BasementOverground: Emergence | John Barber
In the first of a series of posts connected to the forthcoming ‘Emergence’ exhibition, John Barber talks about the beginning of his love of stone sculpting, his first encounter with me through the Henry Moore Institute and the life ever after of some cast off stone.
'Emergence' is an exhibition about material and the human interaction that transforms it into works of art. The work of Keith Ackerman, John Barber, Pippa Eason, Adam Glatherine and Paul Miller not only looks at the journey taken by materials from nature to art object, but also questions the hierarchical order in which we place objects. The exhibition is not just about the hand/eye coordination needed to fashion the physical material, but also the conceptual framework needed to conceive of the idea in the first place.
‘Emergence’ opens in a North Leeds garden - Address Disclosed upon booking - CLICK HERE TO BOOK - on Tuesday 29th June 2021 at 5:30pm. For full details of Opening Hours visit: https://www.basementartsproject.com/emergence
I took up stone carving as a new retirement hobby, but I have always had an affinity for rock and stone since studying geology at school and university. When it was time for me to retire, my work mates had asked me what I wanted for a leaving present and I said a block of Carrara Marble. They couldn’t find one, but gave me the cash so I could choose something else. So instead, I signed up for a stone carving class at York City College, where the stonemasons for York Minster are trained. But just before it started, I was disappointed when I was told that the course wasn’t going ahead.
A few months later I was waiting for my bus home from town opposite the Henry Moore Institute when I heard the sound of chisels chipping stone and could see some activity over the road. I abandoned the bus queue and crossed the Headrow to investigate. Up the steps in front of the entrance I found groups of students bashing away at five big blocks of marble. They were fruitlessly trying to reduce the blocks to rubble while their sounds were being recorded for an audio art project by Lara Favaretto. This was their last day and the gallery was closed. I wondered what was going to happen to the marble, and I needed to ask someone inside. I assumed the students must have been able to get in and out, so I went around the side to find another entrance.
I didn’t know that galleries had bouncers until I met Bruce Davies. Built like a Northern Powerhouse, he blocked the side door as I tried to sneak in. I asked Bruce if I could have a chunk of that marble. He said come back in an hour and he’d let me know. On my return, Bruce said it was Carrara Marble and I could have a block (for a small undisclosed fee) if I rocked up with a van at 8.30 the next morning, when a crane would be arriving to move it.
I still hadn’t spent my leaving present, so I borrowed a van and got up early. Two other blokes were also waiting to get some marble. They were Dominic Hopkinson and Keith Ackerman. By a brilliant coincidence, Dominic was going to be the tutor on the cancelled stone carving course and Keith was one of his former pupils. We chatted while the crane was prepared and agreed to meet up for some independent tutoring. My four Carrara Marble pieces in Emergence are a result of that delightful collaboration.
I have made these pieces mostly by hand with hammers and chisels, then files and rasps and finished off with sandpaper. Sometimes this was supplemented by a bit of power tool drilling and sanding. The shaping process is first percussive then abrasive and finished with a degree of polishing.
It is sometimes said that the final form of a sculpture might already be suggested by the shape of the starting piece. This might be true for irregular lumps of stone or wood, but when beginning with a square-sawn block, as I have done here, the final form is only limited by the sculptor’s imagination. This is particularly true for an isotropic material, one with no ‘grain’ and no planes of weakness, a material that breaks evenly and equally in all directions. Stone with this isotropic property, such as Carrara Marble, is especially suitable.
Stone carving is a reductive technique, removing the waste material from the starting block down to a predetermined imaginary surface somewhere underneath the ever-changing outer shape. The unwanted stone can be removed quickly at first, in big lumps, but progressively more carefully as the final form begins to emerge. The trick is not to accidently take off too much material and go below the target surface. This is particularly important for geometric forms, where mistakes would be really obvious. At each stage the precise method of material removal has to be executed in response to the exact behaviour of the stone in that moment: its material properties, internal strength, how it breaks, fracture resistance, and eventually how it might take a polish on completion.
John Barber | June 2021