Inertia results, not so much in the delay of the future, but in the destruction of its potential.

For a very long time I was aware that the Shakespeare Bench was slowly degrading and that if I wanted its carved-into-the-wood message of “tongues in trees, sermons in stones, books in brooks” to have a longer life, the bench would need to be taken away from its outdoor position along the Peace Path, refurbished and placed indoors.

Although my seemingly good intentions were stymied by a host of delaying factors, the underlying theme was “I’ll do it tomorrow”.

Well, tomorrow is now not likely to come, not after a neighbour and I sat on the bench and it collapsed to the ground under our combined weight because the bench’s interior wood had rotted away leaving just a thin outer shell of little strength.

I could go on and write about how the bench was “returning back to nature” and only following a “natural cycle of life”.

But while true that it was aging nicely and taking on a wonderful patina of grey and lichen, with a modicum of care it could have remained in service many, many more years.

And this is the point I want to make: Even as an ardent environmentalist/artist, I was caught napping, so to speak, and let a very important sculpture fall into disrepair basically through laziness.

It doesn’t matter if this “laziness” was culturally, hormonally, politically, relationally or circumstantially induced. The bottom line is that the talk I talk: “that there are tongues in trees and sermons in stones”, wasn’t honoured by a willingness on my part to be an engaged steward of this message.

So, I’ll take on this “healthy” shame, learn from it, and do what I can to be a better active reciprocator of all the goodness given me by the trees and stones of this earth.

The broken bench has been taken away. Not to be placed on the trash heap, but to be brought to my studio as there just might be a “new” sculpture in the making. One that carries several messages of deep ecology, stewardship and reciprocity and the dangers of not living the words.

Just over a year ago I was working long hours seven days a week on the sculpture ‘King Neptune’s Beads’; a process that was to consume four months as there was a time deadline to meet. The sculpture had to arrive in Denmark in time for the opening of an outdoor exhibition of 60 international artists.

Needless to say, the effort required to shape a two ton log into a one ton sculpture was intense. To paraphrase Rodin, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his/her own creation. True enough, but during these particular months of hard slog, I had several fires burning simultaneously and only one concerned an artistic creation.

In these pages I have often written about the importance of art in healing the human disconnect from nature. This held true for the Beads in that its physical shape was abstracted from a Tasmanian sea grass — Neptune’s necklace — found here at Roaring Beach and I wanted people, when viewing the grander of the sculpture, to know that its beauty was reliant upon a natural form. Also, as Princess Mary of Denmark was born in Tasmania, it seemed fitting that some connection be made between her human royalty and the botanic royalty of the sea grass from her place of birth. (Mary, by the way, along with husband Prince Frederick, were the patrons of Denmark’s Aarhus Sculpture-by-the-Sea exhibition.)

Believing, as I do, in the interconnectedness of all things, if the people of Denmark, who love Princess Mary, also admired the beauty of the sculpture, they would unconsciously or otherwise connect with the natural beauty of Tasmania’s Neptune’s Necklace and, thereby, move that little bit closer to understanding how humans are but one species of leaf on the great tree of life.

In a more figurative manner, however, by directly hand carving such a large trunk of a tree (three foot diameter, 22 feet long) and all the while holding onto the image of a large chain of sea grass fit for a king, this physical and mental connect with nature helped heal me. For, in the midst of all this carving, my emotional life was a mess. Sally, my partner of three years had just left our relationship and my heart was daily being ripped open as aggressively as I whacked the chisels into the shaping of the log. Good therapy, in the end. At times I would just lay on top of the log belly down and let my grief flow into its massive whale like presence.

I write some of my personal trauma at this time because this is the reality behind the creation of most art. Artists do not live in vacuums of isolated, equanimous existence. Our lives are as fueled by the vagaries of life as any other person. The model of the artist sitting idly contemplating his/her subject matter, even if passionately absorbed, is not the whole truth. We always bring with us into our studios either the light or the dark that fills our soul at that particular moment. And let me assure everyone, my artistic inner life can be as messy as my studio.

On the other end of the spectrum, one of the aspects about creating art that doesn’t get much airplay is the amount of mundane activity that goes into its creation. For the Denmark exhibition, how much time and energy was spent preparing just the proposal that may or may not have been accepted for exhibition? How does a two ton log get located and then brought to Windgrove? How does one physically manipulate it to manifest the image in the mind’s eye? How many separate unforeseen challenges arise and dealt with? Finally, how does one get it from the studio in the far south east corner of Tasmania over over to the other side of the world?

A Gary Snyder zen poem reads:

“In the shaping of the axe the model is close at hand.”

As a sculptor who uses axes, chisels, gouges, rasps and other tools-of-removal, I am fond of this poem, not only because of its multiple koan meanings, but because of literal wisdom in the notion that if one wants to make an axe, all one need do is simply view the carving axe already in your hand as the model to create the new axe.

