David Nash Communes with Nature, by Robert Sparrow Jones, Michigan Quarterly Review, September, 2014

I discovered British sculptor, David Nash’s work as perhaps the artist would appreciate—while wading through a meadow of Queen Anne’s lace, salvia, and Rudbeckia. Along the quiet walkways at the Frederik Meijer Gardens, the Sculpture Park offers an impressive collection from well-known artists such as Rodin, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Claes Oldenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Roxy Paine, and many others. Off the walkway, weaving art and nature, a meandering meadow took me to an opening, valley-ed between a screen of deciduous trees. Here I found Nash’s, “Dome”, an intriguing clumping circle of 46 cast iron mounds that neatly brought to mind the spirited growth of fungi after a good rain. In the distance “Scarlatti” by Mark di Suvero teetered hulkingly, but there was something transfixing about Nash’s “Dome” that promised more to come.

David Nash, “Dome”. In the distance “Scarlatti” by Mark di Suvero
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”, is an exhibition that embraces the integration of horticulture and sculpture, featuring more than 25 works indoor and outdoor. Any visitor is able to discover and question the works placed with whimsy among the palm trees and ferns of the Lena Meijer Tropical Conservatory, such as “Red Throne” and “Three Iron Humps”.  They could be found charismatically situated between cacti and succulents of the Arid Garden where I discovered “Apple Ladder”. However, it was inside the white walls of the Meijer gallery—well out of Mother Nature’s reach, where I really experienced David Nash’s work. Inside, the hushed gallery space offered an immediate spiritual clarity like a church. It was here, and not in the direct landscape that I understood Nash’s collaborative spirit with nature.

David Nash, “Cork Dome”
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

Nash is an obvious sentient being. His childhood was spent in Wales, working with his father, clearing the fields, and replanting trees on family land. This offered valuable time discovering the properties of wood, which lead to a life-long interest. Nature provides a material for Nash, and a chance form. His language is wood—oak, elm, ash, lime, yew, redwood and mizunara. He speaks it very well. The life-force of the tree and it’s inherent properties; light, moisture, minerals, and gasses, are thoughtfully considered while approaching every sculpture. He shapes and gouges, using deep cuts as linear drawing by way of chainsaw. They are not fastidious. However, the most important methodology in his work is…letting go.

David Nash, Maquettes Display
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

The limits and controls of his locally sourced wood keep Nash in a careful balance. Along with his authorial hand, his most enigmatic tool is the actual element of time. He prefers to work outside for practicality. He cuts away and shapes his work where the tree had fallen, right where the tree had grown. Being in the elemental forces of nature become part of each piece. But the timber is unseasoned and, therefore, full of moisture. And long after finishing, the wood continues to dry.  During this natural process there is so much tectonic shifting in the rough-hewn surfaces that it commands the aesthetic structure of the work. Without intervention, Nash’s sculptures warp and twist. Instead of an artist controlling the work, he is letting the work go. The cracks and fissures are nature’s finish.

David Nash, “Crack and Warp”, 2010 Lime wood
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

“Crack and Warp”, is the perfect example. This tapered monolith exemplifies Nash’s meditation in form and composition taking cues from minimalism. Nash slices the long, flat sides in rough-cut horizontal lines. Up close the incisions are very expressive. A chainsaw would allow for this. Fast cuts gouge, slice off edges, and dissect the surface, digging and routing without fragility. Their spacing and depth are imperfect and vary slightly. In this case nature’s finish is an organic reaction to Nash’s geometric decisions. The result is a standing column that wavers and dances. Light passes through its wooden gills. The thinner the section, the more the materials warp. The more they crack, the more they brake off. Nash captures the vitality of living, the balance of nature, and the imperfection of human nature. It is exciting and unapologetic in its visual experience.

David Nash, Installation View with “Two Vessels” in foreground, “Cork Dome” in background
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

Some of Nash’s works closely resemble the natural forms of the trees themselves, like “Cave” and “Red Frame”. Honoring the spirit of the material, Nash leaves the actual textures of the wood and rooting structures for all to see.  Here the artist is showing us time.  Cracks and warp certainly stand for this, but it is also literally in the growth rings of the tree. All details are displayed in a tender light beneath their tough corpulent shapes. These works are not at all sentimental.

David Nash, “Vessel Series”
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

My favorites recall ethnographic objects. His, “Vessel Series” are mysterious, haunting monuments.  They can be seen here in an upright composition, showcasing Nash’s observational interest in the vertical growth of a tree.  Perhaps they are a meditation on connecting the earth and sky.  The series is also presented in the horizontal composition of “Two Vessels”. This pair of charred oak pieces affects me the most. Their long and low shapes are riveting, sluicing the gallery floor with a dark prowess. Their gesture takes me to the carved cedar canoes from the Salish tribes of the coastal northwest. Their dramatic profiles suggest these ominous shapes in the same way. And like many of Nash’s works, “Two Vessels,” has been charred, transforming the color and texture of wood to an intensely rich, carbon patina. Nash creates this blackening with a blowtorch. The blackening of the surfaces are not just a tone or a color, but a deeper dimension that appears bottomless. Burning the wood creates a surface that is honest, calling to mind the big subjects of life, love and death. The vessels appear to be cutting into an invisible surface, standing for the relationship between memory and the sensation of the passage of time.

