Thoughts & Opinions

Impressions of Stone Sculpture Around Marble Mountain, Vietnam - May/June 2007

Details: Created: Wednesday, 02 May 2007 05:21

Vietnam is industry in action, a country in the process of reinventing itself. Everywhere you look you see people busy making something or selling something. As we left Da Nang on our way to Hoi An, we stopped at Marble Mountain, a village situated in the midst of five mountains each named for the five elements. Marble Mountain itself is filled with caves and grottoes that include a magnificent statue of Quan Yin.

At the foot of the Mountain, the town is a cacophony of grinders, cutting wheels, chisels and hammers. You can taste the marble dust in the air. Open-air studios are filled with stone carvers. In front of the studios are small shops where you can buy marble Buddhas, embracing couples, stallions, unicorns, abstract shapes. Four men walked through town carefully moving a 15-foot tall Virgin Mary statue on a simple ox cart (sans ox). Masons and carvers have been working in this area for generations. Hand tools were the norm until Americans brought electricity to the area during what the Vietnamese call the American War. My friend Ken was one of the US Army grunts who did that work in the 1960s. The electrical infrastructure has been well maintained and utilized by the carvers ever since.

It was common to see 10-20 people working in a sculpture factory. We saw workers rough-forming stone with point chisels and hammers, while others worked with angle and die grinders fitted with grinding or cutting wheels. Most people seemed to be journeymen or apprentices under the watchful eye of the shop master. The master would periodically walk the shop, look at a workers’ progress, stop and mark a piece with a crayon to indicate what to cut away next. Men were doing the stone carving. Women were sanding and polishing. While some people wore cloth masks or handkerchiefs for respirators, no one was wearing ear protection. (Imagine the din of 15 angle grinders in a small space.) Everyone wore open-toed sandals or flip-flops. Gerry-rigged extension cords provided power and small plastic lines brought water to cool tools and stone. Some sculptors perched atop their work, focusing on specific areas. Two or three people might be working on a large rough piece. As the piece took shape, one craftsman worked alone.

I witnessed a lovely seated Buddha nearing completion. It was a beautiful white marble piece about 5 feet tall, laying on it’s back with the head propped up. The master sculptor watched as the journeyman cleaned every last speck on the Buddha’s face with a rotary tool (Dremel® size). Then the master stepped in. With a fine mechanical pencil, he sketched in the eyes, giving them the classic downcast gaze. He deftly wielded the rotary tool. In a few minutes the blind face had vision and the sublime look of enlightenment.

The majority of Vietnamese stone carvers believe that if one fu dog sells, hundreds more just like it will sell as well. Walking studio to studio in Marble Mountain, one can see better renditions in some places. But, they are just that—renditions—similar versions of the same set of images.

In Vietnam they have a phrase they say to foreign visitors: “Same Same.” And Same Same is regarded as a good thing. Individual creativity is a luxury of self-expression that isn’t part of the Vietnamese paradigm. They tend to think as a collective, not as individuals. We did meet some painters who were striking out on their own, but most sculptors’ work seemed to be recreations of antique Chinese and Vietnamese statuary, or heroic Soviet-style large works, etc. The sculpture park that lines both sides of the river in Hue really underscores this. Interesting work, but I think another generation or two of sculptors needs to ‘come up’ before we will start seeing a sculptural language that is uniquely expressing the artist’s vision.

In Hoi An, we met a Swiss sculptor who had recently emigrated. He calls his shop Saladery. He lives in the loft over his shop and spent his days sculpting in his Marble Mountain studio. Using the well-developed system of Vietnamese craftsmen, he is able to make small editions of his sculptures in short order. He loves his life in Hoi An and lamented, “I spent 20 years in the wrong country.”

Photography by Morgan Ray and Jonna Ramey

Remembering Our Teacher, Mentor, Friend: Boris Spivak 1938-2007 - May/June 2007

Details: Created: Wednesday, 02 May 2007 05:14

Boris immigrated to the USA in November 1980.  He talked to us about it at one of the early Symposia. Not knowing English, he worked here first as a janitor, and the self-portraits that he painted at the time, show someone almost invisible. How do you start a new life?  How do you communicate who you are and what you are worth? How do you balance being an artist with supporting a family in a new country?

Looking at Boris' sculptures, the immediacy of his psychological and existential processes come out to grab us. One of these sculptures is called "Sins," or "Despair." It is in roughly carved marble of a naked man clutching his head in his hands; his agony is heart-wrenching. Boris used sculptures to communicate his experiences, as well as his ideas and philosophical search (see for example "My Generation.").He did a lot of commissioned work, portraits and life size groups ("The Fathers of Issaquah"), and he tried his hand at more decorative pieces, but it is his humanism and the honesty of observation that make some of his more personal sculptures truly great art. It was coupled with an incessant devotion to Sculpture -- the skills, the methods, the processes. Brought up in art in the Russian tradition, he was adamant to his students that they should study drawing first, then clay, then stone.

