In the knowledge that one should never combine cement and iron with natural stone I thought it would be fun to do exactly that.
Used salvaged stone, cut to size, scribed on portal, cut out slot with angle grinder, mixed neat cement with water and iron filings, estimating quantities, left 24 hours to set, cut off face, dried. Nervous then exhilarated.
carbon paper and sandblast rubber
closing time at the BM
Experiments with sandblasting
Create
Curate
Collect
all attempts to address (control) ownership of the creative act and its issue.
Owning is a form of creativity.
Looking at the primal matter and activity of human consciousness is like staring into the crater of an active volcano filled with potential for creation and destruction and its going on ALL THE TIME.
Art is a concretisation of value in all its definitions.
Money is a symbol of value.
Art Is Value.
I approached the publishing house Faber and Faber based in Bloomsbury, London with a view to placing one of my sculptures in their offices. The sculpture (Wasteland (2014) Ancaster limestone, approx 13/13/5″) is one of a series i made (2014-15) in response to my reading of The Wasteland (TS Eliot) and its notes and references. TS Eliot was published by and worked as Editor for Faber and Faber from 1925 to his death in 1965 (the year i was born).
The sculpture references the episode in the Modernist poem called ‘A Game Of Chess’ and is intended to convey a sense of desolation in the space between the two opposing collonades, suggesting abandoned avenues and buildings, as conjured in the Modernism of De Chirico. The space can, however be occupied by the viewer.
They have accepted my proposal and I now need to arrange insurance, a time to deliver the piece (which is very heavy) and think of a way of harvesting reactions, if any.
Dead Sea Scrolls, Torah, Kerouac.
Scroll (noun) continual length of parchment/paper. Images and text as potential, actual and expended. What is the nature of the material while it is potential ie in the future and unseen, actual ie present and viewed and expended ie past and seen.
Scroll (verb) participate in the act of moving data in and out of view in a linear way. Somewhere between passive and active.
When we scroll and click to like on data platforms we are behaving as hunter/collectors.
Here Im using a roll of tracing paper to rub/trace one of my sculptures (Portal (2017) 800/100/50mm Portland stone, slate chips, cement) with carved and uncarved pastels in different directions and with differing pressure.
JON WHITBREAD ART 