Sculpture

A note from Mick about his sculptures

Only three of the sculptures pictured still remain from the historic pages - Satchmo, Mask of Confidence and Does Grey Matter?

Some were sold, others destroyed or left with friends that I've since lost contact with. I learnt, over the years, not to allow myself to become too attached to any completed work and thereby continuously move forward and on to the next project. Musically also, rarely listening to anything recorded once released.

There was a definite change in style when I stopped using self-hardening clay in the mid. 80's and began sculpting with more conventional clay. Finding it much more malleable, the pieces could be worked on a larger scale and needn't be focused, as was the case previously, on small detail.

Journalists often look for ways to tie music and sculpture together but I believe similarities exist only in their shared vocabulary, for example both are constructed, built upon and shaped etc. For me, their connection is that they are completely opposed to each other ..... with one exception.

Music is non-visual, ephemeral, cannot be touched or weighed, in contrast sculptures are solid, 3-dimensional and so both coexist and creatively compliment each other.

The exception and their only true connection is time.

All art, even the disposable art of Andy Warhol is, in one way or another, a statement about time.

Music has a mysterious relationship with time.

Essential while writing, It's the most important foundation that music is built upon and measured by and yet music enables us to lose all sense of time as a listener, only becoming aware of it when music stops. During a short interval between pieces, we are acutely aware of time as we wait for it to restart but oblivious to how long has passed when enjoying a piece.

Sculpture defies time. A piece of bronze will outlive all of us and stretch far into the future.

Capturing a sensuous curve or texture that will last much longer than any artists senses. The strong desire to re-create or interpret such visual stimulation is the motivating force and the hope of standing the test of time the artists goal.

Unlike music, the older a piece of visual art, the more valuable it becomes.

Perhaps reminding us of our own mortality, we wonder at how cavemen could possibly create beautiful objects. Objects that time has made priceless.

MK.