Spring has finally made it. It's a good time to plant sculptures. In the patio, landscape or garden, Art will grow with the flowers, vegetables and trees and begin to achieve a more natural lifespan and life. Freed from climate controlled interiors, objects wear like you or I. The changing light and weather will add dimension and character to the form. With a natural backdrop of unpainted color, birdsong and wind, understanding of the work can suddenly shift from aesthetics to personal adaptive presence, defining the mutual space in private ways a Gallery or Museum cannot design.
One objective criteria of Art is how it survives in the wild, unprotected....
The above video is an illustration of an Antony Gormley sculpture installation. It's made of cast iron, and weighs about 2,000 lbs. Three stainless steel metric pins extend from the feet of the sculpture to beneath the limestone patio paver glued into holes drilled through a re-enforced concrete footer. Because the sculpture was to be installed against a wall, we had to cantilever the i-beam of the gantry and rig a counterweight of stacked palleted stones to prevent the gantry from tipping. This sculpture is made to rust. As it ages, the stains will leave it's mark on the floor and a brown trail will flow where the water goes, expanding continuously the Art's physical reach.
music except: " the Lack of Love," Ben Gage and the Art Handlers
It's been a difficult winter, back to back snowstorms without a break from the bitter cold have kept 3' of snow on the landscape and it's just now melting. In the evening half light the white surface glistens as if it were polished marble. I love thinking I live in a great stone quarry garden. The snow piles softened by wind blast resemble modern sculpture and sometimes I recognize forms I've moved, made or imagined.
The great Artist Louise Bourgeois has created a body of work in a variety of materials including marbles of different colors, especially beautiful white stones. This past year I have been involved in two projects installing several of these sculptures: an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and another for a private collector in Washington DC. These pieces were carved from blocks and left intact as if they had just been cut and lifted from the quarry. You can see the chisel and tooling marks left on the sides of the stone. Her polished forms escape from the top.
In DC, as part of a larger project, a private collector asked if I could de-install, help transport and re-install 2 stone sculptures from their old to new house. The heaviest piece was about 3000 lbs. It was a busy production, we packed them on pallets, loaded the pallets into an air ride box truck, delivered same day to the new residence where we transferred the load onto a small crane truck, which rigged the the pallets to the back porch and our access door to the inside space. The next day we installed them. In the morning when we returned to work on their other pieces, I met the client who asked that they be moved. " The sculpture didn't feel right where they were in the new space." I smiled and said of course I could. When the Art speaks, I try to respond.
*video music excerpt: " Just Us Too." Mack on bass, Ben Gage on guitar.
Sometimes you meet people on this job that change how you think about Art, Artists and stuff. It's unexpected. You see/ handle a piece of Art or meet someone through the work and you're humbled. Somehow things are different after wards. A friend emailed me with a question about a stone sculptor who might need help in moving large blocks of stone in his yard and studio. Because of medical issues he was no longer able to do it himself but the stone needed to be moved and they were wondering if I could help. I arranged a site visit, met the Artist and his wife, studied the stones and asked what they wanted. I have to say I was totally impressed. The stones were beautiful: pink, black and white marbles, all heavy, with a 3,200 lb. block in the yard and a 5,000 lb. rectangle waiting in the studio. The stones had to be moved from where they were in Takoma Park, Md. to California. It would be difficult.
In his living room after discussing the project, I apologized for not being aware of his work. He had been carving for 30 years in one of my favorite Md. neighborhoods. I had lived in a nearby apt. and worked as an art handler in a warehouse a couple blocks away and didn't know him. Surprisingly, a student of my teacher Ken Campbell, who happened to be a next door neighbor, had even been the guy responsible for introducing him to the Art form. Hearing that guys name evoked strong memories of another time. I couldn't believe we had never met. Here was a guy who developed a passion for stone sculpture and built a life around it at his home. Stone carving is not easy, the work is difficult, messy and loud. Imagine hearing a hammer day and night in any neighborhood. It's a big investment especially when you start to work big. It takes effort, money and ambition. Looking at his place I saw he had added an i-beam from a second story floor extending out to his driveway. In his studio there were two i-beams with trolleys and chain falls. He told me he and his wife had moved those stones themselves and I believed him. He began to talk about how he had gotten the stones I had just looked at. The white marble came from a lot he purchased years ago from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument in Arlington National Cemetary. He started with 40,000 lbs. and what I saw was what was left. He had sold and carved the rest. The U. of Md. had gotten the other half. I told him I was part of the team that unloaded that stone from a tractor trailer while I was a student there. I had carved blocks of it and had blocks left in my yard in WV waiting. I knew nothing about their origin.
