The factors that allow art to be selected for competitions, art galleries and public spaces seem to be somewhat abstract and arbitrary, especially in my case (but probably many others as well). As when fellow artists, artist models and members of the public view my work in the studio there is in general a bit of a loss for words when I explain the struggle to get the work shown or excepted anywhere. This is of course the ‘struggling’ artist’s lot and we should no doubt be grateful to have the opportunity just to create work; as it is the creation of the work that is most important! Or is it? Whether age and a CV that shows an artist’s exhibition history with a huge gaping 18 year hole in it are factors, who knows; maybe the work is just not right at the moment, maybe I’m trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole and I just can’t see it. Whatever the case and whatever the truth I returned from holiday a week ago to find a raft of rejection e-mails.
However, whilst in Scotland we came across an Andy Goldsworthy public art piece in the Forresty Commission area at Cairnhead (north of Dumfries) and the hills surrounding. This work has links across the globe where, as I understand it, there are similar pieces in places where native Scots emigrated to. The work consists of a set of stone arches, the first emerging out of a renovated croft (picture attached). So, why bring this up? Most of the time this work is unseen, forgotten a work that needs to be found; it is not presented. I am not commenting on its merit, worth or its place as art, but it seems this type of work is more about the creation than the outcome or the acclaim, and it is this which I took from it. A poem to finish this blog written outside the croft…enjoy and feel the history.
the silence in this stones
cries foul by which they speak
that line of lived souls whisper
such histories that none can hear.
red cracked sandstone arches false
freedom by which the valley calls
in centuries each effort lost down
in death, never thanked, profit taken.
then high (ho silver lining) did southern
uplands sing, by call of hawk, in
race of grass, through hissling trees,
but that’s all well now; good and gone.
Mark Carr 2015
