The following photographs are of unresolved and unfinished sculptures – please make allowances for the roughness.
I have been working on three projects lately. I do not usually work on this many projects at the same time, but I have had a real problem with the first of the projects. I have lost my way with it and I am completely flummoxed about how to proceed. The second project has been badly interupted by the Covid-19 crisis.
‘The Triumph of Hope’. Bronze, stainless steel
I have been reinterpreting religious images which come from various ages and cultures and trying to establish some kind of dialogue between them. There are five separate pieces I am working on that come together to form the sculpture. The images include a Black Madonna, an image of the Diana of Ephesus, a reinterpretation of Baal, a reinterpretation of Sadeler’s vision of Hell and finally a version of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Victory 
Black Madonna
Baal and Victory
Gates of Hell 
Diana sculpture in foreground with Victory on right and Baal on left background
Bronze finial for a column
The real problem I have is that I am still not quite sure how to articulate what this about.
I understand what I am looking for, which is imagery that culminates in a notion of redemption but which gets there via dubious hypotheses. It is almost as if our religious worlds too are defined by a dialectical process. We seem to bounce about imagining a religious cosmos that is defined in turn by gender, violence, fear, despair, hope or transcendence.
But am I taking on something which is inimical to sculpture? I don’t know. Do I just present the sculpture as 5 idiosyncratic objects in a circle and then let the viewer interpret it as they choose?
I am unsure what to do, so I am having a break from it. I am hoping time and divine inspiration will provide the solution.
What I want to achieve in this sculpture is a bit like the Saint-Just quote (famously requoted by IHF) about the present order being the disorder of the future.
‘Anthropomorphs’. Bronze
The second project I am working on is trying to see how far I can push characterisations of people. It is a project that has been rudely interrupted by Covid-19 and I have been forced to put the project on the back burner.
Can a pair of shoes represent a person? Or a suitcase, a luggage label and so on? Still early days, but I now need to get some serious stainless steel fabrication done and I need to get several other things ready to make the plasma cutting cost-effective.
‘MUSES’. Bronze
The last project concerns Muses. I have always used muses to guide me. They are invariably female but they are not necessarily the archetypical muses that artists are supposed to have. I am much more interested in seeing in someone a compatible mindset. My muses have ‘isness’, simplicity and modesty – more importantly, they are knowledgeable, intelligent and unencumbered by ‘good taste’. Looking at the world from their perspective is very helpful.
I am working on four large sculptures and six table top muses. In all of them I have used a simple pottery bowl – a rice bowl or a fruit bowl – as a metaphor for plenty and as a symbol of the muse herself. Waxes have been produced and some fabrication has been done. I am happy with progress.
The last image is of a triangle from over thirty years ago. At that time there was a tussle between a poet and a sculptor over a muse. It was eventually resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. I married the muse.
So little time, so much to do!