It was a 2 day project in December. Snow, icy rain and terribly cold both days. Trying to hold costs down, I brought one other art handler. I felt if he could bring those stones in, I could take those stones out. We rigged and packed all the stones that would travel on 4 site built pallets the first day. The second day, because of the small driveway, we parked the flatbed tractor trailer going to California in a lot a block away. Using my flatbed truck and a rented boom forklift, we shuttled the palletized stones from the house to the tractor trailer. Afterward, my friend said it was the hardest project we had ever done.
Al Johnson, thank you very much for helping me understand what and why the work.
Art handling is all about balance, understanding the physical presence of the object/ Art and recognizing how to touch it. " ..Do know harm.." is a pretty good mantra, how to do it is the Art: Art handling part. In this business you learn through experience and that is at once the problem and reward. It's a practice, like other professions, and the ideal is something that's mandatory in it's practice. Of course this can be difficult and impossible, especially in groups where consensus is absolutely necessary. As the Art gets as big or bigger than us it becomes less personal and this distance represents the difference in the quality of the Art Handler. Here's a list of possible sculptural materials and their weights. Handling stone sculpture is a good measure. Marble can be 171 lbs. a cubic ft. A life size figure is heavy.
I love the range of Art. Objects are always dissimilar. The Art part of Art Handling is the creative prerequisite. How am I going to do it is something I always begin with. In doubt I let my instincts take over and I stop and reconsider when I have none. I wrote in an earlier post about the National Geographic's: Ceramic Warriors Show. I was primed for it by having just installed a stone Buddha for a private collector. It/ he/ is/was beautiful. I love that part of the world and the imagery / philosophy of both Warriors and Buddha seem culturally supplementary. I'm ripe for Zen, how little I know of it. The Art Handler's responsibility is to be perfect. Handling stuff like this, one after the other, is a barometer of where we're @.
I received a call based on this blog for the first time. I was asked the possibilities of de-installing and then re-installing Buddha from it's present residence to another house not too far away. At the site visit, I verified it was about 1200 lbs. The client and I hit it off, the Buddha was well loved and he wanted an aesthetic treatment commensurate with what Buddha represents. He had already spoken to a rigging company and was apprehensive about their methods. He told me he had gone through the yellow pages in vain and by accident found me. The search had taken some time and he wanted to know if I could do it ASAP as the household move was immanent. There were difficult obstacles in both locations: steps, doors, truck accessibility, object placement, that required a gantry, crane truck, etc. and since I owned all the rigging equipment, that part was not a problem. I told him I would build a handling frame/ pallet on site and I could de-install/ pack/ re-install Buddha in one day. Before I left I asked him how did he get it in the house in the first place. He told me a story about purchasing the Buddha from a dealer in Asia. It was crated, shipped and delivered to his house and left in his front yard. He was wondering what to do about it when he was visited by 15 Tibetan Buddhist monks. Somehow along with himself and another friend they managed to bring the Buddha into the house and install it on it's wood pedestal, but he said it was not easy. I loved that image. As I was leaving, he asked how many guys I would bring? I told him two.
We set up the aluminum gantry with two chain falls on the i-beam and placed Buddha in position. We wrapped two straps on either side of the figure with opposite chokes, careful where the tension would touch the body and hooked them to the chain falls. In slow motion we raised each chain fall by chain link feeling the balance and adjusting as needed. Without a sound the seated Buddha rose. In the air it floated perfectly level. The client looked at me and said something like, .." You made it levitate."