Rich Hestekind fondly tells the story of Boris laughing at himself when obsessively having to carve a rough stone into a block before he could begin carving the sculpture.

He was born in the former Soviet Union, and grew up in Lvov, the cultural center of the Ukraine. After receiving a degree in mechanical engineering at the prestigious Ivan Fedorov College of Printing, he began advanced study at the Studio of Fine Arts and Graphic Design in Lvov and at the Atelier for Industrial Arts and Graphic Design in Kharkov, USSR. He was later invited to teach at the Ivan Fedorov College of Printing, where he remained while working on a PhD thesis.

Then he brought his family with him to start a new life in the United States. Though he felt invisible at first and struggled to find the recognition that he deserved, he surely made his mark as an artist.

He was a member of NWSSA for several years.

He also taught at the Frye Art Museum, The Seattle Academy of Fine Arts, (now Gage Academy of Art) and in his studio.

Boris was a great teacher. He taught patiently and not so patiently, always with humor, always with encouragement, always inspiringly, and with an untiring desire to share his knowledge of anatomy and get into the very mathematics of portraiture and bas relief. I was fortunate to be one of his students. It was easy to become fond of him; and to sense that whole world of other experiences and aesthetic sensibilities that he had left behind. It was easy to be awed and exasperated both by the expectation of perfected precision of skills, and it was tremendous to witness the devotion, the resolve, the love of art and the spirit that shines through it.

Boris lost his battle against cancer in January this year. Our thanks go with him for all that he shared of himself.

To see photos of his sculptures, paintings and other work, please go to www.sculpture-spivak.com

Infinity Upward - May/June 2005

Details: Created: Wednesday, 02 May 2007 07:00

Here is an Ethiopian story close to my heart. In it I will tell you why I felt moved to sculpt ‘Infinity Upward’.

As I said in the January/February issue of Sculpture NorthWest, my wife and I went to Ethiopia last year for a few weeks. We were able to visit many historical places, including the ancient cities of Lalibela, Axum, Gondar and Bahir Dahr. Words cannot express how excited I was showing off Ethiopia’s historical places to my wife. (This was her first trip to Ethiopia.) I was so full of pride and boasted, saying “When my people made this, and that, America was not born yet. We were waaaaaaaay ahead of our time.” We both loved every moment of it. However, when we went to Bahir Dahr on Lake Tana (one of the sources of the Nile) my excitement changed to frustration.

The Nile, of course, has been flowing for centuries. It brings fertile soil and water to neighboring African countries, while the Ethiopian people are perishing from lack of water. Why hasn’t Ethiopia developed irrigation systems to utilize the water from Lake Tana and the 400 miles of Nile River that lies within its borders? As I rode on a boat on beautiful and huge Lake Tana, I began to burn inside. I wanted to jump out and stop the Nile from flowing. I knew it was foolish to think so

and that something besides a natural river system was the root cause of my wild thoughts.

Just then I saw in the distance young boys on their tankuwa (a traditional boat made from papyrus reeds) transporting a load of firewood. Then I began to wonder if they would be educated enough to plant new trees to replace the ones that had been chopped down. Did they know their actions could cause more soil to erode? There was not much I could do, so I said a prayer. As I was praying, a Bible verse came to mind: “My People perish for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6. That’s when it came to me; a large number of the African nations’ problems could be solved if their people just had a basic education. While a worthy goal, achieving a basic education for many Africans will not be easy. There will be a great price to pay for it. But paying that price now will give us educated Ethiopians who can begin working on solutions to Ethiopian problems.

I could see that just being proud of my past history can’t solve the present problems or prevent the poverty and starvation of the future. I said to myself: what can I do? Well, maybe not much, but I left Bahir Dahr inspired to do something. When I returned home, I decided to create a sculpture to share my experience and to express my vision and hope about Ethiopia.

Last year I devoted countless hours sculpting a granite infinity sign to communicate this message: Education is very vital and has no limit.

The traditional infinity sign lies horizontally. In this sculpture, I have deliberately chosen to flip it upward. As the piece stretches toward the sky, it emphasizes that education has no limit. In addition, it puts the sculpture in a position of authority, overlooking the viewer. The piece is called ‘Infinity Upward’.

The sculpture has a rough texture on one side and a smooth surface on the other. The rough side represents hardship or the challenge of learning, while the smooth side represents the benefit of education. Joining these two surfaces illustrates that the learner cannot receive the benefit of education without enduring the challenges of learning. For example, if learners only focus on the difficulty of learning, they may never complete their goal. I want to remind the viewer that there is always a price to pay for anything worth fighting for.

It is my hope that the people of Ethiopia will somehow find the courage and determination, even in their present difficulties, to provide education for all. For it is only through education that a nation can make use of its own resources for its own people. I hope someday to see the water of Lake Tana and that 400 miles of the upper Nile River used in my homeland for the benefit of all its people.

Editirs’ note: The Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants has recently purchased ‘Infinity Upward’. You can see it outside their offices at 902 140th Ave. NE, Bellevue, Washington.