Not quite in the sense of Snyder’s poem, but now in my studio I have my own “model close at hand” and am using it to create a much larger sculpture of around nine feet in length (2.7 metres). The small model seen in the photo started off as an experiment where I carved two spirals going in opposing directions. I had no idea what the finished piece would look like and was rather surprised at what emerged. Sort of humorous, actually. Like a stack of fish eggs that diminished in size or an aquatic, never before seen species of sea weed.

Although complex in a mathematical sense and a bit daunting to carve, the little model never fails to put a smile on my face much in the same way seeing someone strumming on a ukulele never fails to cheer me up.

Anyway, I hope the full scale sculpture turns out as intriguing as the model. Plans now are to carve a grouping of four of them (one for each finger of my carving hand).

Last night I slept 12 hours. Bone tired, I was. Not to say that I wasn’t content in my tiredness, because I was. You see, the past two weeks have been spent preparing for and executing a site specific sculpture at the Friendly Beaches Eco-Lodge on the east coast of Tasmania. The only requirements were that the sculpture was to be “ephemeral”, be comprised of natural materials and relate to the surrounding environment before degrading back into nature. (My last blog of two weeks ago—apologies for missing last week—had two photos of the full scale model I had assembled here before I went as an experiment into whether or not I could create a three dimensional model of the phyllotaxis pattern found in a sunflower.) The photos below are of the actual “sand galaxy” mandala constructed over the past week at the lodge.

My tiredness was mainly a result of the huge physical effort needed to haul several tons of sand and dirt to the site to build the 460 individual “seed” mounds that graduated in size from two feet in diameter down to three inches in diameter. The overall diameter of the piece was just under 20 feet or 6.5 meters. Without the help of Oliver, Ron and Sally, it would not have been completed on time. To them I owe a heap of thanks.

As for the ephemeral quality of the piece, within an hour of “finishing” it a gale force storm roared in and lashed the area with wind and rain. At the time it hit, I was on the way to a local restaurant to celebrate the completion of the sculpture. As I sat at the dining table looking out through the gigantic plate glass window that framed the beautiful Mt. Hazards, I was doing anything but celebrating. Too bad about it only lasting an hour, I thought.

My only consolation was that I had at least made it ephemeral; sort of like the sand mandalas the Gyoto monks create and then cast away off the mountain or into the sea. In bed that night the rain drumming on the roof constantly belted out the refrain of temporality to all existence.

The following morning my fears proved groundless. The rain did change the sculpture, but not in a destructive manner. In fact, the effect of the hitting rain drops was to create a beautiful hammered look, much like a stone sculptor would impart on granite. Yes, it lost the smooth, pristine quality of fine, dry sand slowly drizzled, but it’s new appearance was—as in the changing of all life forms—just an ageing process that could be looked at with either awe or a sense of loss. I choose the former.

Lifer

Hunched over hard white bread
and plastic soup bowl filled with gruel,
he looked like a stork, a silly angel,
all neck and bony shoulder-wings
and awkward beak.

His head lifted, then fell
in a slow deliberate dance,
three, four times, dough-skinned
in a gray room sickened by yellow light.
He kept his eyes shut tight.

Outside the prison dining hall,
a turnkey slammed and locked
the heavy iron gate. The old man placed
his palms together softly, raised
them to his stubbled chin,

crossed himself, and ate.

—Sam Hamill

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

—Mary Oliver

Forget your life. Say “God is Great”. Get up.
You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray.
You’ve carved so many little figurines, too many.
Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar.
Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where
you go on the street, the street
where everyone says, “How are you?”
and no one says “How aren’t you?”

Tomorrow you’ll see what you’ve broken and torn tonight,
thrashing in the dark. Inside you
there’s an artist you don’t know about.
This artist is not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love,
you’re helping people you don’t know
and have never seen.

Is what I say true? Say “yes” quickly,
if you know, if you’ve known it
from before the beginning of the universe.

—Rumi

All too often people think that being an artist is a care free, no stress, easy going way to make a living that just touches on being a serious, worthy occupation. Our office (our studios) can be visited, it seems, at any time of the week because we’re not really doing anything that requires a schedule or appointment. For us to close the gate three days a week creates more offense than respect of the need for us to protect our privacy in order to create the work we do.

A look behind the scenes, however, reveals many a stressful day that requires an artist to have the patience of Job and the resilience of an enlightened yoga master to avoid going nuts as the once neat and tidy living room—and dining room table—become staging grounds and work stations for weeks on end for an upcoming exhibition or the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere while on the way to Hobart to photograph the paintings for such an exhibition.