Videomusic: excerpt.." Perhaps it Matters." Mack on bass, Ben Gage on guitar Merry Holidays
This week, the National Geographic Museum in Washington DC opens a wonderful show centered on the fantastic Ceramic Warriors found in China in the grave of China's first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, 35 years ago. These objects date to the 3rd century BC, and of that army of soldiers, 15 warriors and related artifacts including a full size horse are now installed in the newly designed Museum space. It's a dramatic history lesson in clay of a buried past by an ancient culture a hemisphere and 2 millennium away. It's accidental discovery by local farmers sounds more like fiction than history, a story better suited for movies than museums. The Washington Post has a photo essay here and an article here. Looking at the figures outside their context, with little understanding of their original intention, Art and sculpture are among the only words to describe them.
I was honored to be involved in the installation. This is an ultimate project. How do you prepare or train for something like this? For an Artist/ Art Handler it's the mountain top. As a stone carver much of my own inspiration comes from what remains of Antiquity. I was eager to meet the Warriors. To be able to practice in public the work you do in private is a privilege. Friends who run a local Art Handling Company asked if I would want to be considered as the rigger for the project. The Warriors are fragile, heavy and difficult to handle. The project scope required a rigging/ sculpture specialist. They could provide an introduction. Our initial meeting with the Museum's staff in charge of the installation went well, I left with a folder of pictures, crate sizes and floor plans which I promised not to lose. Months later I found myself bringing my gantry, slings and misc. rigging tools in my pickup to the museum. This level of anxiety is fuel and I enjoyed the preparation. The degree of complexity required a commensurate response. I was warned ahead of time that there would be an official group of Chinese specialists responsible for the installation and although an interpreter would be involved, I should expect a language barrier. I looked forward to this point, I would have to speak through the quality of my presentation, tool choices and anticipation of their motives. When the first day arrived, on our introduction, I knew immediately who the Master was. I bowed and said I was in their service. After our hellos and a few unsure words I took them outside to show them the unassembled parts of the gantry. The Master nodded.
Opening the first crates felt like releasing a message in a bottle. I was unprepared for the figures individual expression and physical presence...We were asked to float each Warrior from their padded protected caseto their display destination. The Chinese specialists spokein hieroglyphs and gesture. It was like music, someone would count and on 4 we all would assist on the beat to the spot.
Some mornings I would arrive on-site ahead of the crew, meet with the museum staff, discuss objectives for the day and study the next challenge. When the crew arrived I would install the gantry in the way I saw resolved any technical problem or with everybody involved, discuss and create an alternative install solution. The Chinese Master would see immediately how much I/we understood and perhaps could not explain. Even though we had never met, we had to be great partners: the work, Art and venue deserved it. I believed the distance and difference between us in technique and troubleshooting should translate visually and we could build on that. The first break came in the middle of the project. We took the weekend off. I had a couple days to understand the scope, technical and personal, objectively. I gathered additional tools for the next week and thought they don't even know my name or who I am. If I wanted them to trust me and my approach to an International treasure in their care, they should know that. I looked up google translator and wrote out the information on my business card in Chinese. On Monday I presented them the card and each of them took the time to read the characters I couldn't. They smiled and we all nodded:
On September 30, The National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., opened aPublic Observatory to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. Inside, "... the centerpiece of the Public Observatory Project is a 16-inch Boller & Chivens telescope. The telescope was originally part ofHarvard-Smithsonian's Oak Ridge Observatoryin Harvard, Massachusetts. It was used for astronomical research until recent years, and is now on loan to the National Air and Space Museum for the Public Observatory Project."
I was fortunate to be involved in this project early, helping to prepare details for installation scope and pricing and also serving as the technical advisor, in DC, between the Air and Space Museum and the art handling company which was awarded the contract. The installation of the actual Observatory would be undertaken by a local crane company. I was to be the on-site lead object handler/ rigger for the installation of the telescope under the direction of the great staff at the Museum who put the project together. I saw that they treated the telescope as sculpture and wanted art and art handlers. Conceptually, this was close to what I have been thinking about since I found Marcel Duchamp: the re-examined object.
