Writings

White….. Optimism virgin marble treasured medium pure hard crystals crisp like fresh linen bedded down when the earth heaved and groaned witness to the mountains in formation one can be tender caress the stone yet stubbornly it resists even your violence the days end and afternoon calm intrusion penetration of the block the definition of FORM ever sensual ever changing I think of our child in the womb of my wife…….."           Carrara 1983

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" A dotted line is full of unjoints, whereas space is punctuated by the holes of points" 

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"Support and foster the dreams of others,  it is beneficial for your own."

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"Sculpture is the feeling for the purpose of form" 

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"At every moment that which is life is opening closing opening. Blood is pulse"

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"Tradition is the conversation which stretches across time, it is a conversation about what it is to be a human being......." 

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You are your thoughts!

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copyleft ©copyright P.Schipperheyn 1998

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"S...HE" [see image in gallery] size double figure Male / Female back to back, carved in 1982 Carrara Italy. The year before carving this piece, I had met an extraordinary individual-Mr. Laurie Matheson. He  purchased the largest work I had made at that stage a life-size carving of Cinzia ["My Wife"] a sculpture from my first one man show, the exhibition was of work I had carved in Carrara on an Italian Govt. Scholarship, wonderful! it took eight people to lug the marble sculpture to his residence, it was to go in his garden. After much cursing and one squashed finger we placed the piece. At this point, Laurie who had pitched in and sweating like the rest of us, introduced himself, declaring he liked my work very much, up until this point I not realized this, thought that he was one of helpers around the place [It was an impressive place at that, to a young impoverished sculptor]  Laurie was in high spirits and invited Cinzia and I in to celebrate with a glass of champagne. We toasted and talked, he asked me "well young man what are your plans"? I said what I really would like to do is go back to Carrara and carve a big chunk of marble. But had no idea how this was going to happen [niente moneta!]. Laurie got up and came back shortly after, put a fistful of money in my hand and said why don't you go back to Carrara and make me a BIG sculpture. Several meetings later [ couple of weeks] my wife Cinzia and I left for Italy.  I asked Laurie don't you want me to sign a contract? We had negotiated the price for the sculpture I was to make and to my amazement he paid the whole amount upfront. He looked me in the eye and said "what will a contract do?", I have made up my mind and I don't think that you would be so silly as to squander the opportunity that this represents for you". I pinched myself to make sure I was not dreaming. We had an incredible twelve months in Carrara Italy, some years later and very sadly Laurie became ill and after what seemed a brief time passed away. I think of him with great affection and cherish having known him and thank him for the extraordinary difference he made to my life........        

Melbourne 1988

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Drawing from the Nude

[statement accompanying exhibition of drawings at Tina Smyrnious Gallery 1997]

            
For about three and half years from 1992-96, I conducted a life drawing group at my old Collingwood studio. Every Wednesday evening about six to ten artist friends would roll up. Each week a different model, it became the highlight of the week, the ritual disrobing.

With CD’s blaring and the heating up, off we’d go. After a dozen or so rapid warm up sketches we’d settle into a succession of ten to fifteen minute poses. 

I like to be able to move around the model, so I’ve put my easel on wheels, find that angle, those "windows" that my nervous system instinctively reacts to. 

The human stripped of all layers, barriers, and protective devices, gradually relinquishes defenses, begins to relax and offer himself or herself to the artistic "gaze". The more you practice drawing, the easier it becomes to access "that" creative flow. I experience a trance like state, (a tunneling, focusing mind state) during which I am not fully conscious of time and place.

"With anticipation, I take a fresh piece of Fabbrianno,… skin to be ravished with charcoal pencils and rubbers".

I have learnt a very simple, but hard earned lesson from the practice of drawing the nude, just draw without being too critical of what you are doing. Expectations upon yourself only inhibit you. Allow yourself time just to meander, to doodle! Give yourself the freedom to make marks that might not be immediately convincing. Persist with this and sooner or later out of seeming chaos you begin to perceive… suddenly in the marks before you, form comes alive. 

Drawing I believe is a form of meditation. Those marks on the "cave wall", or a piece of paper, are as a result of the "body" moving, in response to having looked at a Wildebeest or naked model. It is quite a task to engage an audience [let alone grapple with current ideas of what should constitute an art experience] armed only with a piece of charcoal, but I believe a good drawing, the magic of marks on paper can challenge any damn theory! Have a close look at a Da Vinci, Michelangelo or Kollwitz drawing, see the extraordinary focus of intellect present, this is brainpower manifesting itself with the greatest of economy.

So when Tina [who was also member of this group] talked of a show at her Gallery, I thought of the drawing group, and of the very many pleasurable Wednesday evenings we had together. These are some of the drawings I made during this time. 

Donvale, Melbourne 1997

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Life is constant struggle, at the biological, communal, individual, economic, racial, tribal etc....I attempt to grasp with my hands this precious thing, this my life my only real asset, a truly beautiful gift, that in the unwrapping disappears!

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You know........... at least I tell myself this, dogma of any kind is just plain stupid, the result of an inflexible mind. What's an idea in the great flow of time? I reckon anything goes...... 

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Ancient cultures spoke about the Giudizio dell'occhio, bringing to their expression, generations of "best practice", and in doing so bequeathed a legacy of powerful intellectual examples, forms that have determined, enhanced and facilitated the survival of the experiment called humanity. 

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Artistic expression [I suggest] is mysterious and powerful when certain practices are adhered too, namely the activities proscribed  and defined by the words drawing, painting, sculpture [for a start get a dictionary and look up the etymological definition for each of these words!] You can play around with distinctions as much as you want but there is a consequence, this "expression"  becomes increasingly partisan, an effete twisting and turning bereft of any force. In most human activities and disciplines, there is the notion of rules or best practice.  If I go to the dentist I like to think he or she is well trained in the discipline of dentistry [reminds me I have got to make a appointment to get my teeth looked at!] as I love my "choppers" and am concerned for their future.

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How is it that small populations such as the ancient Athenians or the Florentines of Rennaisance Italy produced culture of such extraordnary vitality?   Whereas our modern times - "Modernity" [a definition spawned by the so called developed world and more particularly english speaking peoples] with its billions of people, fosters mediocrity and aberation.

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