WHEN DO YOU KNOW A WORK IS DEVELOPING, READY OR
COMPLETE, AS OPPOSED TO EVER EVOLVING?.
I guess we stop when we feel the work has become
something we’re happy to regard as a child, perhaps able to
talk and look after itself.
WHAT OTHER INFLUENCES STIR YOU INTO ACTION? E.G.
MUSIC, ENVIRONMENT, MEDITATION, MOVIES, PAINTERS,
DANCERS, EXPERIENCES, OCCASIONS, EVENTS, SOCIAL
COMMENT
LAURIE BLAKEWATER
Sculpture allows you to be as creative as you can in almost
any way you can imagine. Then ‘your’ creations, and perhaps
you, join in a conversation.
When I was about 20 I decided life should be about life.
Existence (as Descartes noted) was the one thing beyond
doubt. Whilst we sometimes need to decide what will best
further ‘life’, indeed what is ‘life’, this simple illumination has
been a lodestar for me. So I have great respect for artists who
support social justice, the planet and all its creatures. Nature,
sex and dreams are all nourishing for me.
WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR INSPIRATION?
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR SCULPTURAL JOURNEY
TO TAKE YOU?
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO BECOME A SCULPTOR?
Always the same one place - the mystery of being here. It
seems a seemingly impossible nut to crack, but in the end
seems to me about the only puzzle-question worth asking.
HOW DOES CREATIVITY COME TO YOU AND WHAT DO YOU
DO WHEN IT DOES?
In floating moments. Artistic creativity is being a midwife to the
manifestation of things in the world - wonderful - but it does
need managing to mesh with the rest of the creation of our
daily lives.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE HOW YOU FEEL WHEN AN IDEA
STARTS TO CONCEPTUALLY TAKE FORM?
I like to favour the idea that ideas inhabit people, manifesting
themselves through willing hosts. I try to let intuition and
reflection help me feel my way through the accompanying
practical process of giving form to something which must
seem new and full of resonant meaning.
Maybe a Japanese forest with little red berries and snow.
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO EXHIBIT?
To say something that feels personally (at least) true in the
face of the onslaught of static and the other ‘voices’ of our
culture.
WHAT IN PARTICULAR ENCOURAGES YOU TO
PARTICIPATE IN THE BJCS EXHIBITION?
The Casper Friedrich setting of sea and sky - I’m a total lyrical
romantic. I like supporting the BLSC, their ideals, and I like the
egalitarian nature of the event.
WHAT SHOULD WE LOOK FORWARD TO FROM YOUR
WORK IN 2014?
I got to spend about a month in 2013 making sculpture mainly 2 pieces - a green man and an in situ creek rope work for the inaugural Mulberry Farm sculpture event at Yankalilla. I
also experimented with cast glass and did a spontaneous
living sculpture piece on a Grand Canal bridge in Venice.
For the BJSC event I am offering two works - the first, a
conceptual piece, is visually exactly the same as last year’s
’Nothing’ - that is, there’s nothing there (well a ‘chair’ was
provided for the viewer’s use) - but now, called ‘Everything’,
its accompanying statement elicits the imagination of the
public to stop time and hence experience existence in its
eternal present. In a way the 2 works are one work frozen
itself in time.
The second work invites the public (one at a time) to enter a
tardis-like beach changing shed. In the darkness inside they
are witness to a little stellar magic, a variant of the work of
Jason Sims, (‘it’s all done with mirrors’…or is it?...) and
emerge much better, happier, even better looking, people.