Update



Sorry I haven't posted here in a while.  May turned out to be a rather
busy month. The work I was making felt like it would never get
finished.  I couldn't find a stopping point. There always seem to be
one more thing that needed to be done to them.

  I don't think I've experienced anything like that in my working
habits and I'm not sure why these two new works caused me so
much grief.  Both pieces fell over at different times and needed
repairs.   In the past that probably would have destroyed the work,
but I'm happy to say there was only some minor cracking and
chipping that was easy to fix.

I think one of the reasons the work took so long to complete was
because I had a lot to think about as I started to expand on my
original ideas.  I've got a lot of new ground to explore more ideas
than I can possibly work on.  In some ways that's good, but at the
same time it's hard to focus on just one or two at a time.  I feel
stuck in a bottleneck of sorts.



 This work is titled  " Can You Hear Me Now? ", which of course I borrowed from a cell phone ad.  It's the idea of technology having the opposite effect of it's intended purpose.  In this case it's people becoming inslaved to their phones.

This one is titled " Power To The People".  It's the same sort of idea as the one above, but this one is more about fear and guilt.  In our modern world we are encouraged to buy into the idea that technological advancement is good for mankind yet at the same time we are also told to fear it and feel guilty for depending on it.

I don’t want people to get the idea that I’m some sort of Luddite.  I
like my comfy, gadget ridden life too much to ever  want to give it
up.

One inspiration for my relief work are the relief sculptures from the
early Christian religion.  I’ve been noticing a lot of parallels between
how people were controlled with fear and guilt in the past and how
fear and guilt are being used today.  Rather than fearing some
unknowable deity our modern culture is being taught to fear and feel
guilt over technology.  Fear it for the changes it brings and feel guilt
for our dependence on it.


 

Comments

[Jackie]

Hey Howard: Man - it's been forever since I checked your blog! I love those pieces - they are cool because of the interaction of the figures. I loved your other pieces as well - but the one with the power lines I especially like. What are the dimensions of these 2 pieces? Glad you're still keeping up with the art. I know how it goes with blogging - I have been pretty sparse in these parts in general.

[Howard]

Hey Jackie, long time no see:). The work is 23" x 36". A lot has been going on,but when it comes to writing it down I've been very lax. I do have some important news that I'll be posting in a few days so stay tuned!