We actually took two cars (mine could only hold five of the seven paintings plus my own sculpture, “Birth of Beauty”) so, in a way, we were lucky as I was able to get to the photographer on time with most of the work while Sally limped back to Roaring Beach. Having left half an hour earlier, I had no idea that Sally’s car decided to call it quits until the kind waiter (this is Hobart where a “kind waiter” is not an oxymoron) at the restaurant we had agreed to meet at for breakfast handed me his mobile phone. It also happened to be a day when the temperature rose to 100 degrees on the drive home as I nervously transported $100,000 worth of uninsured art with all the windows rolled down.

All said and done, though, it still was a good day. The photographer, Peter Whyte, is a skilled master at documenting art work and it was a pleasure to watch him work. His $25,000 camera was needed to get the necessary 80mp for a future poster of “The Birth of Beauty” (see below) as well as fine art reproductions of the paintings. The two paintings that didn’t get photographed are being shot today as Peter was kind enough to reschedule Sally ahead of her exhibition opening this coming Sunday.

Now, with just five days to go there is only the house to get transformed with the living room tided up, the dining room table cleared of hammer, screw drivers, pliers, gold leaf, pots of glue, staple gun, electric drill various jars of varnish, shellac and thinners, and, the beds made up for visiting parents, relatives and friends flying in for the weekend to celebrate the launch of the Moonstone Mandala paintings. All this plus continually working on my own ideas for a site specific sculpture for the Friendly Beaches Lodge in less than a month.

Life’s a party if you’re an artist.

January 2, 2008. Here we all are at the start of another year. Each one of us on our individual journeys doing the best we can dealing with the winds and currents that buffet our boats as they course their way through life. May we all have a safe passage to whatever awaits us.

To represent this life journey, three years ago I carved a fleet of nine boats with a total of 34 occupants who had set out on “uncharted” waters. After finishing the initial carvings, the boats were then placed outside to weather over the ensuing years. For the past two months I have been laboriously refitting the stones, re-sanding the boats and oiling everything.

Although the top “boat” section looks to be separate from the darker “base”, they are actually carved from one single piece of wood. By not re-sanding the bottom section and leaving it completely weathered, a darkened and more aged patina is achieved.

Five years ago yesterday, in 2003, I put up the first entry on this blog, Life at the Edge, and have written weekly since. A long journey indeed with lots of words and photos detailing what goes on at Windgrove and, hopefully, linking these stories with some sort of universal truths on how the world and all its inhabitants could coexist more peacefully.

I doubt that I have always walked my talk and have probably sought safe anchorage in too many safe harbours instead of venturing out into the wilder unknown to either find myself or actively seek change. If the truth be known, I get seasick really quickly. Still, though, for those readers that have been with me since the beginning, there has been plenty of excitement to write home about. Thanks for sailing along with me. I look forward to the next five years.

The photos below are four years apart with the most recent taken just yesterday evening.

The ‘Drop Stone’s’ ageing over the intervening years is clearly evident with the freshly oiled, brightly vibrant, sandy yellow of newly finished huon pine contrasting sharply with the grey, weathered look of today’s bench.

Change is seen elsewhere.

Looking at the angle of shadow cast by the two bases of the bench, the time of day might be the same, but the larger shadow now darkening the left end of the bench deck comes from the she-oak tree grown taller.

Looking at the beach, four years ago there was a lot more sand to be seen. Over the past year this sand has been washed away by a series of strong storms and now the underling stones have been exposed. I am intrigued by this shift and find a fascination in examining the long term cyclic nature of the coming and going of sand on the beach. However, I will admit to liking the sand more than the stones.

More of a daily change, and probably not so easily grasped, is the direction of the wind. In the top photo the wind would have been “off shore”, resulting in a clearer, more defined background. The bottom photo is of an “on shore” breeze, resulting in a brighter, more cloudy looking background because of the salt spray being carried inland and the sunlight being bounced off of it and directed back to the camera. Even the sky appears cloudy.

Coming back to the bench, the big question I always face is whether or not to accept the process of change time and weather bring. Do I leave them to age gracefully or do I constantly sand them back to a more youthful finish? Certainly, the stony look of the aged bench has a softer quality and blends in nicely with its surrounding environment (especially, with the stony grey beach). I approach it as one does a well worn pair of favourite shoes. Better for wear and loaded with memories.

Yet, looking back at how the bench presented itself on the day it was first placed in its commanding position on top of the cliff above the surf, I recall a “freshness” that was exciting to behold, and, like any finely dressed, good looking stranger strutting into town, it commanded attention.

To bring the bench back to its former “newness” would only take a days work to undo four years of “ageing”. It does cross my mind. But there I leave it. Not out of laziness, but because I live at Roaring Beach, not Los Angeles.

