After writing last week’s love letter to photography, I realised I couldn’t end it there. After all, photography is only one part of the art I make. And so, I have decided to turn my love letter into a series. As the van is on pause for a few weeks while I spend my days bonding with Finn and filling out yet more applications now seemed an ideal moment. Therefore, this week’s letter to you all is, in fact, a love letter to sculpture. Please do comment and share your thoughts on this incredible art form…
Dear Sculpture,
You came first. While other children went to Saturday morning football club or dance classes, I went to art classes and learned to play with clay, learned to throw a pot, learned how much I adore getting my hands messy. I think that’s what I love most about you, not the mess exactly but being hands on, hands in, all hands. You are so tactile. When I come away with you beneath my nails or embedded in every crease of my palms I can look down and know I spent the day making art.
Though you came first you went away for a long while. I never stopped loving you. Never stopped being seduced by you in galleries or caught off guard by you on city street corners and parks. You and your creators continued inspiring me, even as you slipped away, a camera firmly in my hands and no permission given for you during my education. I found a way to change that, though even in the quietest corners of my mind I didn’t call it sculpture. The copper tree I made to stand proud on the beach was photography. I made it to be photographed, not admitting until many years later that I had in fact, made a sculpture.
By the time I did admit it we had already found each other once more. And I had found something even more magic than the moment in the darkroom when an image first begins to appear. I had found bronze casting. I will be forever grateful that Rebecca Stevenson was the technician in the Bronze Foundry at Camberwell College of Art during my MA. She welcomed me in and taught me to work with bronze when I had little reason to learn other than raw desire. In doing so she changed the course of my life. She also gave me the permission I needed to love you in a hands-on way once more.
In the plaster room I found joy in the dust. In the wax room I discovered beauty in the layers of colour splattered on the wall. In the foundry, I found molten metal, heat, and passion. I had discovered materials that could be shaped and poured and played with. When I do a bronze pour, I can feel the weight of history, thousands upon thousands of years lined up behind me, generations creating art from bronze. That connection to our ancestors made me love you all the more. You are new and ancient, and I am part of you now.
Some days I lose my footing. My art gets turned around or muddled up. When I am most lost, you are there waiting for me, waiting to remind me to stand solidly on this earth, to take up space, to exist. Because that is what you do, whether made from bronze or out of light, you are so very present. I cannot help but be present when you are before my eyes or beneath my hands. As the years have gone on, I haven’t got to spend as much time with you as I would like, you aren’t easy to give time and space to as photography. But none of that matters, you are in my mind and heart, you fill my imagination, waiting at the ends of my fingertips for the right moment. I know that when that moment comes, we will have such fun together. We will have more days from which I walk away with messy hands. I wish they would come sooner and more often. I am trying my best. Wait for me. I am coming.
I love you,
Rosie
Very nice piece and lovely sculptures. I like and appreciate sculpture but it's never been a favorite. This helped me think about the joy and process of sculpting and how that is part of the appreciation. Thanks!