The telescope arrived @ the Museum in 4 major components. The heaviest was about 1000 lbs. The doorway entrance was 38 1/4" wide, the largest telescope part was at 38" wide on a pallet 42" wide. I remember going to a meeting at the Air and Space Museum where a room of experts met to discuss individual responsibility. As each of us described our parts and answered questions, I was asked to give details on how we were going to get everything in the room through the door: telescope parts, misc. tools, gantry and crew with a floor diameter of 22', as there would be many physical problems to the observatory, including an incomplete dropped floorwith exposed plastic conduit which had to be surface protected. Access to finished floor height would be made after the installation. I don't remember how I answered that.
For many personal reasons this project brought to closure an adventure that began as an Art student trying to understand how to handle difficult heavy stones for sculpture. Rigging started as a studio endeavor with ropes and old scaffold and slowly progressed to slings, gantry's and cranes as I began to recognize the rules of rigging and how these rules are used to communicate safety to others in the field, especially with people you have just met on the project site. Proficiency in hand signals, strapping techniques, knots, etc.. is a shared language. Expertise is apparent immediately. Going from project to project, often in different cities and countries, with unknown contractors and crews allows all the responsible parties a way to talk. Each decision underlines how much each of us knows in the moment. For me to have been able to find myself in this environment participating in a dream project with other passionate professionals, working on a crew of best friends I taught and learned from with tools I chose and helped buy, answered many questions about the quality of my own work and direction. It also made me thankful for the hidden gifts of the Art life. Many of us are asked what are we going to do with Art when we are students. I said I didn't know and probably didn't care. To travel idiosyncratically as Artists do day to day, and then find that the life style has value is very much a surprise. For example, I am currently on a project which I'll blog about later, but it involves a Chinese crew responsible for installing large, heavy, beautiful objects with only a minimum knowledge of English. They represent a Collection which humbles me. Through mutual hand signals and techniques we're talking. During a particular difficult rigging moment, they were speaking in Chinese and I responded in English and our hands moved in similar directions. Afterwards we looked at each other and just laughed.
Anne Truitt , the great artist, sculptor, teacher, author, mentor….will have a retrospective of her work @ the Hirschhorn Museum of Art: Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection: October 8, 2009 to January 3, 2010. It gives me a formal opportunity to thank her for her help in shaping my work/ process and to share with others who don’t know about her contribution not just locally in Washington DC, but Art in general in the 20th century and beyond. The Washington Post has written 2 articles about her here and here and I just found this from Smithsonian.com.
I met her while I was a student at the University of Md. She was an iconic figure there and people, both teachers and students alike, felt fortunate to be included in her orbit. Sometimes I would carry her school bags to her car. She was well regarded not just because of what she had already done and was doing but also because she could speak personally about a profession like Art. She made Art accessible and we believed her. She was true to the dialectic. We never felt patronized. She spoke with us about subjects around and above us. Her discussions focused less on our art work and more in the quality of our convictions in the work: the technique which allowed the truth of it, not the paintbrush or chisel. She just wanted it to work.
In my last year at the University I asked her to be my thesis advisor. She said she had stopped taking anymore students and besides I already had a commitment to a point of view: stone sculpture. Would studying with her be helpful? My carving teacher Ken Campbell had just retired and I told her frankly she was the only one in the faculty who understood what I wanted to understand. She asked me about stuff and I couldn't answer her, the words just stumbled one after the other until finally I gave up. She said not to worry, she would help. What was important was that it was in the air. My job was to stay sensitive to it and that I would get it later.
I'm a carver of stone, poems and guitar. As a result of studying how to move and manage my own sculptures, I ended up handling art for a living, from King Tut to the Boller and Chivens 16-inch Cassegrain telescope @ the new Air and Space Museum Observatory in Washington DC. I love difficult unusual projects. Here are a few stories about some of them.
