Beginnings

For over 20 years, I have been creating figures in welded steel, plaster, cement, paper, drawing and in live performance.  I am endlessly drawn to the Moai on Easter Island, African healing figures, the female idols from the Cycladic Islands and Butoh dance among other things.  As I have gotten older, my interest has not diminished and the way my figures look has hardly changed and this has led me to wonder why these objects are so  important  to me.  I also wonder why I feel so connected to statues from other cultures and keep looking at them over and over again.  These questions then lead me into a whole array of tangents and I thought this blog would be a good opportunity to explore these inquiries and also to create a dialogue with others who has similar interests with curiosities and information of their own to share.  

So, I thought I would begin with a little background about myself and my art:


I am one of those people who always wanted to be an artist.  There was no particular inspiration, epiphany or person who pushed me in this direction.  I think visual expression was just the way I communicated and making things, dancing and singing was how I loved to spend my time.  My family did not want me to pursue art, so my path has been a bit circuitous, but by the time I was in college I had some options in my studies and was able to take a sculpture class one semester. I don’t remember much about the specifics of the class, but I do remember the life-size figure I made of chicken wire stuffed with newspaper and covered in plaster.  I used my own body as the model, wrapping the chicken wire around my legs, arms and torso to get the proportions, which is the way I still work today. I had no training in sculpture and no idea what I was doing, but this just came to me naturally.  The figure was a basic form with no defining features, sex, or race and yet this figure had a very strong presence and identity.

Untitled, 1988, life size. plaster, chicken wire, paint.©MBeck

I remember how good it felt to make this figure and show it to the people in the class. It was my way to communicate and it was a lot more effective than words.


After I graduated from school with an art history degree I got a studio and kept making figures for a number of years.

   Mother and Child, 1991, life size.  rebar, structolite, newspaper, chicken wire.©MBeck

Two Figures, 1991, life size. rebar, structolite,plaster, lights, chicken wire. ©MBeck

I loved being immersed in the process of twisting wires, forming chicken wire, cutting steel and welding.  Making these figures was a survival technique for me at the time. Although I was able to talk, words failed to express my experience, but these figures were able to speak for me.


After about 3 years I decided that the figures were missing something and I chose to go to graduate school for sculpture.  Graduate school was a good thing on some levels and not so good on others.  In school I was able to take the ideas that were in my figurative sculptures and expand them into performance and video.  I was able to develop my conceptual thought process, interest in language and connect my work to the contemporary art world.  This was all useful and positive, but my figures got lost somewhere in there.  It was hard for people to accept them as "art" and as a consequence I pushed them to the side.


In 2005, after having focused on making performance-based videos for over 5 years, I missed making things and I started making small figures out old newspaper and wrapping them in packing tape to secure the form.  Working with my hands like this was completely different than making video.  Video happened more in my head and these figures came out of my body.  I was not thinking or trying to understand what they meant or how they will fit into the art world.  My hands were just moving and I could feel energy and movement flowing through my body.  Making these figures was no longer a survival technique as it had been when I was younger. I was surviving just fine and have no trouble expressing myself verbally.  I didn't need my art to do that for me anymore and yet, it still seemed really crucial to me to make these objects.

Figures, 2005 - 2009, 4 inches - 7 inches, paper, tape, rubber, cumin, boxes. ©MBeck

Figures,  paper, tape, rubber, straight pins, boxes. ©MBeck

Figures,  paper, tape, rubber, glitter, boxes. ©MBeck

I made a series of figures over a period of 3 years or more.  I really adored them, but never felt like I could show them to anybody. I put them in my closet, put them in a box, in storage, took them out, put them back in, gave some away and regretted that and finally decided to try to find a way to exhibit them.  They have clearly been a source of conflict over the years although this past summer I happily displayed all of them in an exhibition.   I have about 50 of these little figures and each of them has a custom made box. You will probably see similarities between these figures and the figures that were frozen in time at Pompeii.

 

Victims of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii, Italy, 79 AD

More information on Pompeii's frozen victims from the BBC

I hadn't seen the figures from Pompeii before I made my figures, but it makes sense that there would be such a strong connection.  The figures at Pompeii are frozen in time at the horrific moment of their death.  I don't suppose it can get much more raw than that.  Although my figures are not about death, they are about expressing very basic and  raw moments of existence that exist beyond language. For whatever reason, I think I make these things because that is a more comfortable place for me- much more comfortable than what happens in daily life.


But more on that later.  For now, this should suffice as an introduction to who I am and some of my interests.  I will leave you with the latest video I made, which may seem a bit like a tangent, but is actually completely related in terms of subject matter.  This video is a work in progress, but I am excited by where it is going.  My friend and collaborator Jorge Calvo made the sound for me.