David Nash, Installation View with “Two Vessels” in foreground, “Red Frame” in background
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

I think that Nash has a generosity of spirit in sculpting that makes us want to share those profound experiences with nature. He is deeply connected to the environmental movement, with an awareness to look after our natural resources. When I was living in the Pacific Northwest, I was contracted to make a documentary concerning the rebirth of a very important indigenous tradition: the carved cedar canoe, dugout of a single cedar tree. In “Tribal Journeys: the Resurgence of the Canoe Nations” I had the opportunity to interview Suquamish elder Ed Carriere. As he was working a canoe in his outdoor studio he candidly expressed to me something I never forgot.  He said that the cedar canoe is more than just a utilitarian vessel.  It is a deeply respected spiritual object that begins its long life as a tree in the forest and continues in the prayer ceremonies as it is felled and then crafted into a dugout canoe. But the vessel is also a metaphor for the importance of community, the process necessitating hard harmonious work. I understood it as a living, spiritual object.

David Nash, Pyramid, Sphere, Cube, Incised, 2010
Partly charred cypress and charcoal on canvas
“David Nash: From Kew Gardens to Meijer Gardens”

Spending time with Nash’s work confirms that he is entrusted to nature. The relationship between the hand of nature and the hand of the artist is deep and communal. He earns the respect of the material and we trust his perception of nature, ancestry and sense of place. Nash’s aesthetics are born out of indigenous materials. Their physical presence matters, their materiality matters. Earth, air, fire, water, he follows the elements that demand boundless change and a haunting spirit.

http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2014/09/david-nash-communes-with-nature-2/

Tim Powers: Below the Surface, by Robert Sparrow Jones: Michigan Quarterly Review, July, 2014

Michigan Artist, Tim Powers is an unabashed materialist whose work revels in minimalism, but he is not at all resistant to one metaphorical symbol, the pillow. In effect, “Tim Powers: Below the Surface” at the Grand Rapids Museum of Art, is a quiet meditation on the mundane and intimate space of sleep. His source of investigation is the philosophical and existential oppositions that manifest themselves in the industrial materials he uses. The theme of the unconscious is carried through in the ethereal hues inherent to polystyrene and latex that collectively invite the viewer into a meditative space. But what stirs this exhibit are the oppositions Powers designates in the details. They are full of physically engaging contradictions that lure you inside the work. And while dreams themselves remain nameless; a sustaining eternal question about what makes our own landscape lingers.















Powers grew up on the west side of Detroit until he was seven. He is the youngest of four. His father, Daniel Anthony Powers, a graduate of the University of Detroit was a mechanical engineer who designed and manufactured hardware. Along with acquiring several patents, Daniel became president of the thriving Precision Hardware, which manufactured panic and fire exit hardware for over half a century. Precision Hardware was situated along Fort Street near Del Ray, an area cut off from the rest of Detroit by a deeply industrial landscape: the River Rouge and Zug Island. Physically, the company was an amalgam of repurposed buildings they had purchased one after the other in a perfect row, including what was once the local meat market. Each building was referred to by its original owner’s name—Shimmle’s, Dewy’s—and each served a dedicated function of the company: a foundry, inventory, shipping warehouse, a churning machine shop. Tim would spend summers working in front of a drill press and a large bin of parts, manually clamping down and rote drilling. He ate his lunches on the asphalt as the air mixed with the toxins emitted from the Ford Rouge Complex and Wayne Soap—an industrial plant that rendered animal parts.

This geography is evident in “Below the Surface.” The menace of a deeply personal and historical landscape is sometimes right on the surface. There is nothing warm or billowy about these pillow forms. They are made from the cold, hard, and rubbery industrial materials that Powers experiments with. His pillow forms are molded from polystyrene, a material used for uniformity and mass production, into an illusion of softness by manipulating their shapes. Sometimes other materials are used, such as the polished concrete in, Untitled, 2011, concrete and the mix of latex in, Untitled, 2010, polystyrene, latex rubber. A few of pieces, with their insides emerging, are even more evocative.

Untitled, 2011, polystyrene, enameled wire, a white pillow form, is comprised of a bottom shell and top layer. The two forms have a silia-like membrane made up of enameled copper wire that peeks out around the seams between the two surfaces. Texture here suggests movement, magnified and slithering. One can imagine, just as sleep takes us, that the unconscious opens up to release memories. The invading detritus of the mundane becomes horrific. In another work, Untitled 2010, polystyrene, jacketed wire is a pillow form where the seams have opened on one side to reveal a gill-like texture. Because this hinted interior is made of white-coated enamel wire, the texture resembles sinew and offers a subtle, otherworldly breathing. It is inviting, sensual, and frightening.

Especially dramatic are the materials and effects of the pillow form, Untitled 2010, polystyrene, silicone caulk. Here the transparent plastic top layer reveals a spiny rolling landscape of white latex silicon spikes. Powers overtly seduces the viewer with the slickness and the association with the manufactured newness of the object. His contradictions are playful: hard and soft, light and dark. He then repels us with the reminder that here is a pillow. This is where we sleep when our childhood night terrors come back to us as dreams of water, submersion, and sci-fi horror.

