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A note about naming.
For me naming a piece is integral
to the artwork. The name is for me, and the viewer
is free to percieve whatever they like in the artwork.
A piece is generally named the
day finish with it. I reflect on all that has gone
on during the process that I have been sculpting
a piece. By doing so, I get to know what the piece
is helping me to understand.
Take the “Angels of Forgetting” for
example. While working on these pieces, a friend
gave me a book she had written. Although it was not
something I would have chosen, I found myself reading
it. Her book was about the things she experienced
as a girl growing up in Poland during world war II.
Oddly, her recollections were not centered on loss
and tragedy. She remembers playing with her friends
and a large amount of freedom because the adults
seemed to be very distracted most of the time. Later
when she became a psychiatrist and emigrated to the
US, she felt the need to listen to those who had
been to war and she treated many Vietnam vets. The
irony is that most vets only wanted to forget what
they had seen.
While working on "Angels," I
also listened to archived footage of Studs Terkel
interviewing people twenty-five years after the great
depression. Those who were children during the depression
often recalled how everything turned into a game.
They enjoyed families gathering together in communal
living situations. In many cases they remembered
the tragedy with fondness. Those who were adults
at the time recalled hardship, stress and loss.
I finished the pieces on Memorial
Day, so I considered this as a final significant
point in naming them. Throughout the process, I had
been thinking about how people deal with tragedy.
As children, we have the innate ability to live in
the midst of tragedy and still remain in our bliss.
As adults, and we suffer greatly, and often more
so mentally by worrying. Oddly, we are generally
the creators of the tragedy itself. Not only that,
afterwards, we like to memorialize the tragedy that
we created and suffered through with special days
and monuments.
At least this is how it all
came to be in my mind while I was working on “Angels.”
So on Memorial Day, I am looking at the pieces and feeling what all transpired
while working on them and in them I saw two doorways. One doorway, on
the darker piece, was horizontal. It seemed to be a doorway accessed
by the subconscious, as when sleeping. The other was a regular doorway,
and it was on the lighter piece, the one accessed in the light of day.
Being Memorial Day, I was suddenly
curious as to why we like to memorialize tragedy.
Instead of “lest we forget,” which is
supposed to imply that we will learn from our mistakes,
perhaps it has the opposite effect. By memorializing
our unsavory characteristics and then labeling them
as bravery and chivalry, we have grown them, enhanced
them. In the entirety of human history, we have been
doing the same things over and over. In fact we have
gotten better at it. Our wars can now take out millions
of people rather than dozens or hundreds.
Then it struck me: What if,
instead of creating monuments to our tragedies, we
created intentional doorways past tragic perspectives
to those of joy. Not escapism at all, but focusing
on natural attributes and enhancing positive traits.
Perhaps it is time to try a new tactic. By passing
through the doorways, with the grace of the same
Angels that as children helped us to see only the
good, we learn to increase our bliss. By allowing
ourselves to invite in joy, generosity and kindness
we also cause ourselves to forget why we need tragedy,
war and hatred.
All of this is wrapped up in
a feeling encapsulated in the Angels of Forgetting.
When I told my friend who had
written the book about the name of pieces, she misheard
and thought I had called them Angels of Forgiving.
Yes, they are that too.
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