'Poleplanter' is an example of me turning myself inside out. An impetus of this process, at the time, was the news that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson had shot himself.

I had recently arrived in Britain from the Caribbean, and like a good Englishman I went to the pub with companions at 4:15 every day. The pub was a hub, a hive of discussion, deliberation, singing, rumours, backslapping, riotous laughter, backstabbing and hearsay (all of the beautifully common and familiar attributes of a small town pub and perfectly English)

Especially on a drizzly day.

Most leave at around seven for a proper English meal of fried cod or sausages, mash, and always peas. We never did. We ate bouquets.

I was in a funk with my sculpture. The ideas and forms that I was self conditioned to making and reworking and reinterpreting were not transferable to a different place, another country. The animals, the things, and the environment of Antigua could be carried into the rural blanket of England, but for me they were no longer relevant.  I was making sculpture that was familiar to me, a bag full of ideas from elsewhere, instead of making work that was informed by my immediate surroundings and experiences (This is very difficult for an artist, these abrupt breaks, changes. But I suggest it. Try yourself and your work against different backdrops. Even the Brits beloved Bacon was lost outside his comfy London)

So I was making nice sculptures, but man, where was I?

 I was in ancient Greece because that is where artists go for ideas when they can't walk outside and sketch cows.

It is imperative that an artist applies pertinence to their art. An imperative of art is to contain pertinence.

Pertinence is an imperative of art.

 'centaur and sphinx', 2005.

And then somebody informed me over a picnic table outside The Vaults that Hunter Thompson shot himself in the head and was dead.

I rebooted, took leave of my companions and the King Arthurs of Uppingham; "I'm going to go make the most pitiful sculpture I can", I said.

And I did. I tried. I went and worked all night long in a factory that the workers said was haunted and there was not a chance they would be there during the night. To my thinking, they didn't want to be there during the day either, so what's the difference? This was the first time that I had set myself the goal of conciously expressing my feeling in a sculpture. Or maybe not the first time, but definately the most acute. I've always made what I see, and let my 'inner' come out through the process of creating. This time I reversed it, and purposefully pursued building emotion.
The sculpture that I call 'wounded hunter' or 'fledgling minotaur' (it remains untitled) was the first result of this. It was modeled in one long night and, though my curiosity was somewhat piqued by the sculpture, it wasn't placated. I didn't find it pitiful enough, in fact I find it quite strong, particularly in relation to the staff. What I wanted to show was of no importance, what I couldn't help but show was what materialized. The 'fledgling minotaur' is a mature figure, exhausted maybe, but certainly surefooted.
As a sculptor, you study carefully your object, but also concentrate equally as carefully at the space that the object outlines. The space that the sculpture encompasses. My training as an architect imbedded this habit into me. The negative space of the fledgling minotaur is an irregular polygon or a trapezoid, in fact it's almost a perfect parralelogram and therefore quite...stable, unchanging. 'Poleplanter' however thrusts at us a scalene triangle...a skewed delta. Change.
This is not to say any of these decisions were made purposefully. They weren't. I'm identifying a couple of the basic adjustments that were subconsciously made from one piece to the immediate next

      

'fledgling minotaur', 20 x 10 x 50cm tall, flame cut mild steel, 2005.

The Staff. The Stick. The Pen.
Hunter Thompson was a personally damaged man, no different to most. He utilized crutches to compensate. His attire, his sunglasses, his cigarette extension, his guns, his booze...all crutches. But his biggest and best crutch was his typer, his pen. His pen is what propped him and allowed him to share himself; and he threw his pen into his field of journalism like a lance.
The staff is also representational of moses...a real Moses that I knew in Antigua, but that's another story.
So the Poleplanter was my second attempt at forming the hopelessness and exasperation and dismay at hearing of Hunter's suicide into a sculpture.
I'd like to repeat that. The Poleplanter is not a portrayal of Hunter Thompson. It is an abstract that came from my psyche after hearing the news of his suicide, which just so happened, in its timing, to amplify already exasperated feelings.
I made it, or more precisely, 'sketched it out', over the second and third nights, when the pounding of stamping machines, the gawking of employees and the glare of naked poster girls were drowned by dark. The sculpture inherited from its predecessor, in its form, the abdomen. The severe cut that crosses the gut of 'fledgling minotaur' (photo above, on left) is more amplified in Poleplanter. In fact, the guts of Poleplanter are completely carved out.
The Poleplanter to my thinking could be considered a failure in some respects. It doesn't completely portray exasperation, or dismay, in fact, quite possibly the opposite. The figure, though crumpled, is still on its feet. (versus being on its knees which is a common cliche that artists lean upon to express woe)
The sculpture inadvertently expresses strength and hope.
None of this was planned.

The Poleplanter is 26 by 26 by 73cm tall and weighs about 20 kilos.
I've been told that it would take a strong room to hold it. Great compliment.
I've also been reprimanded over it; Scrimmy in Antigua, after seeing photos of it, chastised me;
'You need to make that figure stand up!', which I subsequently did.



                                                                                           Untitled figure, 7' tall, mild steel, 2006.

Poleplanter is not my title, it is the description that my friend Glen gave to it early on...it stuck. His naming of the sculpture reminds me of somebody staking a claim, planting a flag, which, to think of it, actually portrays confidence, and is completely opposite to the intended attitude. That's one of the wonderful things about art.
I fear that writing about the sculpture detracts from it. I am biasing viewers perceptions. But, well...so be it, I needed to share.
To sum up, Poleplanter was my response given the news of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's death.
Or...probably more precisely...Poleplanter is the result of this dog being kicked while down.

I like the Poleplanter. I like that others like it, or at least respond to it. This is very important to an artist and anyone who tells you different is a liar. The Importance of Poleplanter, for me, was that it broke a chain tethering me to my past, and allowed me to go on investigating my work with a different attitude, a freeness. I was able, after this piece, to go on and make what I consider to be seminal pieces. Work that speaks to the industrial and ancient past of Britain.

For example, these two little guys; I refer to them as monolith tablets, and call them 'miniliths'.
(think Telford, think Stonehenge)




                                       "Miniliths",hand and bandsaw cut steel, palm sized, 2006.



The Poleplanter reignited within me a childlike fascination with my medium. What did Nietzsche say? Something about how the goal of an adult should be to achieve the seriousness of a child at play?

                  

overview and detail of 'poleplanter', 26 x 26 x 73cm tall, flame cut mild steel, 2005.
all photos of  'Poleplanter' by Tim Hawkins. 

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