Comments on: Perspective

By: oschene

oschene — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:57:07 +0000

An interesting observe -- several of the more irritable members of the Roman church feel that the Hokey Pokey was invented by Jesus and they aren't overly happy about it. One wonders what these sensitive chaps would make of Dutch prog-rockers, Focus, playing their signature tune, Hocus Pocus. We do know that our Savior once attended a wedding where wine was served by the firkin (this was the pre-metric firkin, too). It only stands to reason that Jesus would have been participating in a goofy group dance. Was it the hora? The electric slide? Rabbits are not kosher, so we may safely assume it was not the bunny hop. When does something cease to be itself and become something other? I am thinking about wood and bogwood and lignite and petrified wood. At what point does the stone forget its wood nature? When would bronzed paper forget its paper nature? Oprah? What the hell? Is this what you left me for - a twitchy Dutchman? Oh, the ignominy....

By: Joel Cooper

Joel Cooper — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:33:26 +0000

I think our friend Owesen did something along those lines some time back, perhaps making a maquette from a casting of origami rather than waxifying the piece itself.
I was trained for cire perdu in those temps perdu many years ago. What you suggest might be possible if the mask didn’t fall apart when saturated with melted wax. But then the end result wouldn’t be paper anymore, would it. It just seems wrong.
By the way, doesn’t that image of the Lego Jesus look a bit like he’s doing the Hokey Pokey. Not that he never did the Hokey Pokey, for all I know he invented it. He could even do it on water. That would be way cool.

By: oschene

oschene — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:44:59 +0000

This weekend, I saw a story in the paper: my old droogie, Berthel, had some of his work recreated in Lego. He’d be crazy over that, but hell, it’s better than what the freaking Mormons did.

I must confess to a most inconsistent passion for the semi-permanence of bronze. I wear a piece of Roman military bronze around my neck, just because I love the idea of a long-forgotten hand, casting it — probably using the same method you describe here. Makes me wonder — if you dipped a Cooperian mask in paraffin wax, could you then make the cire go all perdu? (I remember discussing cire perdu with Mr. Petzel, Florence Temko’s husband — he was a silversmith. I knew of the method from Johnny Tremain, but had no clue how it actually worked.)

Of course, it would be wrong, to strive for immortality in this way. That wouldn’t stop it being cool. Way cool.

By: Joel Cooper

Joel Cooper — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:05:31 +0000

I can understand Berthel’s perspective. I came from the same place (no, not Denmark, I mean metaphorically). Art is creation, object and act. An act for the artist and an object for the viewer. The act of creation passes, the object is all that is left.
I began my sculptural career in bronze-casting – a time-honored method for freezing time. I worked directly with the wax which would later be vaporized to be replaced by metal. Not the recommended method since the original (usually a clay model) would be destroyed, but I liked working with wax better than clay. I didn’t do it like most sculptors; I liked to bend and fold sheets of wax, something you couldn’t do with clay. Unconsciously preparing myself for my current obsessions, I suppose.
Transforming the wax maquette into metal was necessary to make it permanent, but it takes the object another step further from the spark of creation. That wax figure had my fingerprints, the marks of it’s birth. This is something you want to preserve but this is what goes up the flue in the burn out furnace. The bronze that takes it’s place is a changeling.
A piece of origami is like a page out of a diary. Like fingerprints in wax.
Western art has a compulsion towards preserving a moment. I guess it’s proper that origami originated in the East.