Verb-centered languages focus on the present moment, like work of art. This site-specific installation is like a sentence made of verbs that says ”Swim”. A modular approach toward figurative sculpture about swimming demonstrates another important quantum principle, that Everything Is In Flux.
I have worked with scientific concepts before, with the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia, and propose a modular approach toward figurative sculpture, in a public swimming pool, to mark the history of the present. By adopting a collaborative approach the work shows how The Part Enfolds The Whole.
A modular approach toward figurative sculpture connects visually with water in ways that reflect the values and climate of our citizens, and the site. People connect with color on an emotional level. Blue patinas on bronze are like a splash contact with water as if to say This Ecosphere is Basically Friendly.
Eight principles shared by quantum physics and indigenous philosophy inform sculptures for a public swimming pool. Let’s start with Everything In The Universe Vibrates. The project potentially gives the work of American linguist Daniel Moonhawk Alford three dimensional form.
Producing a series of multiples proposes a unique technical challenge. A threaded rod supports each figure. A tapped 1/8th inch hole can go anywhere, at any angle, reorienting twelve forms in three dimensional space. It will seem as if each figure is unique, when in fact they come from a pattern, which is like saying Nature Can Be Taught New Tricks.
I learned to swim in a little river on the ancestral Mi’kma’ki and traditional lands of the Acadia First Nation Mi’kmaq people. Now I swim a mile almost everyday in the sea, at daybreak year round, with a small group I meet on a beach in New York City. The continuity of these events lead me to believe that There Is An Implicate Order To The Universe.
Groups of figures appear in flux when in fact they are static. Patterns of recognizable figures allow the works to be reproduced in bronze and mounted to architectural surfaces, like an architectural frieze, which brings forward The Principal of Complimentarity.
Groups of figures appear in flux when in fact they are static. A recognizable form, like a circle or a person, becomes abstract as their numbers increase. Patterns in nature emerge. Static installations possess the unique capability to mark the history of a site in active ways as if connecting Quantum Potential and Spirit.
Related works include Pop Up, a specific installation in a public swimming pool in Williamsburg Brooklyn, from March 1 - 15, 2020. This photo of Frank is by my friend and fellow swimmer Cait Ochs.
We swam regularly at the Metropolitan Pool. Pop Up was coordinated with NYC Parks & Rec Manager Deborah Britt and interrupted by Covid-19. The pool closed on the 13th of March, 2020. The sculptures are still there.
The pop-up installation was a hit. ‘How about bronze?’ they said. People responded really well to it. The pool staff are into it. My swim squad and the members like being around it in general. The project is an antidote to the heroic concept of a monument.
Contact with the natural world presents an abstract and inconceivable beauty that informs the sculpture. The way colour vibrates against the sky at sunrise informs the patina these bronze figures will receive. Fixing colour to forms in broad strokes, loose gestures like a painters’ sketch that leaves much of the page blank.
Like composing a sentence, with a series of static figures, along a fence or an architectural frieze, Numbers are a guide for integrating the sculpture with the built environment. Greensand casting keeps our cost down by a significant margin. Patterns for green sand casting are made in New York and belong to the artist. Casts belong to the commissioner.
Cupric acid makes a copper ceiling turn green. Silica bronze is 95% copper. Raw pigment mixed with acid and applied with a torch makes a patina; it’s a thermodynamic process that introduces color into the metal. These two figures were cast with UAP in 2020 as a test. Each one is solid bronze tapped with a threaded hole.
Bathing is a timeless theme explored by artists from Henri Matisse to Katherine Bradford. As a site-specific installation Swimmers may perform a social function. ‘I identify with something beautiful and as a consequence, as if by osmosis, I feel better; I accept myself’ writes Louise Bourgeois. She says, ‘the idea of beauty will do something for you. When you admire something, you become larger than yourself. When you witness beauty, you begin to have hope again.’
This series of temporary site-specific installations will serve the public interest by promoting positive attitudes about the self, in relation to other people. These sculptures connect people to their own subjectivity.