Frank Williams

Circumnavigating the Retrospective Self
(for a better view)

(It) Began with allot of stuff in my studio to work with. Old stuff I had been looking at for a while. New stuff accumulated more recently; just for such possibilities as this project. And a fair amount of conceptual residue.
All of it was at my beck and call!
And I wanted to do a three dimensional something without any of the ancillary out of studio services or expenses.
The challenge: to compose something in an ordered state out of my wealth of things stored and valued for their intrinsic visual potential.

The subject: movement in time and self criticism.

This work began after another lengthy period of introspection concerning my reasons for choosing my profession.
Or why it chose me?
And further more why had I continued in my pursuance of the profession without tangible sales; for what seemed, now, to be an eternity.
It was bad enough in Missouri, Arkansas and Texas; but, now on the edge again and in Russia.
Pressures of all sorts were being placed on me from all the various angles one could imagine in the last two or three years.
Certainly,
I was inviting much of what I was being plied with due to my natural pursuance of the interesting and personal. It’s my way of gambling.
But maybe some of it was just uncalled for tripe!
And I indeed felt the pressure.

In this piece the central image is a miss caste bronze for another project.
The ‘originals’ intent was as a decorative gargoyle fountain head for an old project I did for the Arkansas Arts Council. I bought the “miss caste” for the price of the weight of the bronze and figured I would use it as an element in something, or other, at some point.
It was not a terrible miss caste (some isolated porosity) and still worthy of a fragment or detail.
The bronze gargoyle concept and I had a twenty five year relationship. A long thought process.
The original had been a detail, a final detail, for a year long public project situated in the crown of glory of the Fayetteville, Arkansas Parks Department, Wilson City Park. The original Gargoyle was ceramic and it was destroyed by vandals within a few weeks of the projects public dedication in 1980. I promised myself to replace it some day with cast bronze which is more or less impervious to vandalism and molestation! (And now I have a mold to recast the image if the vandals return or the Scottish Highland Grenadiers decide to blow it up or pry it out of the stone dam it should be apart of.)
Now all I have to do is get the maintenance crew for the parks department to acquiesce to installing my donation. Seems I created a pain in their cumulative sides due my insertion of an “art thing” in the midst of there lawn mowing responsibilities.
Sorry Dale-

Well the last twenty five years of my life have been eventful:
Good, bad,
Fun, maddening,
Tender, demeaning,
Passionate, fulfilling,
Difficult, exciting,
Reflective, productive,
Fruitful, full of failure,
With promise and hope,
Without a chance,
With some small romance,
Trying to be good,
Giving in to desire,
Calling it quits,
Promises, lies,
The greatest realities,
Fulfillment of life,
Happiness, loss

And always making stuff

A “Life”, just full of all kinds of stuff-

Full of ,,, LOVE, maybe?
Ahhhh love-uhhh love?

My type of love and its peculiarities relative to all the various views on the subject-

Loving for all it’s worth.

Which is, worth what?

Well, it’s been intense!

It hasn’t slowed down too much, yet.

It’s unpredictable but still fluid.
I mean, like, where is it from?
What is it?
Why should it be me?
How do I do this?
Where will it go?
What for, “again”,
Some gauge of madness?
Intelligently contained, metaphors, symbols,
Vented and raised from the dead,

Just,,,, for an evening’s enjoyment at some art affair?

No,,, more likely to fill my days with challenge?

Really- IT IS:
-A prayer for rational thought!
-Guidance in an imperfect world
-Something special
-Individual
-A mark in time
-Time eternal
-Time,

Time for all things, great and small

Great and small,

ALL

So, I decided to do this sculpture or installation out of all this stuff. And, not buy anything (not much anyway).
Just out of my accumulated things.
It has been a challenge and “a real trip, man”!
And I knew it would be good from the beginning.
I just needed to start.
And it looks like a machine that should make many circles all at one time. Screaming loudly as it spins.
But it sits there still in front of you.
Circumnavigating the retrospective self for a better view!

The contradictions persist and are the predictable reality. You never know what will show around the next turn in the road! Just be wary of the many possibilities ahead and prepare to stop and take in the view!

Frank Williams, April 2006

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