Content is played the same way, pulling the seams open of cultural layers to infuse the medium with the realities of where we come from—through the lens of Powers’ own narrative:

“I have an awareness of the complex cooperative dynamics of a place. The factors that make up the unique characteristics of a particular place: the people, the climate, the industry, the culture and heritage, and the natural environment. These are in play in any “place” and are what becomes its personality. The more time there, the greater the awareness, if you are looking. Keen observation forms a connection that sits outside sentimentality. These observational details become the foundation of the emotional connection, the smell of a soap company or lacquer plant, the neon of a neighborhood bar, a draw bridge tower, the ever present litter that collects along a curb in a viaduct, cast iron street lamps, refinery tanks and two story clapboard homes separated by a potholed street.”

Is this personal landscape available to the viewer? I think so. Powers’ personal experience and relationship with his surrounding environment can not only be observed through the visible layers but also through his control and reconstructing of environment. Following the 1967 riots and the stabbing of a neighbor, the Powers family moved to rural Monore. Powers continued to be influenced by Detroit–his father commuted in daily to run Precision Hardware, and Tim worked there during summers and on Saturdays and later, as a part-time employee while he earned his undergraduate degree at the College of Creative Studies–but his work is shaped by the intersections between the rural Monroe and Detroit.

“In a way, the monumentality of Detroit taught me to look ‘up,’ and agrarian Monroe taught me to look ‘down.’ Both environments had a different, but equally wild nature. Each was full of texture, smells, subtle and dynamic colors and awesome vistas.”

“Below the Surface,” speaks to that experience of the diversity of place. I see a connection between identity and the industrial landscape. Powers evidences an unsentimental love for where he comes from rather than rebellion against it. This is where Powers is especially acute. By his devotion to a material and the development of a symbolic figure, he creates an atmosphere where a descent into the unconscious is a collective experience.

Untitled, 2013, polystyrene, provides a perfect example. A large grid of more than 400 somewhat organic white pillow forms takes up an entire wall and a corner of the exhibit. From a distance, the work appears minimal. They are stark white against the softer white of the actual wall. They resemble multiples, which would not be entirely off the mark. Every pillow form began when pulled from a wooden mold that Powers crafted. Then, however, he methodically made each one unique using a heat gun to create the curls, folds and wrinkles that stir the imagination. I like the contrast between appropriating a material used for uniformity and mass production–polystyrene is usually pulled around a mold tens of thousands of units over to create identical forms–and then tailoring the resulting forms.

Because Powers renders each pillow form distinctive, the near-repetition of the installation pieces does not create an impression of uniformity. Rather, it ignites a curiosity about each pillow’s personal identity. The illusion from a distance of movement encourages close examination, which results in deep struggle. You have to resist the temptation to run your fingers across the silky and satin surface of the folds. I imagine the downy insides, and the restlessness of each form takes us to an intimate, interior space: sleep, dreams and then excitement, passion, sleeplessness.

Albrecht Durer’s, pen and brown ink drawing, Six Studies of Pillows, 1493, comes to mind. Durer masterfully depicted folds and wrinkles to evidence the body, and he created adroit likenesses that keenly described life. Powers, however, purposely and less sharply, takes a three-dimensional form and creates a very different effect. Untitled, 2013, polystyrene evidences passive revelation of the act of sleep, lovemaking, violence, despair, and sleeplessness. Instead of rendering material into a representation of direct observation, Powers gives us something interior. The language of wrinkles is somewhat unclear. They are subtle in their shifts. As a symbol, they signify the interior, private experience. This telling mark points to the artist’s interest in materials. The movement and expression, unpredictable and somewhat orchestrated, awakens us to our collective folds of the unconscious.



A final note: before the entrance to the exhibit a molten metal artifact is displayed. It evokes a certain intimacy, resembling something animal, the residue of life lived. Powers notes that he wanted to include this piece because although he didn’t make it himself, it provides context for the items he did make. It is one of many artifacts collected from the floor of Precision Hardware by his late father.

“It broadens the definition of what is art and what constitutes a body of work. It is an item I had no control of its creation, yet supplements the discussion of those that I did. I think the interpretive nature of its form provides an access point for the viewer on a basic level, and also supports my relationship to the specific process I experienced with my new work. It went through a similarly transformative process the polystyrene went through, going from rigid, to pliable, to rigid again and changing form in each step. Like many materials it holds limitless potential forms that lie latent in its current form. It is a state that is only momentarily static. That moment ranging from minutes to eons, but it will change again. It was originally not my thought to realty this to the landscape, but it is certainly an obvious parallel.”

With “Below the Surface,” Tim Powers’ expert capabilities as a maker result in a deeply industrial landscape. Inherent to his materials are the playful subversions possible because of our associations with closeness and escape. We all harbor deep internal landscapes. They are expressed as an amalgam of memories, sweet and dark as entanglements of fossilized metal.

http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.com/2014/07/tim-powers-below-the-surface/