a WMD, more powerful than any crazed egotistical dictator can create. We freely invite it into our homes every day, openly letting its force break us apart a piece at a time, tearing out the morals and values of society and each day taking us to a level more base than the last. We pay for the privilege of it's mesmerising power, allow it to stop us communicating with each other, place our young in front of it so we do not need to attend to them using the excuse we no time for them. We believe it without question, allow it's influence to eat into us, change us, and as a group, destroy us.

It is of course...the television.......there's a sculpture in the making I feel....

Mending Everything (well....nearly)

The cold wet weather, dark nights and up-coming Christmas holidays precludes much work on sculptures at present.

Further “Useful Mushrooms” are in progress, and should be ready for early in the New Year (keep an eye on the blog and website, we have a corkscrew and salt + pepper pots on the way!)

These will probably be the last of the Useful Mushrooms for now, they’re huge fun but are painfully costly to make – a side effect of my insistence on bringing high grade engineering to art.

Other works planned for 2013 include a piece depicting the pain and frustration of realising an artistic idea, the completion of a piece that examines if cupids’ arrow is the blessing in life it’s portrayed to be, and hopefully I will finally be able to create my full size depiction of a man in the throws of the pain of losing love, labelled “Loss”

Until then, in amongst the chaos of everyday life, there is always room for web browsing, finding these…

 

….surely this is the most ironic photograph? I love the way it looks like someone has ran through the door rather than opening it (especially as it’s an emergency exit) – quite cartoon like.....

…..and if there is such a thing as a perfect sign, then surely this is it....

Finally, a sincere thank you to all those who have supported me so wonderfully throughout the year, as with most aspects in life, without the thought and kindness of those around us, things would be a lot harder.

Happy Christmas!

(both images courtesy of Derelict Places and its contributors)

Without

Titled "Without", this piece is an interpretation, and a graphic representation, of the emotions of loss, in all its guises.

It's one of those ideas that has just somehow evolved from within me. The piece, I hope, is apt in a multitude of situations........the break up of a relationship, the parting of friends, the mourning process.....

....as without love, there is only confusion.

Designed to be wall mounted when finished, it's made of cast crystal glass and stainless steel. I am still debating the surface finish of the steel, I am torn between a dull grey or bright polished at present - the polished surface would denote the brightness of true love, the dull would evoke the opposite.


Look out for it on my website in a few weeks.

Man, nature and things on a beach

There is in me an underlying conviction that despite our best efforts to create artistic pieces of beauty, hours of work, study, thought and passion, nature will pop along and quietly trump us with a serene ease.

..to add some ammunition to the argument, here’s an item I picked up a beach in Wales…

 

It was once I think part of a bed head, although it immediately struck me as Aladdin’s lamp, with jewels over the body and a spout. Either way, nature has made a piece of human rubbish into a jewelled and beautiful object, oozing with colour, texture and light

On a different note, it’s so fragile that as it’s drying out it’s falling apart, in effect once withdrawn from nature it’s slowly dying, much the same as ourselves, the more disjointed from nature we become as a species, the less of a coherent species we become, which brings me on to a piece I’d love to do….

 

…it’s a series of a cast iron man, slowly emerging out of the ground, until finally he is completely separated from the earth, with the final man having fallen…..demonstrating that once mankind has become completely detached from nature, we will cease to be alive.

Love and Time

Here's a little piece I made recently, titled “Eternal”

It defines love and time, how, as everything else ages and changes around it, love itself doesn't alter, it remains as bright, strong and vivid as it did when conceived.

The piece is made in two parts, the stem is a piece of iron, found on a beach after a storm. It's corroded, heavily worn and slowly degrading – left outside as it is, it will eventuality disappear. This is life, ever changing, wearing us with age, changing us as each day passes. The heart, conversely, is hand forged from solid stainless steel, a material renowned for it's corrosive resistance, it's ability to withstand the forces of nature and its environment. This is love, never degrading, never weakened by life around it, continual.

It's quite simplistic, but none the less I quite like it. It speaks of the essence that is love. I have spoken in previous posts how hard it can be to draw emotion out into a sculpture, however, love is not an emotion, it's deeper than that, more like a state of being I think. Rather than try and portray this depth, the strength of feeling, the pain and the raw power, I've gone along an opposing path, depicting love in it's most simple transparent form.

Generally, a sculpture portrays it's meaning from its form, it's shape, texture and often it's placement – the material will of course have a bearing, but less so.

In this piece it's the materials more than the form that give it it's meaning – I'm not sure this is a common concept in sculpture, but it's one I think I would like to explore further.

"Eternal" can be seen on the website in the near future.