In imagination is the preservation of wilderness. By this I mean one of two things. The first is that even while living deep within the confines of a city a person can close their eyes and imagine—quite vividly—the smells, visual details and tactile qualities of the green earth that they have in the past experienced. To call this up in one’s mind through one’s imagination is a powerful tool, not only for its calming and healing potential, but also to sustain and remind the political/environmental activist (while biding their time in solitary confinement at the local jail) why they engage in civil disobedience when pursuing legislative or other changes to protect and preserve wilderness.

The second meaning when I write “In imagination is the preservation of wilderness” is that an artist, through his/her imagination, has the ability (and quite possibility the responsibility) to create works of art that are expressive of the natural world and convey a sense of its inherent beauty. By so doing, these imaginative artistic renderings of nature’s beauty will serve to motivate people to protect wilderness areas because they have fallen in love with these areas through the imagination of the artist. Think of wilderness photographers Ansel Adams (America) or Peter Dombrovskis (Australia). Think of the poet Mary Oliver. Or, the sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. All focus their artistic efforts on the sublime beauty of nature. Their collective works are, indeed, iconic representations of the earth’s beauty.

Likewise for me.

Whenever I hold a sea shell in the palm of my hand I constantly marvel at the exquisite mathematical genius that is its beauty. In my studio I use my remembering of the shell at the beach—my imagination—to recall it into form. (Definition One above)

Outside my studio, my desire is that whoever views this sculpture will taste something of the sea in their handling of it and , thereby, fall a tiny bit in love with the natural world. (Definition Two above)

What I have carved can be simply described as a sea shell nestled into an organic kelp form. It can also be looked at (with a bit of imagination) as the billowing kelp giving birth to a sea shell.

Many religious traditions go to great lengths to explain their faith intellectually, but their real lure is in the beauty of their rites and images. When Gerard Manley Hopkins claims that “the World is charged with the grandeur of God,” I take it to mean that we can glimpse God in the electric beauty of nature and art.

Thomas Moore in The Soul’s Religion

Last year (1 April 2006) when writing about a sculpture similar to this one, I created a story about the birth of Beauty. As a starting point, I used the creation myth of the goddess Venus as portrayed by Botticelli’s painting “The birth of Venus”; sometimes referred to as “The birth of Beauty”. I proposed that if Venus came from a sea shell (the sea shell being symbolic of nature), just possibly the artistic portrayal of the birth of a sea shell could take us even closer to the source of all beauty—the electric beauty of nature Thomas Moore speaks about where we can glimpse God.

A bit convoluted I confess, but what the hell, even if my thinking process is a bit spirally, it is my own imaginative myth making, isn’t it? The story might fail on an intellectual level, but I do hope that there is a lure for the viewer in these photo images of the sea shell emerging swollen and smooth from the pregnant top side of a double layering of mating kelp. A lure both enticing and informative.

Now before my friends start bagging me for being either too religious or too blasphemous, let me just quote again from Thomas Moore:

It is better to be on the cusp between religion and secularity than to fall into either category. For there is [a] paradox at work: the appearance of religiosity is often in inverse proportion to the quality of religious practice.

And, as beautiful as I think this new sculpture is, I am reminded of the humbling words of Rumi:

So delicate yesterday, the nightsinging birds
by the creek. Their words were:

You may make a jewelry flower
out of gold and rubies and emeralds,
but it will have no fragrance.

Length of “A Shell’s Birth” — 5 feet / 1.5 metres

Sally paints, I carve. But of what? And, why?

Hard questions to answer even though we both constantly pursue answers.

Speaking for myself, I suppose that, if anything, I am trying to make visible the numinous quality of nature; at least give hints of it. But it is so complex that I sometimes tire of asking the questions. What helps, though, is thumbing through the well worn pages of any of my poet’s books. Today, it’s Rilke.

Wir durfen dich nicht eigenmachtig malen

We must not portray you in king’s robes,
you drifting mist that brought forth the morning.

Once again from the old paintboxes
we take the same gold for scepter and crown
that has disguised you through the ages.

Piously we produce our images of you
till they stand around you like a thousand walls.
And when our hearts would simply open,
our fervent hands hide you.

Rilke “Book of Hours: Love Poems to God” (translation: Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy).

Writing in Germany about the Italian artists, Rilke also said:

Ich habe viele Bruder in Sutanen

I have many brothers in the South
who move, handsome in their vestments,
through cloister gardens.
The Madonnas they make are so human,
and I dream often of their Titians,
where God becomes an ardent flame.

But when I lean over the chasm of myself —
it seems
my God is dark
and like a web: a hundred roots
silently drinking.

This is the ferment I grow out of.

More I don’t know, because my branches
rest in deep silence, stirred only by the wind.

Just maybe I shouldn’t spend so much time trying to figure things out. Just maybe I should just keep carving and let what flows out of my hands speak what needs to be spoken.

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?